The Center for Biological Diversity and MountainTrue are suing the federal government, seeking to ensure laws are followed where they claim the U.S. Forest Service is skirting regulations in allowing the logging of a 135-acre parcel in the Nolichucky Gorge near the small Poplar community on the border between Yancey and Mitchell counties. 

Five days isn’t enough time to process a disaster like Hurricane Helene, yet as uncertainty swirled and rescue operations still played out across Western North Carolina, Dogwood Health Trust’s 16 board members found whatever internet they could, got on a Zoom meeting and approved $30 million in grants to organizations providing vital on-the-ground services. 

Editor's note: this story has been updated with a statement from Cynthia Mason Womble, acting chair of the Fontana Regional Library system board. 

In a historic decision that will reshape the future of public library services in Jackson County, commissioners voted Tuesday night to withdraw from the Fontana Regional Library system after months of controversy over content and control.

Finally face to face amid a simmering standoff over library governance and subjectively inappropriate material in a regional library system that’s served locals for more than 80 years, Jackson County commissioners spent nearly three hours in a joint meeting with the Fontana Regional Library Board of Trustees on June 19 learning just how much they don’t know about running a library.

Faced with a mounting backlog of infrastructure needs, Jackson County commissioners have failed to agree on a basic annual budget yet continue to insist they can accurately forecast the added costs to taxpayers of withdrawing from the Fontana Regional Library system.

In a year when Jackson County commissioners are proposing a substantial property tax hike, outside agitators are still pushing commissioners to consider a costly withdrawal from the Fontana Regional Library system that could result in an even costlier lawsuit, all over an issue that will never be resolved to everyone’s liking — the definition of “inappropriate.” 

With the North Carolina General Assembly’s preliminary $273 million relief bill in the rearview mirror, Western North Carolina Sen. Kevin Corbin (R-Macon) is looking down the road at the General Assembly’s next move — a billion-dollar relief bill coming Oct. 24. During a recent meeting with Haywood County officials, Corbin spent about an hour trying to learn what, exactly, the needs are.  

“I can promise you what you won't get,” Corbin said. “You won't get things you don't ask for.”