Five Swain County commissioner candidates — Democrats Chris Reed and Erika Smith, independent Cynthia Womble, and Republicans Lisa Barker and interim chair Jay Kirkland — will compete for two open seats held by outgoing Republicans David Loftis and Philip Carson.
It’s a crowded race with a lot on the line, and candidates’ views reflect current issues: expansion versus repair, short-term action versus long-term planning, passivity versus engagement.
Lisa Barker declined to be interviewed.
Jay Kirkland
The Smoky Mountain News wrote about Kirkland’s candidacy using information entirely from the Sept. 29 Indivisible public forum, as he did not respond to multiple requests for a separate interview.
With a logging career spanning more than three decades, Kirkland said he’s worked with the public, which helped him develop skills he’s used in government. For him, one county issue trumps all others.
“The first and top foremost priority for me is school and teacher pay, by far above all,” Kirkland said, explaining that his daughter’s experience as Swain West Elementary’s instructional coach and dean of students has made him realize how important educators are. While commissioners under his leadership instituted the first teacher supplement in Swain County, at 2%, it was only half of what Swain County Schools had requested for its educators.
He said part of the reason public services struggle so much is that tourism doubles Swain County’s population.
“We have got to figure out how to generate more revenue in this county without hitting taxpayers, the local taxpayers,” he said. “Because you cannot ask our law enforcement, our EMS, to take care of 30,000 people when there’s only 15,000 paying the way; that don’t work.”
He’d like the Tourism Development Authority (TDA) to do more at the Swain County Recreation Park. Per state law, two-thirds of TDA funding must go to advertising; the other third must go to tourism-related projects — a new law passed by the N.C. General Assembly has restricted the definition of “tourism-related.” While the county can work with Sen. Kevin Corbin (R-Macon) and Rep. Anna Ferguson (R-Swain) to pass a local bill allowing the TDA to spend money on things that would otherwise be exempt, this law might make passage more challenging.
Kirkland, noting his commitment to transparency, including streaming meetings, said he’d love to have regular town halls and listening sessions but advised the public to offer not just problems but also solutions.
He’d like to see a new grocery store to spur economic development and widen the tax base. Still, he’s not interested in bringing a giant supermarket like Walmart within the county’s borders, which he framed as an impractical commitment.
He expressed concerns about the lack of affordable housing in Swain County but didn’t have any concrete plans to find more.
“I don’t think the county needs to be in the housing business, but if you have to be, you have to be,” he said, adding that more houses costing between $200,000 and $250,000 — not up to $600,000 — are needed.
According to Zillow, Swain County has a $321,857 median home value and $402,000 median listing price.
Kirkland described himself as pro-Great Smoky Mountains Railroad (GSMR), with a caveat.
“I think Swain County needs that train. I think Swain County can benefit from that train, but I think that we’ve got to redo some stuff with that train. I think we need to sit down and talk with them,” he noted, adding that he’s committed to ending passenger parking on Bryson City’s Everrett Street.
As interim commission chair, Kirkland has supported purchasing the airport property at 67 Lakeview Drive for nearly $3 million. The price and urgency have raised questions, which county manager Tommy Dills and the commissioners haven’t explicitly answered. While some residents agree it could be a valuable opportunity, others criticize such a large expenditure — using interest money from the “Road to Nowhere” settlement, which has significantly lost real-time value — when the county is already facing a deficit.
Chris Reed
Reed, an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), has a hospitality and tourism background that involves advising municipal governments through market and business development plans and SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analyses. A previous campaign volunteer who has made several bids for tribal council, Reed is currently the business supervisor at Cherokee Fitness Complex.
He highlighted affordable housing as one of Swain County’s largest issues, noting he was looking into zoning and other ways to “best utilize our buildable land to accommodate either townhome style (or) single-family living (residences).”
He said he’ll work with folks from relevant county departments to build a prioritized list of affordable housing goals.
Reed raised quality-of-life infrastructure improvements as another priority, such as bringing high-speed internet to everyone in the region. He outlined one way to guide this development.
“If we’re working with Boston West or Frontier, whomever, just making sure that they’re able to get through some of these properties, and actually having a full detailed layout of what [internet] services and service area look like, so that way we can focus on those areas without overlapping and redoing places that may already be covered,” he said.
Reed said he’d ensure that President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) doesn’t put hospitals in Swain County at risk because of a lack of government funding.
Because of major OBBB federal SNAP cuts, costs have been passed down to states, and North Carolina has shifted that burden to county governments. To fill the gap, Swain County must devote an additional $190,000 in SNAP appropriations next year. However, at the Oct. 6 county meeting, Commissioner David Loftis characterized the OBBB as preventing wasteful spending. He suggested that if individual fraud were eliminated, the county wouldn’t face such a problem.
Fraud in the form of an individual scamming the system to gain benefits is uncommon due to robust documentation; the worst fraud occurs through EBT skimming, which hurts SNAP recipients.
Reed said he’d try to mitigate overspending — like paying one or two employees to act as animal services without a functioning animal shelter — to balance the county budget better. He’d prioritize vehicle maintenance and repairs to prevent unnecessary purchases.
“I’d be thinking about doing an audit of the vehicles. What are the ages of the vehicles, the mileage that’s averagely driven? Things like that,” he said.
Along those lines, he’d be interested in ensuring bus stops are covered, and there’s proper lighting for pedestrians.
He plans to sit down with all county department heads for a cost-and-expenditures meeting regardless.
He was hesitant to support the county’s purchase of the airport property.
“I’m not 100% in favor of it,” he said. “I want to know if they have a plan for development of it first.”
On the revenue side, Reed told SMN he wants to expand outdoor recreation opportunities to bring tourists to the area during the off-season, citing the Tsali Ultra-marathon he’s signed up to compete in this January as an example. He’d also like to help small business owners expand sustainably while considering what types of vendors meaningfully bring people into Swain County.
“At least here on the [Qualla] Boundary, there’s been a lot more of the CBD vape shops popping up … Are they really going to stand the test of time for clientele and customers to be frequenting them?” he asked.
Reed said the county could consider adjusting its occupancy tax rate to increase tourism dollars as a “good supplemental revenue generator” that doesn’t involve heftier levies on taxpayers.
However, in North Carolina, occupancy taxes must be levied only by the TDA and cannot be categorized as county revenue.
Finally, he said he needs to research the county’s funding of Southwestern Community College (SCC) and the school system, but county appropriations did not meet district needs — at least, according to public opinion.
Erika Smith
Smith has been in the real estate business for the past 12 years, a career she said requires skills — handling budgets, delegating responsibilities, approaching things objectively from a business standpoint — that she’ll use as a commissioner.
She doesn’t support the airport purchase, though she might be open to it in different circumstances.
“If there were a valid business plan and use plan made available that we could read, understand, and make judgments based off of that, I think it’s a great opportunity. However, jumping into it the way that they are, I think, is a little haphazard, and it could be a very expensive mistake,” she said.
She acknowledged that the county’s small budget is the sole source of funding for infrastructure used beyond taxpaying county residents. That said, she noted that tourism is the main economic driver, and it’s important to work with the industry, not against it, as she asserted the county does now.
She proposed an additional impact fee on train ticket prices — also recommended by Chair of Commissioners candidate Robbie Brown — to fund education, infrastructure, and other public services.
Smith agreed with Kirkland that the train’s parking situation was worrisome but took the effects even further. She said in addition to new sidewalks and roads, Bryson City around the train station needs better walking areas, paid crossing guards, and other safety measures.
“I have to cross the railroad tracks every day, several times a day, and right now, that whole situation is so dangerous … we’re having to stop on the train tracks,” she said.
Admitting it was a smaller problem, she said the TDA could do more with what it has, though, to beautify the area, recounting past banners, info boards, and activities like artist walks.
“Almost every single family, not household, but family, in Swain County is directly financially impacted by tourism, and we aren’t taking it seriously enough,” she said.
The most recent statewide statistics show that Swain County tourism expenditures decreased 1.5% from 2024 to 2025. The economy could be partially to blame, but spending increased in most counties, including those affected by Hurricane Helene.
Smith said Swain County’s poor water and sewer systems are a major reason it lacks economic development, both in industry and affordable housing projects.
“If we can bolster our water and sewer systems, [then] we can actually bring in these companies and bring in these housing projects, and that’s a great start,” she said, adding that while she’s not sure how exactly that would be done, she’d be the first one to delegate that responsibility.
When asked how Swain County would finance a water and sewer infrastructure overhaul with its limited budget, she said leaders must start from scratch with finances and identify spending misuse — like the animal shelter and what might potentially be on county credit cards, the latter of which Loftis has discussed in recent meetings.
Smith believes anyone who requests appropriations should have a fully itemized list by the time they present their proposal to commissioners. She also advocated for hiring a grant writer to scout out funding sources.
“There’s money out there for these projects. We just need to be able to go after [it],” she said.
After Swain County gets its infrastructure in place, she suggested potentially using “some sort of tax incentives for people to bring in some time of affordable mass multi-housing units,” though she cautioned that it must be implemented alongside housing quality regulations to ensure slumlords aren’t attracted to the area.
Either way, she said, people are struggling, and that requires drastic policy measures.
“We have got to figure out a way to be able to afford a cost-of-living wage increase in Swain County … We cannot face our affordable housing crisis without doing something like that,” she said.
North Carolina counties can implement cost-of-living wage increases for employees but for more than a decade have been barred from asking the same of private businesses.
Smith criticized how little the county allocates to its schools; however, she said little SCC appropriations.
‘We are the county with the lowest funding per student. North Carolina is the last state in the country (in education funding). That’s awful,” she noted.
According to Public School Forum, Swain County ranks last in relative district funding effort, which is calculated by dividing the county’s funding per average daily membership (ADM) — a measure of student enrollment — by the county’s revenue per ADM. Smith said it’s important to fulfill requested public school appropriations and not doing so is akin to “telling [our kids], ‘We don’t care about you.’”
It goes beyond operations, too, she said, citing the example she’s seen in her six-year-old son’s kindergarten class.
“They’re having to run the heater with the air conditioner because they have a moisture problem that they don’t have the money to fix,” she said. “And if we’re slacking on that, what other areas are we slacking on?”
Beyond policy, she advocated for a cultural shift among commissioners. County residents don’t feel heard, and that needs to change, she said, recounting the Oct. 6 meeting where commissioners didn’t return to the roadless rule rescission comment even after multiple people spoke in favor of it during public comment.
“They didn’t give much thought process in their decisions, and I’ve seen that a few times. Once they make a decision, they’re not going to revisit that,” said Smith, adding that while it’s natural to have opinions about policy, the public interest should be taken equally into consideration.
Cynthia Womble
Womble described her run as another aspect of her commitment to living a life of service. She was a military officer for 28 years, which, she said, “included everything from $100 million projects to leading large numbers of people and managing projects.” In her last 15 years in the Navy, she worked in human resources, which she described as “a direct match to serving as a county commissioner.”
For the past eight years, she has worked as taproom manager at Mountain Layers Brewing Company. Volunteering has also been a significant aspect of her life, a value instilled in her as a child. Now, she serves as Swain County’s America 250 co-chair and most recently served on SCC’s board of trustees. And she has significant policy planning and development experience.
“I was involved in personnel policy legislation when I was stationed in (Washington,) D.C., so I know that it is important to understand what the guidelines are within which you operate, but also to understand when those guidelines can be changed and how to change them,” she said.
Womble said a top priority is adequately funding the school system, not only through teacher supplements. Like Smith, she said schools need more funding for both capital projects and operations.
“It’s not just the pay; it’s the conditions, and that affects our children and their learning environment,” she explained.
Womble, who opposes the airport purchase, also criticized the county’s financial priorities, as shown by its decision to buy the property.
“If we have $3 million extra to go buy a vacant [airport] property … then we can spend $3 million to fix our school buildings and to pay our teachers,” she told the audience at the Sept. 29 forum.
She also questioned county commissioners’ unstated plans for the property, which has sat vacant for years and is worth much less than what commissioners are trying to pay for it. Tax assessments put its value at just shy of $2 million.
“It also probably has hazardous waste because it was an airfield and a car dealership,” she said.
Womble questioned the feasibility of bringing water and sewer lines to the property when Swain County can’t even connect what it does have or keep up with existing infrastructure.
“They still haven’t figured out with the town of Bryson City how they’re going to get water and sewer to the new middle school that they’re going to do the groundbreaking on in a few weeks, which is going to cost millions of dollars,” she said, adding that county commissioners also haven’t addressed their responsibility to replace the site of Bright Adventures pre-K, Swain County’s sole Pre-K program, which uses dated facilities.
Additionally, the septic tank serving the county’s Head Start at SCC is broken, she said, adding that SCC educates Swain County residents — as a community college, through high school dual enrollment, and Career and Technical Education Programs — in numbers disproportionate to its funding.
To ensure proper maintenance, Womble said commissioners should create and follow a preventive maintenance and routine repairs schedule and determine the cost of all pending capital items.
“If [total cost is] $3 million or less, then we should be spending that $3 million on those things before we say we have extra money,” she said.
A second priority for Womble is fully staffing and equipping Swain County public safety-first responders like EMS and law enforcement. She’s discussed with state legislators the possibility of modifying the general statute covering Swain County’s TDA to allow it to fund more services.
Like Smith, Womble views tourism as a foundational local economic driver.
“If we didn’t have tourism here, a lot of you in here probably would not be employed, and/or your children would not, or your grandchildren would not,” she said at the forum.
Her final priority, she said, is “to address the challenges and opportunities that rapid change are bringing to our community,” including instituting more affordable and workforce housing for folks who make 30% and 60% of area median income, respectively. Swain County doesn’t have enough housing, she said, and what it does have, working people can’t afford. Womble also raised concerns about how commissioners had used the affordable housing committee.
“[Commissioners] have not given [the committee] clear direction. They have not given it governance. They have not tasked it to produce any actionable results,” she said, explaining that this has led to nothing being accomplished but one proposal, the minimum housing ordinance, which would have, upon tenant complaint, prompted a safety and habitability property inspection and potentially transfer into temporary lodging.
Womble thought that measure was needed but said it wasn’t adopted because commissioners didn’t request it.
In general, she said, the county website needs to make more information publicly available, like listing the committees, boards, and commissioners appointed to each.
Everyone she’s talked to agrees more good jobs would help the county, but that’s the economic development director’s responsibility to secure. Unfortunately, Swain’s hiring rolls have no one with that title.
She advised forum participants, inspiring a few chuckles, “If you go to the web, Google ‘Economic Development Swain County’ — when you get home tonight too, not now, — and it’ll come up with a single landing page that says, ‘For information about economic development, contact the county manager,’” asking rhetorically if that’s going to inspire any businesses to come to Swain County.
If elected commissioner, she’d hire an economic development director to attract businesses to the industrial park established several decades ago. Not anything like a Walmart, she clarified, noting she’d instead support high-tech or manufacturing businesses.
Womble wasn’t sure where she might cut costs because of what she described as “non-transparent” publicly available audits. Still, she said she hoped that, as a commissioner, she would better understand where excess money was going and where to redirect it for greater fiscal efficiency.
She admitted the county’s tax base has changed significantly in the past decade, losing major employers like Conmet and gaining rental stock like expensive homes, short-term rental properties, resorts, hotels, and campgrounds. She thinks these new developments will increase county revenue within the next tax assessment cycle, though she’s less sure they’ll offset costs, especially given the current state of the economy.
“Everything costs more right now, whether it’s the gas and the diesel that the vehicles operate on within the county or whether it is health insurance … Needing to raise salaries to be able to hire qualified people and retain them,” she said, adding that Swain County has historically struggled with the latter.
Finally, Womble outlined the stakes of this contemporary moment.
“Swain County is at an inflection point, and we can choose right now which path we want to take,” she posited, explaining that means deciding to shape or be victims of local change, some of which she said has not been positive. But while she hears many people complaining, far fewer are acting, which is what she’d like to do as a commissioner.