Candidates across Western North Carolina have begun filing for the 2025 municipal elections, which will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 4, but there are still a few days left until the lists become final. 

Last month, The Smoky Mountain News conducted a survey across its four-county core coverage area to determine who plans to run again, and who doesn’t.

Public frustration boiled over at the July 1 Jackson County Board of Commissioners meeting, where speaker after speaker condemned the board’s recent decision to withdraw from the Fontana Regional Library system, urged reconsideration and asked for a public statement from commissioners. 

Candidates across Western North Carolina have begun filing for the 2025 municipal elections, which will be held on Tuesday, Nov. 4. 

Last week, The Smoky Mountain News conducted a survey across its four-county core coverage area to determine who plans to run again, and who doesn’t.

Two weeks after the Jackson County Commission floated a possible withdrawal from the Fontana Regional Library system, residents showed up to speak at the May 20 commission meeting for more than three and a half hours of public comment, with the majority voicing their opposition to withdrawal. 

During a difficult meeting in March, Waynesville’s Town Council was presented with a perfect storm of bad budgeting news. After Council’s most recent meeting, it looks like they’ll weather that storm with only a modest sewer rate increase. 

To the Editor:

Have you noticed how quietly our basic freedoms can disappear? Right now in Jackson County, a small group of commissioners is on the verge of dismantling our entire library system — not because it’s failing us, but because it’s succeeding at something they fear: exposing people to ideas beyond a single worldview. 

Anyone who thought that two years, dozens of meetings, thousands of dollars and hours of public comment to reach a new interlocal agreement between Jackson, Macon and Swain counties for the Fontana Regional Library would spell the end of the controversy over local libraries thought wrong. 

To the Editor:

I would like to thank the local author David Joy for speaking out about the removal of the plaque from the Confederate statue outside the Jackson county Library. He spoke for many of us, but being a multi-generational Southern man his words carried more weight. 

To The Editor:

I appreciate your straightforward and informative coverage of the removal of the plaque over Sylva Sam’s Confederate flag. I am a 21-year resident of Jackson County, and have enjoyed positive relations with fellow citizens here during all those years, no matter what our political views were.  

During its March 27 meeting, the Sylva Board of Commissioners voted to appoint Joseph Waldrun to fill the seat left vacant by Commissioner Mark Jones in February.