As Maggie Valley rebuilds from Hurricane Helene and absorbs slow but steady residential growth, aldermen have begun shaping a 2026-27 fiscal year budget defined by guarded optimism, rising service costs and lingering storm obligations. 

New Maggie Valley Town Manager Sam Cullen opened the workshop with a reminder that the board recently adopted a policy preventing the fund balance from dropping below 100% of annual expenditures — a common but informal goal for many of North Carolina’s smaller municipalities.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allocated a combined $686 million to North Carolina for Hurricane Helene-related drinking water, wastewater and septic system projects, with a focus on resiliency and a goal of reducing risk and vulnerability in systems as they face future storms. 

Residents, business owners and community leaders of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Swain County are invited to attend a pair of public open house meetings.

The Swain County open house will be held from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 25, in the Community Room of the Swain County Administration Building in Bryson City. The EBCI open house will be held from 3-7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 26, at the Yellowhill Community Building in Cherokee. 

Over the past decade or more, Western North Carolina Republicans have proven that the only candidates that can beat incumbent Republican congressmen are other Republicans. Adam Smith talks like someone who has already settled on that outcome and is now working backward to make it inevitable. 

“What conservative voters in the United States want to see is Republicans have the intestinal fortitude to do what they said they were going to do,” Smith said. 

Under a mountainside that had slipped again and again, residents of Thistle Ridge faced a grim reality — unstable ground, blocked roads and no clear path forward. 

For more than four years, bureaucratic delays and shifting priorities left a vital infrastructure fix stalled while families worried their homes could be lost and emergency access cut off. Then, Rep. Mark Pless took up their cause. 

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is providing updates on measures to maximize trout stream stocking in the western part of the state after Hurricane Helene destroyed the Bobby N. Setzer State Fish Hatchery in September 2024. 

Editor’s note: This piece is the second of a two-part series exploring plans to rebuild I-40 through the Pigeon River Gorge and the project’s implication for wildlife populations in the region. Find the first installment in last week’s Smoky Mountain News print edition or online at smokymountainnews.com.

As the floodwaters of Hurricane Helene receded, they revealed extensive damage to Interstate 40 through the Pigeon River Gorge, promising that the rebuilding effort would be a top priority for the NC Department of Transportation in the years ahead.

Gov. Josh Stein announced nearly $50 million in grants to support local governments in western North Carolina in their Hurricane Helene recovery efforts. The grants, which are administered by the Office of State Budget and Management, provide critical funding to repair, renovate, or replace storm-damaged infrastructure. 

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission invites 2025 North Carolina taxpayers to donate all or part of their state tax refund to the N.C. Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Fund. Donations support research and conservation projects for the state’s most vulnerable wildlife. 

Editor’s note: This piece is the first of a two-part series exploring plans to rebuild I-40 through the Pigeon River Gorge and the project’s implication for wildlife populations. Part two will appear in next week’s the Smoky Mountain News.

When I-40 through the Pigeon River Gorge first opened in October 1968, it was hailed as a triumph of human accomplishment, the dawn of a new era for travel, tourism, and economic opportunity in newly linked Haywood County, North Carolina, and Cocke County, Tennessee.