By Julia Merchant • Staff Writer

One of the driest periods in the last 118 years is prompting TVA to draw down waters on Fontana Lake to wintertime levels, a move costing boat dock owners thousands of dollars of business.

By Julia Merchant • Staff Writer

Supporters of a 30-mile road through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that would fulfill a decades-old promise were thrilled last month when the Swain County commissioners agreed to hold the first-ever public hearing on the issue.

By Julia Merchant • Staff Writer

Entire half hours dedicated to finding a parking space. Cars backing into each other. Employees and customers with nowhere to park. The parking situation in Bryson City is reaching crisis levels, and local business owners are pleading for the town to help them.

Just when the fate of the Road to Nowhere through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park seemed sealed, road supporters are rallying their troops for one final hurrah.

County commissioners, planners and planning board members from the state’s seven westernmost counties will meet this month in a first-of-its-kind attempt to discuss land management on a regional level.

The National Park Service has finally chosen sides in the long-standing debate over whether to build a 30-mile road through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park backcountry outside Bryson City.

The road, it appears, stops here. Now, elected leaders and citizens must demand a timetable for the $52 million settlement due Swain County.

The General Assembly is considering a bill that could solve a Catch 22 in election law: how to legitimately help nursing home patients vote without creating a climate ripe for abuse.

A state election investigator is trying to determine whether a Swain County voting drive targeting the poor and elderly crossed the line from exceptionally ambitious to improper.

Swain County is drafting a set of road standards that will serve its citizens well on two levels. First, the proposed ordinances would require developers to build roads that emergency vehicles can access, thereby providing protection for property and lives; secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Swain’s relatively new planning board is getting its feet wet by learning what it takes to develop land-use regulations and turn them into law.