When the Swain County Board of Elections didn’t get the response it wanted from the county commissioners, it decided to ask the state for an answer to a retirement benefits dispute that has been going on for about 10 years.

Jay Coward will keep his job as Jackson County attorney — for five more months, at least. 

When a new board of commissioners took over in December, they put out a call for applications to select a new attorney, pulling in a list of eight candidates, including Coward.

After wading through more than 300 legislative goals presented by more than 500 commissioners throughout the state, the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners has agreed on five top priorities to present to legislators during the 2015 General Assembly.

Macon County Commissioner Ronnie Beale, president of the NCACC, gave his fellow commissioners an update on the recent Legislative Goals Conference during the board’s retreat last week. 

When Jackson County commissioners halted the controversial rewrite of the steep slope development rules earlier this year, critics were both pleased and skeptical.

Pleased that a rollback of the county’s steep slope rules wouldn’t be pushed to the finish line before November’s election, but skeptical that the sitting commissioners would really stop work on the rollback. Instead, many thought the incumbents were trying to save their own re-election chances and would pick up where they left off after November.

Controlling mountainside development is a universal issue grappled with across Western North Carolina.

But Jackson County’s residents have wrestled more passionately, more vocally, more extensively and more heatedly over mountainside development than almost any other county in the region.

Property Revaluations

The hurt is coming. All the candidates agree, it won’t be pretty. In 2016, Jackson County will preform a property revaluation, in which the values of properties on the tax role — currently listed with values tethered to the high times of the housing boom — will be squared up with the values actually reflected in the current real estate market. 

No one really knows how the Jackson County commissioner races are going to pan out. Incumbent Republican Commissioner Charles Elders has no idea. 

“It’s hard to say,” Elders said. “Straight party voting, that’s a thing of the past. They’re gonna study, they’re gonna look.”

State issues are trickling down to the election debate surrounding the Macon County commissioners’ races. Three of the five seats are open, bringing out a total of six candidates looking for a place on the board. Chief among the topics of discussion surrounding the race are education funding, how to prioritize spending in the wake of the real estate bust and what stand, if any, the county should take on fracking. 

Three challengers running for Haywood County commissioner are touting lower property taxes, a smaller budget, limited government, less regulation and personal freedom — the core tenets of conservatism with a Libertarian twist.

“The government needs to live within its means,” said Philip Wight, a Republican challenger. “It doesn’t seem like we are moving toward lower spending in the government. We keep looking at what more can the government provide. That is an unsustainable path.”

Criticism over taxes and spending from the conservative arm of the local Republican Party is nothing new for Haywood County commissioners.

So this election year, the three Democrats running for re-election came armed with talking points: only 29 counties have a lower tax rate, the county budget is smaller than it was five years ago and there are fewer employees now than five years ago.