Haywood County GOP leaders last week took the podium at a public meeting and proceeded to act as shills for Tax Collector Mike Matthews, trying to make the argument that Matthews suffers more from county commissioners and the media criticizing him than from his own ineptitude.

It was a curious — albeit flawed and completely wrong — argument, one that mistook facts for opinions and also included an unsavory dose of the increasingly popular attack on the media as an entity not caring about whether their reporting is accurate.

More than a year after a contentious public comment session during which the Haywood County Board of Commissioners weighed the pros and cons of having the state’s only elected tax collector, there’s no sign any change is coming despite the dispute still smoldering.

Between 1999 and 2016, more than 12,000 people in North Carolina died from opioid overdoses. 

Not only are families losing their loved ones to the opioid crisis, but addiction is also placing a heavy burden on limited local resources. Drug-related crime has led to overcrowded jails, a backlogged court system and a spike in the number of children placed in the foster care system.

Recent uproar over dozens of tax payments improperly waived by Haywood County Tax Collector Mike Matthews seemed to be quieted with his announcement that he’d personally cover more than $1,200 of the $4,100 he’d waived.

Achieving high academic performance levels is one thing, but maintaining them is quite another, and after two straight years ranked 11 out of 115 public school districts in the state, recent reports from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction show that Haywood County schools slid three places to a still-impressive 14. 

Doug’s in Clyde is a typical manifestation of a stereotypical small-town barbershop in the rural American South. 

Its wooden walls are lined with knick-knacks, claptrap and faded family photos of people and places long gone. Three men stand behind three vintage teal and steel barber’s chairs, while three men sit in them. Others wait on red vinyl couches next to checkerboards beneath the watchful gaze of Andy Griffith and Floyd Lawson. 

A slew of county tax penalties waived by Tax Collector Mike Matthews’ office will have to be re-added to some tax bills because they were improperly released.

It takes a lot of work throughout the year to produce the Folkmoot festival; much of that work goes on behind the scenes and much of it is done by volunteers, without whom the festival simply couldn’t sustain itself.

After nearly a year without a permanent county manager, Haywood County commissioners voted unanimously Aug. 20 to extend an offer to Assistant Gaston County Manager Bryant E. Morehead. 

As first reported in The Smoky Mountain News more than four months ago, Waynesville’s getting a new hotel, and that new hotel is getting lots of tax breaks. The reasons why are no mystery either, according to Haywood County Program Administrator David Francis.