The property tax rate in Macon County will be increasing by half a cent after commissioners approved a 2019-20 budget that puts additional funding toward public education. 

Angela Phillips painted a painfully realistic picture of what it’s been like inside her second-grade classroom at Cartoogechaye Elementary for the last few years. 

For the first time in several years, Macon County Manager Derek Roland is proposing a small property tax increase moving into the 2019-20 budget year to support increased expenses and much-needed capital projects. 

The volunteer board members of the nonprofit Nikwasi Initiative are appreciative of the public’s interest in our mission and role in development of a cultural corridor extending from south Macon County to the Qualla Boundary. We would like to take this opportunity to go into more detail about the Initiative.

Macon County Sheriff Robert Holland is being sued for wrongful death after his deputy Anthony Momphard Jr. shot and killed Scott Knibbs in his home a year ago. 

Macon County Schools will be setting up a school-based health center at South Macon Elementary School soon thanks to a $150,000 community health grant from the state Office of Rural Health. 

Tensions ran high at Monday night’s Franklin Town Council meeting as the board sat before a packed room of residents there hoping to sway the town one way or another on the future of Nikwasi Mound. 

A group of Macon County residents plan to file a complaint seeking an injunction to keep the town of Franklin from giving up its sole ownership of the Nikwasi Mound.

Of all the town and county governments in The Smoky Mountain News coverage area, the Franklin Town Council had the fewest closed meetings in 2018. 

A vast majority of Macon County Board of Commissioners meetings end with a closed session. In fact, commissioners spent more than 400 minutes — over seven hours — conducting business behind closed doors in 2018.