As part of the Great Backyard Bird Count initiative, a global community science project that helps researchers understand how birds are doing before they undertake their great spring migration, Mainspring Conservation Trust is hosting its own event. 

Residents of western Haywood County and eastern Jackson County will have the chance to learn about the Spongy Moth infestation that has hit several areas of the region, as well as what the N.C. Department of Agriculture plans on doing about the problem. 

Residents of Jackson County have long voiced their support, organized and fundraised for a skatepark with little to show other than a temporary half-pipe that stood behind Motion Makers in Sylva for just over one year. 

Western Carolina University officially kicked off the largest comprehensive fundraising campaign in the university’s 136-year history, an effort to secure $100 million in philanthropic support with a focus on increasing the financial resources necessary for long-delayed upgrades in facilities used by Catamount student-athletes. 

The new Jackson County Aquatics Center is hiring five full-time lifeguards. Employees are entitled to full benefits other Jackson County employees receive.

MountainTrue, in partnership with the Mainspring Conservation Trust and the Pinnacle Park Foundation, is hosting a community volunteer workday to control non-native invasive plants and restore native habitat at the Pinnacle Park in Sylva. 

HERE of Jackson County, the county’s primary homeless services provider, is requesting half a million dollars from the county to purchase and renovate a facility that would become Jackson’s first and only permanent homeless shelter. 

Jackson County has been working to develop a plan it hopes will mend the multigenerational workforce issue that is impacting communities around the country — childcare, and the lack of availability — on the local level. 

A state-mandated, county-wide property reappraisal took effect on Jan. 1 this year. 

Prior to the appeals process, the reappraisal showing a massive increase in real property taxable value for Jackson. 

On Saturday morning, Dec. 14, Becky reminded me that she was going to hear Darren Nicholson and his band play at the Tuckasegee Trading Company’s annual holiday open house, and she hoped I’d go too.