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Don’t forget to vote
Residents of Jackson County’s four towns have a job to do on Tuesday, Nov. 8.
It’s election day for all four municipalities – Sylva, Dillsboro, Webster and Forest Hills. All have contested mayors’ races, and two – Dillsboro and Webster – have town board seats that are up for grabs.
Dillsboro residents have the additional question of whether to allow beer and wine sales at restaurants in the tourist-oriented town.
A story on page 1A lists all the candidates, including announced write-ins. A sample ballot can be found on page 3B. Interviews with all candidates that appear on the ballot are available in our online archives at www.thesylvaherald.com (Forest Hills, Oct. 6; Dillsboro, Oct. 13; Webster, Oct. 20; and Sylva, Oct. 27).
Town residents have a civic duty to learn about the candidates, think about their city’s future and then make sure they show up to vote on Tuesday.
Efforts merit support
This week’s front page offers news about two initiatives that merit broad public support.
One is the kind of traditional community effort we often report – a one-night fund-raiser aimed at helping local March of Dimes volunteers reach this year’s county goal. The other is a project for the future, which could avert pollution while fueling a working craft center that should be a boon to this county’s tourist-driven economy.
Cindy Shuler, whose 13-year-old daughter Hope was born eight weeks early, knows firsthand of the benefits the March of Dimes brings to at-risk babies and their families. That’s why she’s leading the local effort to raise money to help the March of Dimes – the organization that conquered polio five decades ago – continue its current focus of preventing premature births through education and research.
“Bingo for Babies,” Cindy’s last fund-raiser for this year, is set for Saturday at the Savannah Community Center. Cindy’s hope is that enough people will turn out from 6 to 9 p.m. to play bingo for $1 per game to raise the additional $1,000 that’s needed to attain this year’s target of $15,000.
It’s personal for Cindy. She said that when she realized it was the March of Dimes that helped develop the neonatal care units in Asheville and Charlotte that helped Hope when she was a tiny baby, she felt called to give back to such a worthwhile organization.
The second effort, under way in Dillsboro, will use a pollutant to create beauty.
Centered around the county’s former landfill, plans call for the recovery of the methane-containing landfill gas so that it can be used to power greenhouses and a crafts complex.
This project has a much longer term than this Saturday night. And it’s grant-funded, so it doesn’t require contributions from our own pockets. Still, to be successful, the project does need community support. It needs people willing to serve on the steering committee that will decide how the complex will function. Once it’s open, it will need shoppers willing to buy from local crafters and food-producers to help them make it through the off-season when the tourists aren’t around.
Contributing to the March of Dimes helps power a nationwide research and education effort that has the potential to reduce the number of premature births; supporting the landfill gas project will improve the environment for those babies that call Jackson County home.
Both are worthwhile endeavors.
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