Haywood commissioners face Primary Election opponents T
Jennifer Best
Terry Ramey
JENNIFER BEST • Age: 52 • Residence: Clyde area • Occupation: Insurance agent • Political experience: First campaign KEVIN ENSLEY (I) • Age: 58 • Residence: Waynesville area • Occupation: Land surveyor • Political experience: Four-term Haywood County commissioner TERRY RAMEY • Age: 65 • Residence: Clyde area • Occupation: Retired from Dayco, small business owner • Political experience: Several unsuccessful commissioner campaigns BRANDON ROGERS (I) • Age: 48 • Residence: Canton area • Occupation: Small business owner • Political experience: First-term Haywood commissioner laws. So I think it would have been OK to say we strongly support the Second Amendment.” Given that some of the top issues in this year’s race weren’t even really issues at all four years ago, Best said it’s hard to forecast what the board might have to deal with if she’s elected to a four-year term. “It’s been very interesting to me how quickly the topics change,” she said. “For us locally, depending on what happens at a national level if our president changes or if our elected officials at the state level change, we could come back to discussions about Second Amendment again. If not, then I really believe that we could be having conversations that involve growth and prosperity.” Like Best, Terry Ramey said he’s frustrated with what he calls the current board’s lack of conservatism. “Based on just what I’ve heard and what I’ve seen, I think people are a little bit disappointed in some of the stuff that they’ve voted on that people wasn’t aware of, and some of the way they’ve spent some money, stuff that they thought the Republicans might be more conservative about,” said Ramey, who’s run unsuccessfully for commissioner a few times now. In 2016, he ran on the Democratic ticket. Chief among those concerns is the Second Amendment sanctuary resolution Haywood County didn’t pass. Ramey thinks the “Constitution protecting” resolution the county did pass didn’t go nearly far enough. “No, I do not. I think when they took that oath to get that job, I think that’s all they did in that resolution that they passed is reaffirmed that oath, and to me that makes it sound like — the reason I wouldn’t have
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of proactive and I like to approach things a little differently,” Best said. “We have to know that one decision will instigate another decision to come.” A prime example of that is the redevelopment of the old hospital into affordable housing for veterans and the elderly, which will displace Haywood County Schools’ central administration; they have to be out this year, and there’s still no word on where they’re headed. “Haywood County has grown greater than Madison County and Henderson County as sisters to Buncombe County. We’ve seen more growth than those other two counties have, and with that growth comes a lot of change,” she said. “If we’re not ‘hands on the plow’ about what our future is gonna look like and we’re not driving in the direction we want to go, then I don’t know if the outcome will be what we’re all hoping for.”
While we’re all hoping for an end to the opioid crisis, Best says there’s still more that can be done on a county level. A member of the “Just say no” generation, she believes more education is one of those things, but she also thinks that it’s going to take better coordination among law enforcement, the judicial system and county agencies. One step commissioners have taken may have been a misstep, according to Best. “I’m not particularly comfortable with a needle exchange program,” she said. “For the majority of people either they don’t understand that it’s there, [and] when they hear about it, it’s very frightening to them. When they understand all of the things that that program offers someone with an addiction issue, I don’t know that it’s proven itself to be effective. I think their numbers are not convincing.” Instead, Best points to a Philadelphia program that offers patients who have overdosed immediate entry into a treatment facility and would like to see something similar implemented here. Homelessness is a similar problem in that there’s no one easy fix; Best’s not eager to rush off proposing solutions before understanding more about the problem. “I would like to know who our homeless population is,” she said. “Is it a mental health issue? Is it an employment issue? Is it a substance abuse issue? To give you a broad answer to say, ‘We don’t have affordable housing’ or ‘We don’t have good mental health solutions,’ I think that’s too broad of a statement. I personally would need to know why we have homeless, who they are, and then I think we can start to approach that with a little different take on how we handle it.” Board Chairman Kevin Ensley was recently appointed to the Town of Waynesville’s Homelessness Task Force as a representative of county government. In the event he’s not in office in November, Best said she’d be happy to serve there. A strong Second Amendment supporter, Best said she was “bothered” by how Haywood County handled citizen calls for a Second Amendment sanctuary resolution. On Jan. 7 hundreds packed the courthouse demanding one, and on Jan. 22, the board passed a “Constitution protecting” resolution that some view as too little, some view as too much and some view as totally unnecessary. “Any county resolution would not hold weight or stand firm against state and federal laws. It would be just a resolution, but the flip side of that is I think it’s very important to be very direct about what we’re interested in and what our beliefs are and where we stand on that,” she said. “So yes, I believe it could have been stronger. A resolution that says we support the Constitution is just a resolution. Like I said, it doesn’t hold against state or federal
(I) denotes incumbent
February 19-25, 2020
BY CORY VAILLANCOURT STAFF WRITER wo years ago, voters in Haywood County made some decisions at the polls that were at odds with not only the contemporary political climate in Western North Carolina, but also with almost two centuries of tradition. Across the nation Democrats made big gains, largely in response to disapproval of President Donald Trump’s first two years. Across the state, it was the same thing — Democrats broke the Republican supermajority in the General Assembly and returned a Democrat to one of Haywood’s two House seats. The Haywood County Board of Commissioners, however, saw the opposite happen. The election of Republicans Tommy Long and Mark Pless placed the board in GOP control for probably the first time in history. Longtime Commissioner Kevin Ensley was elevated to chairman, and firstterm Commissioner Brandon Rogers to vicechairman. Ensley and Rogers are up for re-election this year, but they won’t be getting a free pass to the Nov. 3 General Election. Two other Republicans, Jennifer Best and Terry Ramey, are looking to knock out one or both of them in the March 3 Primary Election because they think the board isn’t quite conservative enough, despite the 4-to-1 Republican majority. “Republicans and the true conservatives in the community feel like they’re not getting what they voted for,” said Jennifer Best, an insurance agent who’s hoping to be one of two Republicans who will face two Democrats in November. “I feel like there are concerns about where we’re headed.” Best’s concerns include spending and transparency, in addition to the problems that most communities across the United States share — homelessness, drugs, housing and education, to name just a few. Many of those concerns ultimately circle back to money, and the county’s willingness or ability to spend it in furtherance of addressing those problems. Haywood County’s probably never been in a stronger position financially, and has spent years rebuilding a healthy fund balance on one of the lowest tax rates in the state. “We do have some debt. It’s not terrible,” said Best. “They’ve worked to kind of get rid of some of that, but we have some more that we could be getting paid off a little quicker than not.” But finances aren’t her main concern — Best takes issue with the way she says the board has managed the changes that are coming to the county. “The board has become reactive instead
Haywood County commissioner
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