I am doing this so I can vote against Cawthorn. He is a disgrace to the GOP and needs to be voted out. I only hope more unaffiliated voters wake up and do the same.

Ron Rookstool

Maggie Valley

Growth is spurred by greed

We have always felt very favorably toward our town board, as we thought they were truly interested in the welfare of Waynesville residents. That has all changed after reading the article in The Mountaineer’s weekend edition, titled “Waynesville OKs 59 units.”

We now see our town governing board with dollar signs in their eyes, smacking their lips over how much they will reap from all the new resident taxes. As the article said, this is the seventh large development the board has approved in the last year. What greed. And to heck with quality of life for the town’s long-term residents.

Only Jon Feichter, who voted against all this uncontrolled development (particularly the abomination going up on Raccoon Road) shows the slightest concern for the rest of us. Thank you, Jon. How about voting Jon Feichter in as the next mayor? He’s the only one who cares about quality of life here, instead of $$$$$.

And where is our planning board? Too cowardly to oppose anything, as usual.

For heaven’s sake, town board, just pass some sensible zoning laws to stop idiotic comments that there is nothing the board can do about developments and developers as long as they meet town requirements of one kind or another. Zoning laws, folks, zoning laws — get the picture?

JoAnna and

Richard Swanson

Waynesville

Party does matter

The letter titled, “There is no need for local races to be partisan,” seems to beg a question or two. Would the writer consider a person from Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland or San Francisco to be local to whatever city they live in?

Would the writer consider these cities to be a nice place to live? Does the writer understand these cities are all run by “local” Democrats? So maybe “party” does matter.

The writer states that he is not a “political person” which is unfortunate since all government persons, elected or hired, have a hierarchy of priorities and ignorance of this alignment is damaging to the public.

First and foremost, almost all professional politicians consider their highest priority to be themselves. Second, all Democrats and most Republicans put party as second priority. This leaves nation, state, county or city fairly deep on the political list of priorities.

On the odd coincidence that the needs of self, party and county happen to coincide, then they will choose a path helpful to the “locals” but that does not always happen.

Over time the high priority need to serve themselves will always lead to moral and legal compromises. All long-term politicians have compromised and corrupted pasts.

The blunders in Afghanistan, China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, as well as the chaos on our southern border, are all due to a criminally corrupted administration — a Democrat administration.

I would think that every person running for political office that will openly admit to being a Democrat warrants suspicion for their motives.

Therefore, I would think that open association with the Democratic Party of Haywood County would be a significant consideration — no matter how “non-political” a person may be.

Sam Morgan

Waynesville