Polk Lore James Hrynyshyn

Taking the good things in life for granted is never a good idea, but that’s what happening in some corners of this country when it comes to the value of public libraries. In Georgia, legislation that would require all public libraries to sever ties with the American Library Association just passed the state senate. Over in South Carolina, the Greenville County Library system did just that years ago. You might think that no would consider an association dedicated to promoting literacy and supporting libraries and librarians to be a hotbed of radicalism and socialist propaganda, but you would be wrong.

The good news is Polk Country’s Public Library seems to have avoided falling into the trap set by the culture warriors. Our little county has not one but two library branches — the main one in Columbus and another in Saluda, and there doesn't seem to be any threat to its mission. In fact, as you’ll hear in this interview with the library’s director, Marcie Dowling, the list of services it provides is only growing, far beyond just providing free access to books.

Resources:

Polk Libraries

Polk Libraries Collection Policy

Georgia library bill

Swannanoa library to close

History of unions

Vaccines and human lifespans

American Library Association Freedom to Read statement

A good number of listeners will be familiar with Chrelle Booker, a Polk County native who’s been on a member of Tryon’s Board of Commissioners since 2017. She’s now Mayor Pro Tem, which is the municipal equivalent of vice-president. She’s also served as president of the National League of Cities’ Women in Municipal Government caucus. So, it’s not like she doesn’t have some experience outside of small-town politics.

But still, to call her campaign for the right to be the Democratic Party candidate for this November’s election for governor of the state of North Carolina an uphill battle would be understatement. And I think it’s fair to ask anyone facing such long odds: why bothering running? Which I do in the interview you’re about to hear. 

However much support Chrelle Booker ends up attracting, her mere presence on the primary ballot is worth more than a passing mention, and I think our half-hour talk is worth your time.

Notes:Smoky Mountain News story

Sample primary ballots

Chrelle Booker campaign

This year’s elections are going to be a fair bit different, even if you’re veteran at casting ballots. For one thing, you're going to need photographic proof of your identify. And that not the only change that the state legislature has foisted on us. In fact, Polk County has been singled out for several additional changes to way we vote, and the way we’re represented, at the municipal, county, state, and federal levels. So I asked our county’s director of elections, Cliff Marr, to go over them with me, and he graciously agreed. I’m willing to bet you’ll learn a few things you didn’t even know you didn’t know.

Useful resources:

Voter registration lookup

Polk County Board of Elections

Absentee voting in NC

Polk County Geographic Information System

The first campaign speech by Chris Jones the prospective politician was delivered at a county GOP gathering. Aside from one throwaway reference to Boiling Springs as the kind of place we don’t want to turn into, his four-and-a-half-minute speech made no mention of anything or anyone locally specific. It’s as if he was reading a boiler-plate speech that could be written for a candidate for any government post in any Polk county in the country, of which there are several, and not someone who wanted to be one of our Polk County commissioners.

 That’s not usually the way you introduce yourself to a local crowd, especially if you’ve only been living here for five years and need to convince voters that you understand what their  home  is all about. But it turns out that Chris chooses his words very carefully — not too surprising, I suppose, for a V.P of a company that installs security systems — and that first speech was no exception. 

As you’ll find out by listening to our talk.

Why does Polk Lore devote so much attention to education? Because it’s one of the few things that just about everyone in the county, no matter their political persuasion, agrees is a source of pride. Polk Schools isn’t a perfect institution, of course. But overall, our little school system’s teachers, staff, and board warrant the widespread support they get from the public, from our County Commission, and from the folks who rate schools. There’s a reason why most everyone objects to the recent move by the state legislature to shove the square peg of partisan elections into the round hole of Polk Schools. As I asked State Representative Jake Johnson a few weeks ago on this podcast: why fix something that ain’t broke?

I think that was a fair question. Just look at the low interest in replacing the incumbents on the board. Cindy Allen has been on that board since she was appointed to fill the White Oak seat in 2001, and as you’ll find out, she had no trouble finding enough signatures to get herself on the November ballot, despite the pressure to run within the party system. We talked about that decision, her overall vision for the schools, and what to do about smartphones in the classroom, at the Feagan Law offices in Columbus, where she works as a paralegal, on Groundhog Day.



Mentioned in this episode

Polk Schools post-COVID performance

Polk County, along with Henderson and Transylvania, are lumped together in what is now called Court District 42. Judicial elections are partisan affairs around here, but I’ve always thought that was a particularly bad idea — for what I hope are obvious reasons — so I was pleased to discover that one of Polk County’s veteran lawyers, a woman who was appointed last year to fill a vacancy on the district court, is running to stay on the bench as an unaffiliated candidate, which is not an easy thing to do in this hyper-polarized country of ours.

Judges aren’t allowed to say much of anything that might attract media attention, so you’d probably think inviting her onto Polk Lore would a waste of time. But my conversation with Lora T. Baker was anything but. She even said a few things that might be considered a quasi-political, in a very limited and reasonable sense. We talked at the county courthouse in late January.

Links:Lora T. Baker campaign Facebook page

Polk County Elections