Andrews – Former mayor Nancy Curtis, a Democrat, is looking to unseat state Rep. Karl Gillespie (R-Franklin) to bring a N.C. General Assembly seat to Cherokee County for the first time since the 2008 election.
Curtis said she knows this was brought to her “by God, telling me to make a move. To make a difference and an impact.” She would like to hold monthly town hall meetings through the district.
In a recent interview, Curtis outlined her stances outlined his stances on a number of important issues.
- Going into 2025, what are the three most important western North Carolina issues for you and how would you tackle them?
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First, the workforce housing issue needs to be addressed. A dire need of housing especially middle-income housing, because we don’t have enough housing to begin with. With transplants from other states coming in, this need will only grow. Too, companies can’t come in to an area without an adequate supply of housing for the workforce and young families can’t grow without those needs being met and if they can’t invest in a home. The current demand has also pushed the cost of homes and that’s difficult for even local young families.
Jobs will always be important first. Being so removed from major highways presents challenges with the main bottlenecks being the Ocoee River gorge and the Nantahala River gorge. Companies don’t think of coming into the mountains because of the transportation issues and we need to identify companies that would be best suited for our area like small corporations that would move into the area and hire 20 or more employees. Something along the lines of attracting solar panel companies, the technology sector—industries that aren’t only reliant upon transportation of goods. Attracting those sorts of businesses to this area would supply good paying jobs with the infrastructure we already have in place. Too, we’re not as dependent upon the rail system and certainly the state would invest in rail here if they could see there were businesses who would rely upon that. Of course, our hospitality and tourism industries are strong, but with the seasonality of those, we need other ways of earning a living here that promote growth in western North Carolina, especially this farthest western portion.
Of course, the fundamental base of all of these is education. Our rural school systems tend to receive %19 less state funding to run their systems. We don’t have ways to shift monies around like metropolitan areas such as Charlotte to be able to fund the various needs of our schools. For families to progress and grow, they need to be able to ask what the school systems are like before moving to our area. Even for locals these questions are important and for us to rely upon the education structures to adequately equip a strong work force to stay in our area.
The talks of consolidation could only have helped our area as we look to towns in the district like Franklin which has embarked on building a new high school with available grants and funding that other counties in our area didn’t take advantage of. Cherokee county will need two high schools because the roads and infrastructure don’t support heavy traffic with kids from Topton to the Tennessee line being on the roads all day, whether by bus or their own vehicles. Community schools are still important at the primary level, but the county as a whole needs to look at supporting education in any way they can, whether that’s by grants or trying to change the balance of state funding, which is difficult given the differences in population and allocation.
- What would you strive to put in the 2025-2026 state budget for the N.C. House 120th District?
These would be the issues I would strive to create and more equitable allocation for in the far western district and for Cherokee County. We definitely need to advocate for more funding for our school systems and to move away from taking public funds for private schools through any existing voucher programs where parents can already afford to send those students away from public and into private education. Education is the basis for the future and for us to be competitive with other areas and produce an educated work force, we need those funds to retain teachers and to recruit the best students because we can’t take that funding away from public education because it is still the best idea and plan for young people to have an education.
- Do you feel the legislative leaders in Raleigh listen to the voices of western North Carolina?
They have never been in touch with the far west. I call it the far west because what they think of as far west is somewhere around Asheville. You begin to see where the neglect happens as you travel west of Asheville and somehow we’re on the pig’s tail of that portion of spending—for roads, schools, public works programs, everything. Everything that makes communities strong by utilizing tax dollars. The current federal administration has supplemented the infrastructure of our area more than the state has. This area, Cherokee County and Andrews in particular have received more than $20 million from the federal government. Murphy got funds for improving their downtown area and Andrews received a substantial amount in the sum of $16.5 million that was badly needed for improving their water and sewer infrastructure.
- In light of Hurricane Helene and the recent recovery and relief bill that passed, how would you also work to make funds available for the district?
While we were spared during Helene, and there’s no way to make those funds equitable for our area, this is one of those very unusual circumstances where we need to call upon the federal government at every turn for these dollars as well. This is specifically the kind of situation the federal government is required to step up with the Department of Transportation, Health & Human Services and FEMA/Homeland Security.
The west here should always get the funds and what it needs to attend its regular business, but we all know that there are those High Country counties which were utterly devastated and slammed – they are the top priority. All boats have to be lifted here. Our tourism, our progress is all connected to what happens around Asheville and those counties as well. We have to fight for every dollar in this area and I will do that as your representative.
- What national issues given this election cycle do you believe are pertinent to western North Carolinians?
Our roads situation is critical. We’ve been trying to get Corridor K through there, what, over 60 years now?
What we could see with slides, with school children traveling these roads for hours on end, people commuting between casinos for those jobs, this all means we have such a great need to address the transportation issues here in our mountains. I’d love to be on the Transportation Committee as your representative because this road situation has got to be addressed, especially in the near future. Schools and roads are our greatest needs and those funds must be allocated for us to continue to give the people of this area basic required services and to improve upon those.
Details: Visit nancycurtisfornc120.com.