Local Government Officials Host Panel at HES

Hendersonville Elementary third-graders had been learning about state and local government for about six weeks when elected officials and Henderson County representatives sat down with them and hosted an interactive panel.

The students had a good grasp of the different jobs in government, and even held their own elections for leadership positions in their classes. So when Hendersonville Mayor Barbara Volk, City Councilman Jerry Smith, Henderson County Clerk of Superior Court Kim Gasperson-Justice, County Manager Assistant Megan Powell and Henderson County Public Information Officer Kathryn Finotti visited the third-graders, they helped clear up who did what for city and county citizens.

“When you think of government, what do you think we’re supposed to be doing for you?” Smith asked the students.

“Provide us with roads and parks?” said Jack D.

Smith said, yes, the city has more than 60 miles of roads in Hendersonville, and it’s the city’s job to maintain and repave them. The other roads are state-owned and maintained, he explained.

Then Smith asked students if they’d ever seen a Hendersonville police car, fire truck or recycling truck. Every hand in the media center shot up.

“Those are some examples of some of the services the city provides,” he said.

But where does the recycling and trash go after the city picks it up? That’s where the county takes over, Powell said. She explained that the county runs the landfill where City of Hendersonville trash and recycling trucks drop off garbage and recyclables, “and we dispose of it responsibly.”

Powell had students raise their hands if they had library cards, and told them that the county is also responsible for building libraries – as well as schools.

“The thing that we spend the most money on each year is the school system,” Powell said. “That’s the most important thing that we do.”

Powell, Finotti and Gasperson-Justice answered questions about their education, and shared just how much schooling they completed to attain their jobs in local government. Gasperson-Justice talked about the court system and said she, like others on the panel, was elected to her position by citizens.

Volk and Smith said in order to vote for Hendersonville City Council members, individuals had to be 18 years old and live within city limits. Volk added that even though the students weren’t yet old enough to cast votes, they could still make a difference in their community and state.

She shared her famous “white squirrel story,” about the time citizens rallied to make Hendersonville a white squirrel sanctuary, just as the city is a sanctuary for birds. Volk explained that, prior to 1996, the City of Hendersonville wasn’t allowed to adopt an ordinance creating a sanctuary for white squirrels because the N.C. General Assembly hadn’t specifically stated that cities could do so – whereas the General Assembly did allow cities to create bird sanctuaries.

Volk said Hendersonville residents – including Hendersonville Elementary students at the time– wrote letters to the General Assembly asking for the white squirrel sanctuary. And in 1996, the cities of Hendersonville and Brevard were authorized by the General Assembly to create squirrel sanctuaries by ordinance.

“You might not be old enough to vote,” Volk told students. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t be part of the process.”

(Written by Molly McGowan Gorsuch, HCPS Public Information Officer.)