The Tryon Daily Bulletin requested that commission candidates respond to five questions. Their answers to two of those questions are available below. Look for the answers to remaining questions in the Bulletin over the next week.

Why are you running for the Polk County Board of Commissioners?
EMILY BARTLETT:

I have several reasons for running for the office of Polk County Commissioner. Like many in our area I have concerns about the direction our county is headed, not from a policy standpoint, but with the hate and anger and casual regard for the truth I see on television and in print.

As a small community we cannot afford to immulate what we see politically on a national level. It only serves to separate us and divert our energy from working to solve local problems to improve the lives of the people in our county.

The second reason I am running relates to the first as well as the fact that I am a mother of two sons and I work with the school system. I believe, just as we learn to parent from observation of our own parents and the adults around us, we also learn to be citizens, to either take the time and energy, learn about the issues with an open mind or leave the heavy lifting to others.

We need our young people to one day take over for us and we have created an atmosphere where our best and brightest won’t run for office and that needs to change.

As Ann Romney recently said, (my Democrat friends are fainting here that I am referencing her remarks) running for office is difficult and our leaders are people like you and I with all the frailties we all have. Tip O’Neil (back on safer ground) once said that, “All politics is local.” Perhaps if we change the tone of local politics it will grow upward instead of trickling down.