The election was Tuesday, and Rutherford County has new faces headed into office. Over the coming weeks, The Floor Is Yours is sitting down with each of them — not the 30-second campaign version, but the actual person.

First up: Commissioner-Elect Scott Haynes. Most of you know him from the Green Hill Store on the road between Rutherfordton and Lake Lure, the family business that became the community's hub after Helene. He's a lifelong Rutherford County resident, a retired Army Reserve Sergeant First Class with 23 years of service, and a former police officer in Lake Lure and Forest City. On Tuesday, voters sent him to the Board of Commissioners. He'll be sworn in at the first meeting in December.

In this conversation, Scott talks about why he ran ("if I don't get involved, somebody else is going to, and I got no excuse, no complaints"), what he learned from law enforcement and the military, and his goal of taking the "buddy system" out of local government. But the headline is simple: fix the small problems that affect people every day, and the big picture gets easier. Phones that don't get answered. Calls that don't get returned. Outdated numbers floating around the internet. A county website where you can't find who to call. Scott says those are the first things the new board should fix — and none of it costs much money.

Also in this episode:

• Animal Control, and what should happen when a citizen calls and nobody answers
• The county budget — why Scott wants to understand every line item before deciding anything
• Opioid settlement money and the recovery programs it's supposed to fund
• The county's 77-page comprehensive plan, which the outgoing board held for a public hearing rather than a vote — and why Scott wants you to read it and show up the first Monday in December
• What this nearly brand-new board has going for it
• What Scott needs from you, and his message to anyone who has thought about running and talked themselves out of it

Scott says he answers his phone. Take him up on it.

Have something you want the show to look into — a call that never got returned, an office you can't reach, a question you can't get answered? Email thefloorisyoursradio@gmail.com. You bring it, we go find it.

The Floor Is Yours airs on Eagle Country Radio. Host: Andrew LaBreche.

Joshua Millwood is running for Rutherford County Board of Education, and he got there by doing something unusual: when the commissioners and the school board produced two irreconcilable numbers for the same budget two years ago, he read the audits instead of picking a side.

In this episode, Josh walks through what he found. The $6.1 million deficit that drove the closure of Mt. Vernon-Ruth Elementary and the Rutherford Opportunity Center — and why, after digging through meeting minutes, ACFRs, and an unqualified audit opinion, he won't call it fraud. He explains the proposed "two-feeder system" from zero: consolidating three high schools into two means redrawing district lines, not absorbing one school into another; nothing has been voted on; a feasibility study is underway; and a realistic timeline is years, not months. He lays out the $65 million state capital grant the county could use to renovate East or Chase, and why Iredell County's $130 million new build — now $40 million short — is a cautionary tale.

The second half turns to money the county isn't collecting. Rutherford County's exceptional-children population is about 19 percent; the state funds 13. Senate Bill 960 would raise that cap to 16 percent, worth an estimated $900,000 to $1.2 million a year locally. It's a Democrat-sponsored bill that no Republican has signed onto — and Josh, a registered Republican, says he'll work across the aisle to move it. Andrew makes the case for a county grant writer, and both discuss repairing the relationship between the Board of Education and the incoming county commission.

Also: Josh's family's path from Cone Mills to the school system, 13 years as a foster parent in a county with 200-plus kids in care and roughly 15 foster families, and why his platform is transparency without accusations.

Election Day is November 3, 2026. Early voting is open. Questions and story ideas: thefloorisyoursradio@gmail.com.