ASHEVILLE - Buncombe County's four Democratic commissioners are putting their support behind Sheriff Quentin Miller, saying a state bill that would mandate him and others to comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainers takes away local control and erodes community trust.


Chairman Brownie Newman, Vice-Chair Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, and commissioners Al Whitesides and Amanda Edwards have signed onto a letter to state lawmakers and Gov. Roy Cooper expressing opposition to the bill known as HB370.

Miller is one of several sheriffs in North Carolina who has pledged to no longer honor ICE detainers.

After months of planning, applications, and deliberation, Buncombe County’s Early Childhood Education and Development Committee finalized allocated funding for $3.6 million dollars to schools and local organizations to make positive, lifelong impacts on our children. In October 2018, the Board of Commissioners voted to establish the fund and a committee for funding recommendations. Early childhood education is one of the Board of Commissioners’ six strategic priorities, and the following goals identified for funding:

• System approach – collaborating with community leaders and stakeholders
• Availability – increasing access to high-quality early childhood care and education
• Affordability – making it affordable for all families
• Workforce – supporting a robust career track in the field of early childhood education
• Family Support – creating a system that responds to needs of families dealing with trauma, poverty, and addiction

“There is a crisis of need for new classrooms and new child care slots, and there is a conjoined crisis of not enough qualified teachers with the pay and benefits for their retention. There are achievement gaps associated with a lack of quality early childhood education. It is our honor and responsibility [as the committee] to provide funding to reach our goal helping every child within the county succeed during their first 2,000 days,”  says District 1 Commissioner Jasmine Beach-Ferrara.

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS) — Buncombe County commissioners approved $3.6 million Tuesday night in support of early childhood education.

There are more than 11,000 children who are 4 or younger in the county, but only a third of those are enrolled in an early childhood education program.

​This more than $3 million investment will be used to create classrooms and teaching centers and will also help create a pipeline to recruit and retain early childhood teachers.