February 9th, 2008

Most of my meetings this week were related to downtown. The events of this week also included a speaking engagement and two interviews. Relatively speaking this was the second slowest week with roughly 20 hours spent performing mayoral duties.

The week started with a meeting which included the town’s legal department and planning staff on how to open up discussion in the Planning and Zoning Board meetings. State general statutes require decisions and motions to be made based on specific criteria. This requirement has generated complaints from the public and from members of the Planning and Zoning Board. The complaints centered on the inability to discuss all issues related to proposals. It was always my intention to change the way the board approached issues once in office. So I asked for this meeting so that we could consider opening up the discussion.  In this meeting the staff and I worked on a process by which many non-required related issues could be discussed. I believe this future change will make Planning and Zoning Board recommendations even more valuable to council members.

There were several meetings this week related to a visit by a three member technical panel from the North Carolina Downtown Development Association. They interviewed council members, staff, and stakeholders to gather information to create a report to be presented to the town in 30 days. Included in the events were a reception with the Heart of Cary Association and a dinner with the technical panel. It will be interesting to see the report from this third party committee. I will keep you posted.

My speaking engagement this week was to the Heart of Cary organization at the Chamber of Commerce. I talked about growing up in Cary and my key initiatives for the future. One thing I pointed out was that the majority of Cary citizens are not “plugged into downtown” and their top issues do not include downtown. Since downtown development will require substantial amounts of public funding and political will, I suggested that they help us find solutions to engage all Cary citizens and gain their support for downtown. I believe they were very receptive to my comments and are dedicated to working with the town.

One of my meetings with staff this week was on the plan of future annexation of ETJ parcels. This plan has to be updated or reaffirmed by council to stay valid and will be coming to council for a vote. The positive for supporting the plan is that residences outside of Cary know what to expect from the town as far as annexation. For example, the first phase could be annexed any time from now until 2011, the second phase from 2011 to 2016, etc. Without the plan people living in these parcels don’t really know what to expect and when it might happen. The downside for supporting this plan is that it appears you are supporting forced annexation. While I don’t support forced annexation I do see the reason to have a plan especially if my feelings on forced annexation are in the minority.

This week also included two interviews with NBC17. The first interview was on the town’s recently adopted land banking program. As pointed out in the interview, the town will land bank for future fire, police, school, etc needs. By doing this we are buying land while it is available and while it is cheaper. I believe it is a proactive approach and good responsible government. We have received criticism on saving land for school, saying that we are creating a double tax. This is not true since we will sell the land to the school system when they need it. My second interview with NBC17 this week was on the worse case scenario for drought. They wanted to know our plans for such problems. Cary has a Water Management plan which covers how we proceed in such times. But I am happy to point out that Cary has over a year’s supply of water due to our proactive approach to conservation. We continue to look for ways to conserve water and currently have a ban on outdoor irrigation.

On Wednesday of this week I sat down with Mayor Meeker and Wake Commissioner Chairman Joe Bryan and their respective managers to discuss transit. While there are many potential ways to move forward in the near future I expressed that Cary’s immediate potential would be in possibly integrating our bus systems. This will be especially important as downtown develops and becomes more urban. The three of us plan to reconnect and discuss this in the near future after talking with our respective boards.

My last meeting of the week was with former Morrisville commissioner Hill Carrow. Mr. Carrow is involved in all types of sports venues and brought USA Baseball to the area and at one time worked on Cary’s Aquatic Center. We discussed the potential for future sports venues in Cary and how existing and new facilities could be used. Cary is an ideal location for sports venues because of its existing facilities, location, and demographics. We’ll see if any of these ideas come to fruition.

Email this week varied widely with the majority once again related to schools. Apparently, the school system found the need to reassign a middle school at the last second without notice. This once again created tremendous hardship for our parents. Council members have added an item on next week’s agenda asking that we meet with school board members. If we can use this meeting to focus on how we can help each other and avoid complaints then it should be productive.

One question I get almost every day is “What is it like being mayor?” My one word answer is “Busy”. I think the fact that someone could go from being a regular guy to the “face of Cary” in 6 months is fascinating. The perception that people have of you before and after is fascinating. Being recognized by people in public places is interesting but sadly most residents couldn’t even name one council member if their life depended on it. Some view the mayor as a person of great power while some view the mayor as the answer to all the town’s problems. The honest truth is that I am just a regular guy working on solutions to problems. I am receiving knowledge at an incredible pace. One analogy I heard was “like receiving information through a fire hose connected to your head.” I believe I have a great supportive council and we will get things done but they will not all occur within the first 100 days.

Well that is about all for now. I hope to post again on Saturday, February 16th. Until then, have a great week and I’ll talk to you later…