Thick Skin Is Sometimes Necessary.

My first two terms as mayor were akin to my eight years of service on the county planning board: a great learning experience, a growing sense of community benefit per hours invested and a people-skill laboratory unlike ever experienced before. It carried an almost 24/7 responsibility, yet one that I loved.

The first year on any council, in my opinion (and I would soon learn that we all have one) is about getting to know the "team" and the rules that govern sound public dialogue. Every player is initially there to represent some particular community agenda for which they were elected.

The good news is, that very tension can draw out better decisions than any one member might have set out to recommend. It becomes the mayor's role to facilitate the public conversation and the town manager's job to better inform each citizen leader. I truly came to respect the manager's role!

By the second year, in a municipality where the mayor had no vote except in the case of a tie, one had to garner significant community support, and form allies on the council if they expected to make a long term difference. In our case, given only a two year mayoral term, garnering the votes to win another term comes around faster than you can blink. Your reputation in the community, your ability to facilitate public meetings and gain consensus on critical agenda items all come into play at the polls.

If the mayor is favored with a second term, progress can be made. In my case, we were well into our first strategic plan for the community by the end of my first term. In all reality, since incorporation in 1986, most of council's efforts had been focused on a sustainable and efficient public works department given a limited tax rate. Little comprehensive planning had been done and with each expansion of the tax base, by way of new commercial development, our much desired residential village feel seemed threatened.

All that was even more exacerbated by way of traffic from a major connector to an adjoining interstate highway just north of the Village. However, with that traffic came potential for retail income stream.

In 2008, just as I was getting settled in as the new mayor, I had recieved a letter from NCDOT regarding their intended response to a feasibility study being conducted for their connector road. I emphasize "their" as most citizens thought the council controlled the road which ran from the interstate through a very dense retail area on the edge of our quaint village. It had become one of the most accident prone areas in the state, with numerous drive cuts and access points, all developed long before any serious forethought was given to the impact upon our small historic area.

By that time, Master Counsel, my own company was deeply involved with NCDOT on a project that involved an interstate interchange in another nearby city. I had relationships with decision makers, as well as being assigned by the council to serve on the local transportation advisory committee.

I soon discovered that a much needed and long awaited feasibility study requested by council in 2003, had never been provided, one that would benefit our planning and preparation. We had it in hand within a few months, though we found the recommendations and the budgetary consequences necessary to sustain the retail sector were well beyond our means, given our minimal reserves. As well, our charter contained a tax cap that could only be exceeded by way of a legislative or community referendum.

I knew little of this going in and keep in mind that pending election held every two years was only months away.

As stated above, most citizens thought we owned the connector road, and had no idea regarding changes necessary to meet safety requirements such as reduced drive cuts, right in, right-out limitations, along with a proposed widening of the road in order to accommodate recommended median to minimize accident rates. Any additional right-of-way and easement purchases from adjoining property owners would be at the community's expense.

Welcome to a concept called "political will" in a moment where partisan politics can easily come into play when swayed by those with financial means, when the threat of their income stream comes into play. This would be our council's first experience with a local bond referendum, as it seemed we could expect no support from local legislators, though the challenge was originating from within a state department.

A perfect storm was also brewing regarding annexation laws, and would afford only a brief window to decide on expanding our boundaries to the south of town in order to keep tax rates low, meanwhile dealing with those intense transportation challenges.

As well, a major hospital expansion was in play to the north of I-40, threatening to shift the retail market further away from our historic district. The latter was where the resistance would form among the old guard power-players who owned the brick and mortar that held the retail shops along that corridor.

Annexation laws soon shifted in a way that would require considerable capital to provide immediate services to all affected by such annexation, which again was a capital "no-go". We were forced to turn our attention to the small area plan for the north of I-40 that had been in place for some years, thus the attraction of the aforementioned hospital complex, a new retail area, additional rooftops by way of multifamily, followed by a school to better serve our growth.

I am convinced that the resistance that brought on a write-in ballot just weeks before the election was more about the fear of a market shift from the connector corridor, than the NCDOT driven changes, which eventually happened anyway.

It's always about change and growth, as well as how resistance to change is managed, while also executing smart planning. Remember, we were in the midst of our first comprehensive planing process since incorporation as a village.

We soon found ourselves in a very tangled web of misinformation and political threat, though council had unanimously decided to stick with the plan for a bond referendum to better accomodate our future. We all knew the political consequences of a referendum on the ballot of next election. It didn't help that our bond advisors had instructed us that as elected officials, we could not advocate for the bond, only inform. We deferred to the newly formed chamber of commerce for that task.

The week before the referendum there was a media blitz of misinformation and an entire roster of write-in candidates for council and mayor. A disaster was at hand!

The good news, though our referendum failed miserably, a design for parallel roads as an interim had begun, until more drastic changes could be made given continued traffic patterns and accident rates. All this is likely to be completed in a couple years as NCDOT moves forward with similar plans.

This was a pivotal moment in our community and a perfect example of resistance to change, though it did widen the window for that change and spread the capital output overtime, as well as tax ramifications. The current tax rate is at the cap and will likely require legislative action at the state level or another referendum soon.

Though I won a third term, I lost all my returning council members, those who had exercised their full political will to follow through with what our bond counsel offered in order to meet previous desires expressed by the communities input in our comprehensive planning process. All that changed in one evening!

I would learn to eat crow the morning after elections, as the newspapers followed their usual "if it bleeds it leads" front page spread. I recall the line used by one of the resistance organizers, "Mayor Bost is a good man and means well, but...." Thick skin comes through situations like this, even when you do your best to serve others.

I must say however, the larger of our local newspapers did give me a follow-up story on the second morning after their gut wrenching going over. As one reporter shared during a conversation the morning after elections, "we had you on speaker phone around midnight, and we all said that we had never met that guy before." That was not my best leadership moment. Talk about transparency of opinion, I was frustrated to no end, but fortunately I had recovered my sanity by the second interview.

I am currently reading Viktor Frankl's, "Man's Search for Meaning" and though hardly a comparison between my experience and his in Auschwitz, he proposes that there is no "collective guilt" ever to be assigned, but rather individual choices, all contributing to a community's future.

Each of us have a freedom of choice and a responsibility to act accordingly.

I still feel I did just that, though my family has since decided that "thick skin" was not our ambition going forward. As mentioned in my last post, it took a couple other attempts at running for public office to convince me of that!

In 2014, I would accept a much easier role as means of constructive community impact, one that benefited from my formal training in resource development, when surprisingly, I was asked to participate on a local foundation board. I would eventually chair two terms as we walked together through the receipt a major gift that precipitated a transition from private to community foundation. God never wastes pain or preparation!

This would also afford more time to focus on my growing interest in commercial development, mentoring younger men and women. As referenced several posts back, it was in those "Cabin Talk" moments that I would begin to sense the hope of a spiritual Awakening occurring in the hearts of the next generation. A marketplace awakening that also parallels a season of decline in the institutional church.

Maybe we'll pick up there, as I see my next read on Kindle is now available, one entiltled: "The Great De-churching" by Davis & Brown.

Interesting times for sure.