“You know, when you’re looking to make the world a better place, local government is where it’s at.”
The Town of Chapel Hill in collaboration with 97.9 The Hill WCHL & Chapelboro.com present “Our Town: Stories of Chapel Hill.” Each month you’ll hear from the people at the heart of your local government who are learning, serving, and working together to build a community where people thrive. This month, Ted Voorhees reflects on his first six months serving as town manager; and tells the story of why he chose to come to Chapel Hill.
Ted Voorhees: Why Chapel Hill? So I have lived in many communities across the country, I’m the son of a military officer, and that includes Hawaii and California. But thinking about what attracted me to Chapel Hill, from my very first time as a local government person in North Carolina, I came to the UNC School of Government, and it just seemed like such a wonderful place to be and to connect with others who have a passion for local government. I hadn’t spent a lot of time in Chapel Hill, but my grandparents lived in Durham, three of my cousins went to school here. We were always Tar Heel fans, I was born in Charlotte, so there was a bit of a mystique around Chapel Hill and a connectedness. And then when I came here for that school of government course, I said, “wow, this is a place I might want to be someday.”
Voorhees: Part of the town’s mission is learning, serving, and working together. And in the time that I’ve been here, I really see that, I really see that every day. The deep sense of commitment to community, to caring about each other is really palpable here. Everyone I’ve met just really exudes that care and commitment to community. It is very compelling. It is a powerful motivator for folks in local government to be in a community that wants success for everyone, with a strong level of inclusiveness, to addressing inequities, to advancing connectedness. I mean, these are things that many folks in local government strive for, and to be a part of a community where it’s really just baked into the community’s DNA, that is really compelling and exciting.
Voorhees: We can’t disconnect ourselves from what’s going on at the federal and state level. We have to think hard about those things and what we can do. But as far as making a difference and supporting our community, local government is the level of government that affects most people day to day. We maybe hear about the federal government and the state government in the news, but they’re not the ones paving your streets, they’re not the ones responding to a 911 call, they’re not the ones running basketball (practice and games) for your kids, that sort of thing. So that’s where I feel local government is the most compelling place for wanting to be involved in people’s lives, for making a difference, for being a change agent, for moving a community forward. I think that’s what drives most people who get into local government. You know, when you’re looking to make the world a better place, local government is where it’s at.
Voorhees: A question I get a lot is, “What exactly is a town manager?” In the council-manager form of government, what we have is an elected legislative body. The mayor and town council are a part of that, but then we have an appointed manager that is an appointed executive. My role is to supervise all the different departments. We have a police chief, a public works director, a parks director, and a lot of different folks doing a lot of different things, and the Town Manager is sort of like a conductor in an orchestra. We’re the one who is tasked with trying to make sure we’re all singing from the same sheet of music and that we’re carrying out the goals and objectives of the elected legislative body. So when I talk about the conductor analogy, I sort of think about the town council being like the board of directors of a symphony orchestra. So they’re going to decide what the budget is, what the community wants, and then they’re going to pass that information along to the conductor. So that’s a town manager in short.
Voorhees: If somebody said, “Hey Ted, what’s going on right now? What’s in your mind for where we are headed?” We are about to start into budget season. That’s always a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity to set priorities. In fact, we just came out of a retreat with town council where they really came together around some key priorities that speak to the needs of the community. Housing stayed as a top priority, but also financial sustainability and organizational capacity. I think the idea that we have to have the money and the people and the systems to be able to do what they want to do is always a challenge with limited resources. And this town council gets it, they are really focused on it, and I think the town staff really appreciates that. We’re going to do some extra work focusing on that, to make sure that we can continue to deliver on the important services and goals that the town council has in mind.
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