“Viewpoints” is a place on Chapelboro where local people are encouraged to share their unique perspectives on issues affecting our community. If you’d like to contribute a column on an issue you’re concerned about, interesting happenings around town, reflections on local life — or anything else — send a submission to viewpoints@wchl.com.
Chapel Hill Needs a Collaborative Leader
A perspective from Buffie Webber
When we think of what good leadership looks like, we often think of a lone person at the head of a cause or organization. But when it comes to governing, nothing could be further from the truth. The best leaders collaborate and draw people to them. This was made crystal clear during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Orange County had some of the lowest rates of illness and death in the entire state. Why? Because our county’s leaders – Mayors Hemminger, Lavelle, and Weaver, and County Commission Chair Price – collaborated relentlessly. They worked seamlessly to evaluate the science, rely on our public health officials, craft policies that made sense and worked, and communicated the need for and benefits of these policies to the community to secure their buy-in. And, as the data show, it worked.
Chapel Hill is now in the midst of an election campaign to choose our next mayor, and the differences between the candidates as leaders couldn’t be more stark.
On the one hand, we have Jess Anderson, who has served for eight years on the Council and has a truly impressive record of accomplishment. Working with her colleagues, and achieving one of her campaign goals, Jess has vastly improved the kind of development we get in the Blue Hill district. She led the way for our new five-year budgeting strategy and worked to develop and adopt our new Complete Community Strategy, an important step in getting better development and moving the town’s shared goals forward. How did Jess do this? By understanding that the most important skill a Council Member needs is to be able to relentlessly collaborate with her colleagues to secure their support.
On the other hand, we have Adam Searing, halfway through his first four-year term. Adam is a fine lawyer and our state benefits from his good work. But during his time on Council, he has not achieved any of his priorities, using his time instead to rail against his colleagues, undermine trust in our government, and spread half-truths. He’s proud of the fact that he is often on the losing end of 8-1 votes – there’s no mention of pride in actual accomplishments. With the encouragement of a supporter, I recently watched a segment of a Council work session. Thirty minutes into an exercise in identifying questions the Council wants to be answered in a report due in December, Adam made a statement reiterating what is known that funding the Complete Community Strategy will be difficult and then interrogated the consultant on issues, not on the agenda. After 10 minutes, Mayor Pam Hemminger suggests Council discussion get back on track.
After serving on the Chapel Hill Planning Commission, I recognize the importance and need in moving the town’s shared goals forward by writing the Complete Community Strategy. We are not an easy town to govern and in creating a scope-of-work consultants help coalescing around what is possible. Many development projects, including building in the Blue Hill district, could have been improved if the tool had been available earlier.
Which do I choose? I opt for Jess Anderson, a Mayor who can collaborate with colleagues to do the work of the Town, meet challenges as they emerge, and lead our Town to an exciting future, not a candidate who has yet to do the real job of Council to reach his goals. Instead of choosing to work with colleagues who bring different ideas to the table, Adam is running with a slate of like-minded candidates with minimal experience, offering some old, outdated ideas and passing off as new some that have already been implemented.
After six years of addressing tough issues on the Chapel Hill Planning Commission, I know how important it is to work together for the good of our town. The choice for me this year is clear.
“Viewpoints” on Chapelboro is a recurring series of community-submitted opinion columns. All thoughts, ideas, opinions and expressions in this series are those of the author, and do not reflect the work or reporting of 97.9 The Hill and Chapelboro.com.
