High Point municipal politics exists in a universe of its own. Unlike Winston-Salem, High Point has a nonpartisan election system. Unlike Greensboro’s city council, elected officials in High Point by all appearances get along and enjoy working together. High Point is the second largest city in Guilford County and the only city in the nation whose prime downtown properties are set aside for a trade show that takes place twice a year. It’s the only Triad municipality whose elections are scheduled on even years. Suggesting High Point look to other cities for models of improvement is fine as far as it goes, but High Pointers also have a pretty good idea of what they like about their town.
High Point has been knocked as being a little boring. That probably wouldn’t offend Latimer Alexander VI, a fabric distributor who has served on city council since 2002.
Alexander noted in an interview this morning that the city has recently spent $16 million to extend a sewer outfall from Johnson Street and Sandy Ridge Road to a planned corporate park in Kernersville, which is projected to create 10,000 jobs over the next 20 years in the area of incorporated High Point along the line.
“That’s the power and magic of a city,” he said. “That’s really how you create opportunity. It’s not the sexiest thing in the world, but then city government is also not the sexiest thing in the world. I had a guy tell me: ‘You guys don’t do anything.’ I said, ‘That’s the greatest compliment you could possibly give me. Did you have your garbage picked up this week? Did water come out when you turned on your faucet? We touched your life in lots of places. If you didn’t notice us touching your life, we’re doing our job.’”
Just as retirements resulted in the addition of two new council members in 2008, this year’s election is guaranteed to bring in at least two additional members to fill vacancies left by the respective elevation of Bill Bencini in Ward 4 and John Faircloth in Ward 6 to the Guilford County Commission and NC House. Alexander and fellow incumbent Mary Lou Blakeney face four challengers for the council’s two at-large seats, and Alexander suggests voters might want to consider keeping some old hands around.
“On a local level, I don’t know that voters are looking for a great deal of change,” he said. “High Point council has always operated in a low-key, collegial way…. I think there’s a comfort level that our citizens have with city administration, confidence that has been earned between city administration, city council, the business community and our citizens. I hope at the next election you’ll see voters confirm that confidence.”
Alexander likes to describe the big picture of balancing revenues with services, amenities for diverse constituencies and government’s role with that of the private sector, and the passion he displays can have a disarming effect.
His approach to governance is nicely encapsulated in his approach to quality of life, which he considers as being defined in as many different ways as there are residents.
“We try real hard to have a diversity of opportunities for people,” he said. “One of the most used areas in our park system is our disk golf course. To a geezer like me, I don’t understand disk golf. My sons love disk golf. I prefer to get on a bike and ride on the greenway for rejuvenation. That’s fun to me, getting some exercise and looking at the scenery. Someone else might want to be sitting in a kayak on the lake. Former Mayor Arnold Koonce, he wants to be on a tennis court banging a ball. I’m the liaison to the parks and recreation commission. One of my responsibilities is to find people to appoint to that commission who represent a wide variety of interests. They laugh at me on council. One of the things I’ve been talking about is, we don’t have a skateboard park. A town of a 100,000 people needs a place for young kids to get on a skateboard.”
Alexander acknowledged that employment is probably the top priority for the High Point electorate. He would be the last to suggest a magic-bullet solution.
“The big thing that people look at a lot is they look at economic incentives and things we might do to get people to locate here,” he said. “That’s important, but it’s like the sizzle on the steak; it’s not the steak. Making property available in parcels that are the right size and having land zoned the right way that has the infrastructure sewer and gas is what counts. The two big economic drivers are sewer lines and a road.”
Alexander, like his colleagues on council, strongly supports the City Project, an effort to revitalize the 15-square-mile area of traditional neighborhoods surrounding downtown. True to the city’s political tradition of business moderation, he embraces a limited-government concept and views the private sector as the prime mover.
“Our core city is making great progress,” he said. “In light of the negative economic conditions we find ourselves in, things are developing more slowly than what we would like to see. You have to do the private piece and the public piece together. Until the economy improves, you won’t see the private side come in to invest. If you go take a look at what our core city plans are, you can see the infrastructure plans in detail. Until the private side moves in, we can’t do the public work.”
The idea for City Project germinated from a visit by High Point officials to the National League of Cities conference in Indianapolis about five years ago, Alexander said. Like Mayor Becky Smothers and Ward 1 Councilwoman Bernita Sims, Alexander is active in intergovernmental organizations that allow elected officials to gain expertise from each other, learn about available grant money and lobby for their respective cities’ interests.
“With our Communities Against Violence program, we have a winning model,” Alexander said. “When we go to these meetings, people want to talk to us about that. We want to talk to them about some things we don’t do as well. How do you revitalize neighborhoods? How do you plan for mixed uses?”
Alexander is a member of the NC League of Municipalities and plans to run for vice president. In that capacity, he effectively lobbied the General Assembly earlier this year against privatizing the state Alcohol Beverage Control system to preserve a vital revenue stream to North Carolina cities.
The next council will face two big tasks, Alexander said, beginning with the next two budgets.
“We have reduced our number of employees,” he said. We had about 1,600 in 2005 and we’re down nearly a hundred. You can spread a little work around…. We’re not at a critical point, but we’re to a point where we’re going to have to replace some folks. Some skill sets have been lost. The next two years of budgets are going to be really extremely difficult. Our revenue isn’t going to get any better. We’ve played all the budget games to defer costs. It comes to a point where the two lines cross.”
The other task is to redraw political ward lines in the city using new Census information. How the lines are drawn will affect who gets elected to the seats, which affects in turn the policies adopted by the city, Alexander said.
He said he expects that wards 1 and 2, which were created with minority majorities to ensure minority representation, will expand geographically to compensate for population loss. Wards 5 and 6 in north High Point are likely to shrink geographically because of a population boom. As a result, wards 3 and 4 will be jostled around in ways that could potentially upset the city’s current political balance.
“For politicians,” Alexander said, “that’s the sexy part of politics.”
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