Charlotte creep on minds of board hopefuls

At least two of the three seats up for grabs on the Troutman Board of Aldermen will be filled by incumbents.

Four candidates are running for three at-large seats, meaning that the top three vote-getters are in and lowest one it out.

Incumbents Bill Bowser, Betty Jean Troutman and Amanda Weiser will try to hold off political newcomer Jenny Blevins.

Meanwhile, Mayor Elbert H. Richardson is running unopposed.

Growth is certainly at the top of any Troutman candidate’s list of important topics, as the first waves of what some have called “Charlotte-ization” have already begun hitting the town’s boundaries.

Jenny Blevins
Blevins, 40, an elementary school teacher, was inspired to run by her late mother, Shirley McGuire, whose family goes back several generations in Troutman.

McGuire, who died just two months ago, ran for a seat on the Troutman board in 1999 but lost.

“Since then she had wanted me to run,” Blevins said.

But she said her real reason is larger than fulfilling a mother’s wish.

Blevins’ father was of top official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms who was transferred all over the United States. She moved to Troutman, where her mother’s family was well established, in 1989.

“I really love this town,” she said. “I have lived in some of the largest cities in the country and I like going to the grocery store and running into friends and stopping at the gas station and seeing neighbors.”
Blevins knows growth is coming but she hopes it does not overtake the town.

“Troutman was built by hard-working, middle-class people,” she said. “I want my kids to be able to afford to live here some day, but I feel like it’s starting to get away from that.”

Blevins also wants Troutman’s water utility to become self-sustaining.

“I don’t know how much that would cost,” she said. “But I want us to get away from being dependent on Statesville.”

Bill Bowser
On many governing bodies, the honor of being named mayor pro tem is extended to the highest vote-getter among the at-large candidates.

But Bowser, 47, was so voted by his fellow board members despite finishing third in a three-seat, five-man race four years ago. In that race he edged out fourth-place finisher, Betty Jean Troutman, by seven votes.

“I think I was named mayor pro tem because I’d been there the longest,” said Bowser, who is running for his third term. “I guess the other board members thought I knew how things worked a little better.”
Like all the candidates in the race, Bowser believes growth and its proper management are the board’s priorities.

Not long ago, he said, the issue of growth became so overwhelming that town leaders placed a moratorium on new development. He said that since then the town has taken a proactive approach to new development.

“We’re tried to learn from everyone else,” he said. “And we drafted our unified develpment ordinance. It lays the ground rules for all new construction projects, from the proposal stage to the end.”
Troutman has become a spot in what most consider the extended Charlotte region.

“We have more permits for new houses in the town than we have houses that are already built,” he said.

In other words, when the current residential projects are finished, the town will approximately double in population.

Bowser is among those who do not want Troutman to get too big.

“I understand that it is the right of a property owner to do what he wants with his land, as long as those plans do not interfere with other people or their proptery,” Bowser said. “But I would still hate to lose that small-town atmosphere we have here.”

Bowser said he is also wants to ensure that town services and responsibilities keep up.

“We’ve got a good plan in place for the water and sewer infrastructure,” he said. “And I am committed to keeping the police and fire department where they should be.”

Betty Jean Troutman
At 64, Troutman is the oldest of those running for a board seat in the town named for a past member of her famiy. She has served two different times on the Troutman Board of Aldermen.

Troutman won a four-year term in 1999, but lost her re-election bid in 2003.

In 2005 she was appointed by the board to fill the vacancy made when Charles L. Recktenwald resigned.

Troutman thinks the current board is solid and that all of the candidates in the field, including the untested Blevins, “are very qualified” to be board members.

“I want to win,” she said. “If I didn’t I wouldn’t have filed. But I feel good that no matter who wins we will have a good board and that all the candidates will do a great job.”

She understands the need to know growth issues and have an understanding of other matters concerning the town but she said the most important thing to take into a run for any town or city council is a “true caring for the place you live.”

“And I think all of us who are running really do care about the town,” she said.

Amanda Weiser
Weiser, 45, is an administrator at Iredell Memorial Hospital. She is hoping to secure her second term on the board of aldermen and seek out new ways for her town to be healthier.

“I think I’ve done a good job during my four years on the board,” she said. “And it has been an honor to serve on it.”

Like Blevins, Weiser said she is not so much opposed to growth as she is with “overgrowth.”

“The key, I think, is balance,” Weiser said.

She explained that new development is more than just approving new pockets of houses.

“We talk about growth a lot on the board, but most of it is residential,” she said. “If we are going to grow properly, we need new business, new retail and new industry as well as new housing.”

Weiser is also concerned that Troutman’s small central business district will lose its down-home feeling.

“I think we need to work on the downtown,” she said. “We have to find ways to make sure it stays quaint and does not just become a bunch of strip malls.”

Weiser also thinks there are parts of the town that need to be left alone entirely.

“We need to make sure that the whole town is not gobbled up by development,” she said.

One of Weiser’s goals is to give Troutman a kind of destination anchor. And Weiser believes she knows just the kind of thing that will work. But the idea may have to ferment, so to speak.

“We have a history here of growing grapes,” she said. “And the owners of Devaste Vineyards are building a tasting room. I hope we could attract more vineyards to come here and it would help make Troutman a destination, not just a stop-over between other places.”

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Posted on 11/04/07 at 01:54 AM
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