Harold’s Blog: Fred Bond’s Notebook

From the blog of  Cary Mayor Harold Weinbrecht, covering the week through November 28, 2010. Illustration by Jerry Miller.

This was a very short week due to the Thanksgiving holiday.

Attorneys Needed?

Monday I met with the town attorney to go over current issues. One of the issues I talked about was the fact that Raleigh has a staff of 15 attorneys and Cary has 2. Cary mostly contracts with lawyers that have an expertise in an particular area. This has its advantages and disadvantages. It is my belief that we may need to investigate expanding our staff since our workload is so large. We’ll see what is presented during budget season next year.

Cary Matters

Tuesday I taped the December episode of Cary Matters. My co-host was Don Frantz. Don and I seem to have a chemistry that allows us both to do well. As a result we taped all segments in one take and were done in about 15 minutes.

The Next Mayor

Later Tuesday I met with some folks who are interested in me running for mayor next year. Of course, I will not disclose anything that was said at that meeting on this blog.

Thanksgiving & Fred Bond’s Notebook

Thursday was Thanksgiving and I was blessed to have a good group of family at my house which included my wife, two daughters, my brother, my mother in-law, my aunt, and two cousins. You may or may not know that my aunt is Fellas Bond who was wife of the late Cary Mayor Fred Bond. Her youngest daughter Lisa blessed me with a notebook of Mayor Bond’s notes. This was a fantastic gift and has incredible information including the history of Cary and Mayor Bond’s recollection of his early years. Here is an excerpt:

…”In the early 70s Cary came alive. Growth <came> as a result of the Research Triangle Park. During this period Cary had the distinction of the fastest growing town in North Carolina. Those were difficult times – coping with the influx of people moving into Cary. We really had to get our act together. We did not have a planning department, engineering department, public works department, or recreation department. We had a volunteer fire department and a limited police department. We did not have decent work facilities. We had water problems and we had sewer problems. The council spent many hours in those days meeting, almost nightly.  … Decisions had to be made quickly. We had two basic decisions – to let things drift and let growth develop haphazardly or take control and plan for growth on a quality basis. We chose the later. Our standards were high and there was resistance from developers. They found later that our standards resulted in what we envisioned – a quality community. Top quality breeds top quality. Today we have a first class community recognized as such throughout the state. …”

God bless those past elected officials and the efforts for making Cary what it is today.

For me, most of the Thanksgiving holiday was spent writing the State of the Town address (and raking leaves). The first draft was finally completed with a little over 1900 words. I have sent it to staff for fact checking and suggestions. It is scheduled to be taped on December 8th.

Mailbag

There were a lot of emails before Thanksgiving but very few afterward. There was apparently a campaign launched to get people from all over the state to email the Cary Council and complain about having a tree called the Cary Community Christmas tree. The name was changed in January from the Cary Community tree. I also received several requests for meetings on a variety of topics. Currently my next open date is December 22nd. So I guess I am going to be busy for a while. Other emails included a complaint about the Weldon Ridge alignment and a complaint about annexation.

Mayor’s Circuit

Next week will begin a busy time for me with several speaking engagements. I will be giving talks on Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. Those take time to prepare so it is a little stressful to have them bunched together. Oh well, that is just part of being mayor.

Well that is all for this week. My next post will be on Sunday, December 5th. Please feel free to email me with a comment.

Personal comments please send to augustanat@mindspring.com.
All Town of Cary business – please email me at Harold.Weinbrecht@townofcary.org