The Mayor Is In - and Out and About Town
Part 1: Brevard Mayor Maureen Copelof talks about her typical business day, and how you can join the team. Look for Part 2 soon, The Mayor In Person
If you think you’ve seen our Brevard Mayor around town, you’re right. Mayor Maureen Copelof was ringing the Salvation Army bell at Walmart on Monday. On December 1st you might have been with her in the checkout line at the AAUW Book Sale. I was at The Depot on Railroad Avenue this summer, where she was gardening in the small park.
It’s clear she enjoys meeting the people of Brevard. But this is just the beginning. She connects the people she serves with the benefits of city government. She says,
A large part of the Mayor’s responsibility is to be out and about in the community, listening, interfacing, communicating the City’s message, and then taking concerns from the public back to the City staff and City Council for action and results.
The Mayor’s City Hall is a welcoming place. Her door is open to citizens wanting to talk about an issue, to local organizations that want to discuss issues or a proposed partnership, and to other elected officials. She says,
I have a monthly meeting with the Chair and Vice-Chair of the County Commission to discuss items of mutual interest and collaboration.
I meet daily with the City Manager. We are a team, and it’s important to be in sync with what we do and the message that we convey.
Recently I met with NC Representative Mike Clampitt and NC Treasurer Dale Folwell.
Mayor Copelof spends part of her workday answering residents’ letters.
I firmly believe that if you email or write to the Mayor, you will get a personal response from me. It may not be the answer you wanted, but I want people to know I’ve heard and thought about what they have to say.
And she represents the City at all sorts of outreach events, such as speaking to a non-profit or a youth group, or supporting a local business at a ribbon cutting.
Mayor Copelof has a guiding principle for all her interactions:
Keep an open mind. Listen. Always be respectful and civil, even when you don’t agree. Remember that you can accomplish more when you work together as a team.
These are some of the projects completed this year by the City in partnership with citizens, organizations and elected officials:
Mary C. Jenkins Community Center
Clemson Plaza
Brevard Community Garden
Healthcare Listening Sessions
HCA Healthcare Lawsuit initiated
Estatoe Trail Expansion to Main Street & storm water upgrade for Railroad Avenue
Gallimore Road Sewer Project
Doubled the funding for street paving
Increased code enforcement with a full-time dedicated position
Increased staff positions in Public Works to provide better services for our growing community
I was interested to hear from Mayor Copelof about how she approaches community problems that are the most difficult, yet demand solutions. She addressed homelessness in particular.
I believe in confronting hard issues head on and looking for where city government can make a difference. Also, where there’s no one obvious solution, I look for the right balance of responses.
We’re now working on homelessness. We need to partner with existing social service agencies that have the experience and expertise to tell us how the City can best contribute.
I want our city employees who interact with the homeless population to have available the right tools and training. And we must support those who are homeless by incorporating outreach efforts into our standard police procedures.
Also, the City of Brevard must have a clear policy for camping (by anyone) on public property that allows enforcement when needed.
In her Transylvania Times column on November 7, Mayor Copelof listed several ways the City is looking at a solution to homelessness. I’ll mention here just one:
[We are also] working with our legislators in Raleigh to discuss changes at the state level that would be helpful. I personally want to see if we can change the methodology that is used to rank projects for the federal tax credits to better reflect the reality of rural areas.
Without these tax credits it just isn’t possible for a developer to make the affordable housing pro forma work. There are a number of other initiatives …
The Mayor encourages you to become involved in these ways:
Attend City Council meetings to hear discussion of community issues and the logic on why decisions are made
Sign up to speak during public comment at the Council meetings
Volunteer as a citizen for a Committee or Board: the Public Works Committee, the Safety Committee and the Finance and Human Relations Committee, for example, will soon call for new members; look for ads in the Transylvania Times and on the City Website and Facebook page
“Adopt a Green Space” is our new program; you can take responsibility for maintaining a city garden or a stretch of greenspace along the Estatoe Trail
Come to Mayor Copelof’s monthly Meet the Mayor sessions. Here is tomorrow’s as posted in the Transylvania Times:
To conclude, I’d like to say that if you were at the AAUW Book Sale, you might have seen the Mayor of Brevard carrying books like these:
I love historical mysteries as well as non-fiction accounts of explorations/travels and books about nature.