Chad Baucom

Congratulations to Rick Russo, Ron Smith, Rodney Dellinger, and Ian Patrick for last evening’s election win.

On a side note, we should all be very thankful to Benita Conrad and Chris Barfield for your years of service and dedication to the Town.

To everyone who chimed in on the “Highway 49 Billboard Controversy” and flooded social media with negative opinions about your Mayor and Town Council:

Yes, it’s certainly easy to appoint yourself as the judge, jury, and executioner.....but feel free to read this and educate yourself on the topic so that you can make an intelligent argument 🙂

Have a great day!

Happy Thanksgiving, from the Baucom Family.

Recently I’ve had quite a few friends and neighbors express concern with a specific development project at the corner of Robinson Church Road and Tom Query Rd. I attended the neighborhood meeting, and also had a few concerns related to that project, such as the design and the relatively small lot sizes as proposed by the developer. As a result, I reached out to the Mayor and Council to provide feedback and suggestions.

While we are on this topic, several of my friends and neighbors have asked a similar question over the past few days: “What is the most effective way to communicate with your elected officials, make sure that your voice is heard, and get results?”

To that end, I’ve put together a list of ways to get provide feedback to local elected officials, and have listed them in order of effectiveness:

1.) Vote (every election)
2.) Request an individual, in-person meeting with Town Council members. Most of them will agree to do so.
3.) Contact your council/mayor by phone. Be polite, and be constructive.
4.) Mail individualized hand-written letters to the Town Council. Put your name and return address on it. Don’t send anonymous letters. Literally no one cares about someone’s opinion when they refuse to put their name on it.
5.) Speak at a council meeting. Be polite, clear, concise.
6.) Participate and speak at town-sponsored public events such as “coffee with the council.” They put on events like that to hear from you. Attend and speak out on issues of importance to you.
7.) Email your Town Council and mayor individually. Be short, concise, and straight to the point, but also polite.
8.) Issue a speaking invitation, invite a council member to speak to a local group to which you belong.
9.) Respond to a survey if the town puts one out (examples: future park expansion, quality of life, etc.)
10.) Write a letter to the editor of the local newspaper.
137.) Spend time complaining about everything on social media group pages, without doing anything listed above.....Yes, I intentionally labeled this as #137, because it is literally the least effective way to get your point across that I’ve ever seen. Very few elected officials are going to take you seriously if you don’t bother to vote, contact them, or show up for meetings to express your opinion on topics of interest. Let’s just be honest here, there is no shortage of people who complain, however very few will actually get involved. Be the person who takes action, if you want to achieve your goal. They will pay attention to you.

From our family to yours, have a safe, and happy Thanksgiving.

Thank you, Veterans. We are forever grateful.