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After primary elections in May, two candidates in the race for the Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners apparently had missed winning spots on the November ballot.
Republicans Bob Carruth and Richard Suggs finished third and fourth, respectively, in a field of 10 GOP candidates seeking two seats on the county board.
Incumbents Sue Casper and Carolyn Carpenter, seeking re-election, took the top two spots. The runoff was held because none of the four won 40 percent of the vote in the primary.
In a runoff vote that drew far fewer people to the polls than the primaries, the incumbents and challengers swapped places, ensuring two new faces on the county board.
Democrats Darrell Joyner and John Lentz round out the Nov. 7 ballot for County Commissioner.
All four candidates say the county is at a critical juncture in how it deals with growth. They all agree that education must be a priority in Cabarrus County.
They have varying opinions on how to handle new development, and they part ways on some issues, such as whether commissioners should be elected by districts.
Joyner and Lentz, the Democrats, face the challenge of winning seats on a board that has been wholly Republican since 1990, though registered Republicans overtook Democrats in Cabarrus only last year and hold a slim margin.
The keys to winning — in some combination, all the candidates say — will be getting their party faithful to the polls, winning some crossover votes and proving to the more than 15,000 unaffiliated voters in the county that they hold similar views.
Darrell Joyner
Joyner said that his views are based in the reason he’s running, to “make Cabarrus County a better place to live and educate our children.”
A Cabarrus native who lives near southern Concord, Joyner spent 30 years working for the Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Department before retiring.
He said the biggest challenge facing the county in the next four years is meeting the needs of a growing population that drives the need for more schools, law enforcement and utilities and better roads.
Joyner said he “doesn’t have all the answers” but believes the county should rely on its professional planners, compare notes with other areas facing the same pressures and listen to the public.
“I would be a good listener and take all the issues that come before me and listen to both sides, gathering all the information I could, and vote for the interests of all citizens,” he said.
Joyner concedes that he doesn’t have all the information he’d need to form solid opinions on some issues, like tax incentives for industry, the effectiveness of the Unified Development Ordinance or the county’s ability to reduce taxes and maintain services.
Commissioners Chairman Arne Fennel said this year, after the board reduced the county tax rate by 3 cents to 56 cents for every $100 of property value, that he’d like to further reduce the rate to 50 cents within five years. He believes it can be done while meeting the county’s obligations.
Joyner said he’s sure there are areas in the budget that can be cut, but he hasn’t seen the same numbers that Fennel has and he’s not sure how cutting taxes would affect services.
He is certain of two things: Commissioners and school board must build a better relationship, and county commissioners should be elected by district.
“The citizens I have spoken to are in favor of” district representation on the county board, he said, and he would support a referendum on the matter.
While commissioners aren’t responsible for roads, he said, they should do all they can, on their own and through other elected representatives, to capture more state and federal road money.
John Lentz
Lentz comes to the race as the only candidate with previous experience as an elected official.
He served on the Cabarrus County Board of Education beginning in the early 1980s, when the Concord and Cabarrus systems merged. He also served 12 years on the Cabarrus County Board of Health.
But he emphasizes his experience in education; he finished a 30-year career as a teacher and administrator when he retired as principal at Central Cabarrus High last year.
“I am running as an education commissioner, and that’s my main issue,” he said.
Lentz says the relationship between commissioners and the school board is obviously strained. And commissioners, he said, have apparently taken control of some school board responsibilities.
For education to be the county’s top priority, as Lentz said it should be, there must be better understanding and communication between the boards, he said.
“I see myself as a liaison between all these areas, and my background in the school business, I think should make a difference,” he said.
On growth, Lentz said the county must be serious about planning for the future. He supports a master plan looking 10 years out and believes the county needs the Unified Development Ordinance, a countywide planning and zoning document, though it may require some changes.
Because of growth, Lentz said the county has too few parks and other recreational facilities. He supports putting a bond referendum to pay for new parks and “finish some of the ideas that we’ve had on the drawing board for five and 10 years.”
Lentz said that he’s willing to consider giving tax incentives on a limited basis and only to those companies that will bring the county great long-term benefits.
He said he’s not sure about Fennel’s proposal to cut taxes by 5 cents in five years. Though he’d like to cut taxes every year, he said, the county has to maintain its services. This year, he pointed out, the county took money from its savings to balance the budget.
And Lentz, a Cabarrus native who lives in Harrisburg, said he favors district representation on the county board.
Bob Carruth
Carruth has lived in Cabarrus County only five years, but he says growing up near Atlanta gives him a unique perspective on the potential effects of growth on this county.
“I can see that we’re going to be facing the same issues that many of the communities around Atlanta have faced over the last 10 or 15 years,” he said. “I believe I can provide the leadership needed to steer us through that growth.”
Carruth, of Concord, said the county must stay ahead of growth with its infrastructure, and he sees several ways to do that, including refining methods the county already employs.
He supports a measure to ensure that facilities like water and sewer pipes, schools and roads in a particular area can support development before the county approves such development.
He also supports working with developers who donate land for schools or money for traffic studies, as well as allowing larger developments to be built in phases.
But, he added, both sides will have to better communicate and leave behind some hard feelings that have kept them from working well together in the past.
“I’ve seen that since I’ve been here,” he said, noting talk of building moratoria and the impression of some that developers and builders “want to take over” the county. “I want to work to build the trust that’s needed there.”
He also wants to change the relationship between commissioners and school board, he said. Carruth finds too much politics in the process of building schools and said the two boards must agree on the other’s role.
“Considering we’re going to build more public schools than any other facility in this county over the next 10 years, that’s something I think we need to take a serious look at,” he said.
In the short term, Carruth said that “tweaking” and implementing the Unified Development Ordinance, while soliciting more public comment, is a priority.
On tax incentives for businesses, Carruth finds it unfortunate that “we live in a world today that has gone incentive mad.” But, he said that incentives have become an important tool in diversifying the county’s tax base and shifting the burden from residents to business.
He called Fennel’s proposed tax-reduction plan a “a very good goal to work towards” but said he’d have to be convinced that county services won’t suffer. before supporting it.
Carruth opposes district representation. He said it could exclude some very good leaders from serving on the board simply because of where they live and could prove divisive.
Richard Suggs
Suggs, of Concord, is making his second run for a county board seat. He finished fourth in 1998, behind Fennel and commissioners Coy Privette and Jeff Barnhart, in a crowded Republican field.
A charter member of the Cabarrus County Taxpayers Association, Suggs said he’s running because he believes the county can “build schools more efficiently and spend the government’s money in a more efficient manner.”
Suggs calls himself “conservative, 100-percent.” He stands for “less taxes and less government,” he said. “I’m not anti-government, but I feel like the government needs to be out of a lot of the affairs of individuals.”
He said he doesn’t see growth in Cabarrus as a problem, and not something the county should necessarily try to control. He believes the economy will take care of that, he said.
“When we personally try to control growth, we’re stepping in economic growth that we shouldn’t be messing with,” he said. “If growth doesn’t pay the taxes, then individuals will.”
He does not, however, favor tax incentives to lure new businesses to Cabarrus. He calls that “corporate welfare” and said it’s unfair to ask small, established businesses to pay taxes while giving large, new businesses tax breaks.
He said that industry is coming, and increasing the county tax base, and that’s why he believes Fennel’s proposed tax-rate reductions will work.
Suggs said the best thing the county can do is prepare for growth as it comes. But he doesn’t like the Unified Development Ordinance because it is subject to “too many possible interpretations.”
When discussing being ready for growth, education tops his list.
“To have good growth, you’ve got to have good schools, and we’re going to try to stay in that pattern,” he said.
He also says that the commissioners and the school board must have an “open dialogue.” But he said he believes both boards know their roles, and he agrees with the commissioners requiring the school board to seek proposals from several architects before building new schools.
Suggs opposes representation by district on the county board. He said that he “can serve any area of the county” and believes other commissioners ought to be able to as well.
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