Michael S. Young, long involved in downtown, neighborhood, business and preservation issues in Salisbury, has filed as a candidate for City Council.
Young is a principal and owner in Downtown Graphics Network Inc., which makes and sells municipal, commercial and institutional outdoor displays.
He and his wife, Diane, also are contractors, developers and consultants, specializing in historic preservation and adaptive mixed-use projects. They have been residents of Salisbury for 27 years.
“Salisbury is history made and history in the making,” Young said in a press release.
“Our community’s future and its prosperity will be full of challenges and opportunities. It will require creativity and foresight.
“Like many community-minded leaders before me, I would appreciate the opportunity to address those challenges by sharing my time, talent and resources on Salisbury City Council.”
Young is former executive director of the Central Salisbury Corp., now Downtown Salisbury Inc.
Over the years, he has served on community boards, committees and task forces. He currently sits on the Public Art, Downtown Master Plan and Economic Restructuring committees for Downtown Salisbury, and is heading a subcommittee to institute a commercial maintenance code downtown.
In 2007, he was named Volunteer of the Year by DSI.
Young also is past chairman of the Salisbury Historic Preservation Commission. Under his tenure, he helped institute a moratorium on demolitions of historic downtown commercial buildings and advocated for passage of a state law giving Salisbury City Council final consideration of demolitions in the downtown.
The Youngs recently won the “2008 Best Adaptive Reuse Project” from the N.C .Department of Commerce Main Street Center for their renovation of 117 E. Innes St., home of Uncle Buck’s All American Pub & Grub
The couple live in Fulton Heights where he has served as president of the Fulton Heights Neighborhood Association and advocated to establish Fulton Heights as a National Register Historic District.
Young has served on two city task forces. One studied the creation of a small business incubator; the other, the feasibility of a new civic and meeting center.
As a business owner, Young said he hopes to employ entrepreneurial ways to leverage public investment in these and other civic projects.
As an employer, he looks to develop tools to build a business- and entrepreneurial-friendly climate in Salisbury that will create sustainable jobs less susceptible to global pressures that have contributed to local job losses.
Young earned his bachelor’s degree in urban and metropolitan studies-policy analysis from Michigan State University. He is a member of St. John’s Lutheran Church, where he serves on the Congregational Council.
The Youngs have two children: Lewis, 16, and Emalee, 13.