By Scott Jenkins
sjenkins@salisburypost.com
EAST SPENCER ó East Spencer voters will find themselves in unfamiliar territory Nov. 3: They won’t have the option of keeping their mayor.
For the first time in eight years, Erma Jefferies won’t be on the ballot. The four-term incumbent is not seeking re-election.
Running to succeed Jefferies are Barbara Mallett, the town’s current mayor pro tem, and John Cowan, a town planning board member who ran a write-in campaign for mayor in 2007.
Among the town’s biggest challenges during the next two-year mayoral term, they say, are improving the town’s image and reining in residential water bills that remain high in spite of work to repair and modernize the town’s aging water system.
But they all see opportunities for East Spencer, too.
Mallett
Mallett says her top priority would be to keep citizens informed of the challenges and opportunities, and to involve them in both.
“Once we pull everybody together and find out where we are, then we can start branching out to improve East Spencer … and my main thing is to improve the image and the appearance of East Spencer,” she said. “If you change the image, you can change the mindset.”
She said the biggest obstacle to that image makeover is a lack of funding to carry it out. The town has taken a step in applying for federal grant money to help revitalize the Robin Circle neighborhood near the Paul Laurence Dunbar Center off South Long Street.
It’s a step in the right direction, she said.
“We can’t tax our people any more,” Mallett said. “There’s money out there; it’s just that East Spencer hasn’t united in its efforts to find it, and that’s what we’re doing now.”
And that revitalization is part of what she sees as the town’s biggest opportunity. East Spencer has contracted with Goler Community Development Corp. of Winston-Salem to help the town map future development efforts, and Mallett says citizens should also be part of that.
“I just feel they’ve been left out and they need to be included in what we’re planning to do,” she said.
Cowan
Cowan said East Spencer residents have been left out, notably from discussions about why water bills remain high.
“I’m kind of puzzled, because our current administration told us that once the water project was completed that water rates would go down,” he said. “In fact, from the citizens I’ve talked to, and I’ve been around East Spencer, it’s been just the opposite. And when I’ve tried to get answers from the current administration, it seems like it’s all hush hush.”
He said getting a handle on why water bills are still high would be his top priority as mayor and is one of the town’s biggest challenges. The other is attracting business.
“I don’t think there’s been a real effort to try to go out and obtain new business or market ourselves, market East Spencer itself,” he said.
Cowan said making government work better with citizens is the town’s best chance to improve itself.
“The opportunity is to improve on the way we do business, get the community involved, get citizens involved in what’s going on, be open and honest with citizens and let them in on the workings of the town,” he said. “We could make big strides just being more open with the public.”
Appeal to voters
Mallett praised Cowan as a “wonderful person” and said voters “should pick who they think is best.” But she pointed out that she is not a newcomer to East Spencer administration.
“I have good experience,” she said. “I’ve worked with city government … over 30 years now, served in all capacities from employee to official and now running for mayor.”
Cowan called Mallett a “very accomplished individual,” but said her experience is part of the problem.
“The problems that East Spencer has, we’ve had them when Miss Mallett was at town hall,” he said. “Nothing’s been solved under this current administration.”