Tonight will be Pat McCrory’s last real City Council meeting as mayor. Sure, he’ll be there Dec. 7 for the new council swearing-in, but that’s different. He’s been Charlotte mayor longer than anyone – 14 years – and leaves a huge legacy, especially with the city’s transportation and light rail system.
I caught up with him this morning to ask what he was thinking and feeling. Any big to-do planned?
No, he said. “I’m not big on goodbyes. I get too sentimental.”
I asked, What are your thoughts? “A combination of sadness with being very proud. … I’m a very sentimental guy so I don’t like the last of anything.” But, he said, “It’s time to move on.”
He talked a lot about a meeting last week in Greenville, S.C., with a coalition of mayors and academics and business people trying to raise awareness of the existence of an urban mega-region from Atlanta through Raleigh. He and retiring Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin are pushing the effort. The group hashed out a mission statement (“It was like making sausage.”) They’ll probably form a 501(c)3 nonprofit group.
And he raved about downtown Greenville, which has reclaimed the historic Reedy River Falls and built a public garden alongside it with a pedestrian suspension bridge over the river. “Just gorgeous!” McCrory said. “They let people swim in the river and play in the falls!” He told Greenville Mayor Knox White he was envious. But McCrory being McCrory, he added “He’s envious of our light rail.”
McCrory said he met with Mayor-elect Anthony Foxx last week and gave him advice about time-management, ethics, how best to spend his time with national groups, etc.
He intends to stay busy with initiatives such as the Mega-region initiative and with speeches all over the country about Charlotte’s light rail line and the accompanying transit-oriented land use planning. He calls his presentation, “From Mayberry to Metropolis: Creating the Best of Both.,” and says, “We’re seen as a role model for how it’s done.”
He talked – again – about his dislike for the way the federal stimulus money is being spent, and his belief that the council’s vote to pursue a planning and design study for a streetcar was misguided.
And you won’t be surprised to hear that he figures he’ll still be putting in a word here, a word there.
Keep an eye on McCrory. I expect he won’t fade quietly into private life.