I have personally served on boards, advisory groups, committees and mayoral task forces to help build, promote, and continue the forward progress of our city’s goal of completing the River Hawk Greenway.

This is the reason I joined the Mount Holly Community Development Foundation in 2007 and served for years.  I love the greenways and hope to see them completed from Tuck Park all the way to Mountain Island Dam and beyond.

As a city council member, I have routinely voted to support staff time developing the rough trail in the north of the city.  I have supported the installation of the new pedestrian bridge from River Street Park to the north to continue the connection there.  I have supported ordinance changes that require builders to meet certain width, material and safety requirements for any additions to our greenway system.  I supported staff and voted to direct funds to trail cameras when there were safety concerns expressed by trail walkers.

I will never vote for any project or program that would harm or endanger the greenways that I have been a big supporter of for over 15 years.

In 2021, the city put a bond referendum on the ballot to fund the building of an expanded Veterans Park downtown.  As we all know, the referendum met a good deal of resistance from citizens that did not support it.  Overwhelmingly, the comments that I (as well as other members of Council) received about the park expansion was that people liked the idea of the park, but not the increase in taxes.  So, council set out to identify how the idea of a downtown park could be achieved without raising taxes.  

Going back to the Strategic Vision Plan developed in 2018, the three key principled identified by citizens were to 1. Pursue public private partnerships, 2 . maintain downtown scale, and 3. Increase downtown housing options.  That document did not call for the larger park plan developed and offered for the bond referendum, but a smaller park expansion with residential infill.  The new direction the council supported unanimously in 2022-2023 was a less ambitious and, frankly, less expensive park expansion that included a public private partnership that would include residential infill and park space.

That is why the city began to acquire property along E. Central Ave as we were informed by experts that the project would be much more interesting to a developer if the city had control of the land it was hoping to have developed.  Over the next few years, the city acquired and cleared several properties on this block to meet this goal.  

Currently, the city is in talks with a national developer that is very interested in this location and is working with the city’s Planning Department to reach a final proposal to present to council.  

Page 63 of the 2018 Strategic Vision Plan showing the block behind Main Street where development is proposed.   This is a rough concept drawing of what could be built there. 

The downtown development will allow for several of the strategic vision plan goals to be accomplished.  The extension of the Main Street aesthetic beyond Main Street, the population density increase to help support our downtown businesses, and the public private partnership where the new developer creates the downtown park on the property. It will create an enormous investment in our downtown, improve quality of life for those nearby and utilizing the park, improve the business climate in the central business district, potentially add new commercial spaces, and add additional tax revenue for the city (which prevents future increases in taxes on current citizens as costs increase).  And…. It appears, based on early numbers, that the city will recoup the money spent acquiring the property to get the development started.  

This is an example of the type of controlled, planned growth that will be very positive for Mount Holly in the long term. It is also a perfect example of long-term planning done by the city’s council and staff.  The idea and goal was set in 2018, the land acquired 2022-2025, and hopefully, the development will begin in the near future. 

When my husband and I moved to Mount Holly in 2006 shortly after we were married, Mount Holly was a bit of a ghost town.  Main Street had many boarded-up storefronts and empty buildings.  The few businesses ‘keeping the lights on’ were closed after normal business hours and Main Street was deserted.  Oh, how far we have come in the last 20 years.  

The city began the rehab of our central business district when it passed the bond referendum in 2001 to update the streetscape on Main Street with the beautiful brick sidewalks and marble curbs and really invested in downtown.  Since then, Mount Holly has taken additional important steps to strengthen our economy – from supporting small businesses, hiring a full-time economic development director, developing plans for land use and the focus of different types of business, working with our large industry partners to maintain positive relationships, and beginning to revitalize key areas. 

In my mind, future economic development is not about putting more and more businesses on Main Street, but to focus on the several emerging business districts in the city to focus commercial and industrial growth in planned areas.  That means smart growth that attracts new businesses while protecting the character of our downtown and community as a whole.  It means we continue to invest in infrastructure, support local entrepreneurs, and expand job opportunities for our residents.  In 2019, the city developed a Land Use Plan to help lay out logical future uses of land.  The plan identified ‘neighborhood centers’ that could host commercial developments without overburdening the central business district in our downtown. A good example of this in action is the new growth at the south gateway near I-85.  That neighborhood center has seen the addition of a new hotel, office buildings, and more is to come.  

By building on what we’ve already started, we can make Mount Holly a place where businesses thrive, families prosper, and young people choose to stay and build their futures in a quaint and beautiful city. 

Overcrowding, traffic, and growth are all symptoms of the same issue – unplanned growth.  Mount Holly was slower to rebound from the years of boarded up windows and empty storefronts.  Other local communities rebounded faster with businesses and housing developments, but one benefit to taking our time?  Planning.  We may be growing slower than some other local communities, but I think that is actually a very good thing.  

The city of Mount Holly has spent a lot of time planning.  It is held in high regard and commended in this region for having a very strong dedication to planning.  With the city’s Planning Department leading the way, we have developed plans to help guide and shape the growth of the community.  The city staff does a wonderful job of prioritizing the work on goals from the city’s Strategic Vision Plan, Land Use Plan, and Park Plan.

The city has developed in-depth systems to review proposed projects to ensure they will mesh with the community, fit within our infrastructure capabilities, and be a net positive for the community.  We have codes and subdivision requirements that were not around 20+ years ago to guide new developments.  All new developments require traffic impact studies and for the developer to pay to make required road improvements.  Additionally, those developments are reviewed by our Utilities Department, the Planning Department, the city engineer, the Gaston County School Board, the Police Department, and the Fire Department.  The council has declined annexations and approvals when the departments had concerns for a development.  The city is not interested in growth for growth’s sake and neither am I.  

I firmly believe that the city needs to continue to grow to stay vibrant and healthy, but that growth does not need to be dramatic, fast or chaotic.  Planned growth in areas of the city that can handle the increase in needs are what is desirable.  Mount Holly is in a great situation where we don’t ‘need’ growth.  If someone comes to us wanting to build we have some leverage to control the conversation.  Also, the growth I support is not enormous developments with a thousand homes.  I think smaller infill residential developments and commercial and business developments are what the city would benefit from most at present.  

The reality is that we live minutes from one of the fastest growing cities in the country.  All sides of Charlotte have seen dramatic expansion except the west.  There is a housing shortage. Growth is coming our way, but fortunately, we have the knowledge and experience to control what comes so that Mount Holly benefits from it and isn’t negatively impacted.  

Mount Holly developed its first strategic vision plan (SVP) in 2008 with the help of a consulting firm.  The original plan set 68 goals for the city and was designed to help guide the city for about 10 years.  During that time, the city completed 52 of those goals.  

The process of updating the SVP was started again in 2017 with over 40 citizen input meetings, surveys, consultation with the staff, and stakeholder meetings.  After months and thousands of touchpoints from our citizens, the firm provided an updated plan in 2018 that was approved by the city council.  It includes  111 new and continued goals focused on the core values identified by citizens: 1. To preserve and enhance small town character, 2. Continue to connect the downtown core, 3. Improve connections throughout the city, 4. Increase vibrancy through art and placemaking, 5. Enhance gateways and first impressions, 6. Advance the legacy of visionary leadership.  So far, the city has completed 45 of the goals and has begun work on 18 more. 

The city will begin the process again in the near future to carry the city into the next ten years with plans based on feedback from our citizens and businesses. 

Fundamentally, I believe trust between local government and our community must be built on openness, honesty, and two-way communication.  I believe citizens deserve clear information, honest dialogue, and a meaningful role in shaping the future of the city.  

The current council has made major moves to improve transparency.  The meetings are streamed live on Facebook and the recordings are available on the website.  The meeting minutes are also available on the website.  The plans that have been developed in recent years – the Strategic Vision Plan, the Land Use Plan, the Park Plan, Pedestrian Plan, Bicycle Plan, Trail Master Plan – are all available on the website.  Our new city manager has implemented new strategies to communicate regularly with citizens and our staff uses social media and monthly newsletters to communicate with residents.  

I have supported all of the initiatives to make our council agendas, budgets, and meeting recordings easier for residents to access and understand.  I have participated in meetings, question-and-answer sessions, and one-on-one conversations with residents to answer questions and gain perspective on those residents.  I take pride in answering calls, emails and messages from citizens and participating in dialogue on social media platforms all with the goal of sharing information.  

If re-elected, I will continue to strengthen these efforts and to continue to strive and encourage the city to strive to share information by expanding digital tools for information and to encourage public participation and feedback.  

The Mount Holly Historic Society (MHHS) was started in the early 2010s by civic-minded citizens that knew a lot of historic items had been donated to the city and were being stored.  The city did not have the staff to inventory all the items that had been donated and didn’t have a location to display them.  These citizens formed the non-profit and signed a memorandum of understanding with the city that the historic artifacts belonged to the city, so the city would help the MHHS with their mission to inventory, preserve, and display the artifacts.  The city provided the empty Old City Hall building at 131 S. Main Steet for the MHHS to create their museum space.  The city has continued to pay the utilities, provide repairs as needed, and provide an annual stipend.  

When the city sold the Old City Hall Annex several years ago, it became apparent that the MHHS had expanded and was using both floors of the annex as well as the original building because the foundation damage and flooding in the original building made it a bad location to store the artifacts.  Apparently, a good number of artifacts had been destroyed by the presence of mold and mildew in the basement.  

As a microbiologist, I have studies mold and mildew and know that if it is somewhere in a building, the spores are everywhere in that building.  I was worried about the ongoing storage of the artifacts and the museum displays in that building as well as the health of the volunteers in the MHHS.  Breathing in mold spores over long periods of time can be very dangerous to a person’s lungs.  I began discussions with staff and fellow council members about the possibility of relocating the museum to an unoccupied space in the municipal complex.  

With help from staff, I presented the idea to the council at the annual planning retreat in February 2022.  We suggested that we could move the museum and rehab the building, rent the spaces and recoup the money spent to move and upgrade the museum with future rental income.  The idea passed unanimously with the caveat that the MHHS be looped in and the discussion started with them to get their ‘buy in’.  Through some unfortunate circumstances, despite meetings held and attempts made, the entire board and membership of the MHHS were not informed of the idea to move and upgrade the museum.  Hindsight being 20/20, a much stronger attempt to reach all members and stakeholders with MHHS should have been made.  I will admit to being too passive during that time and not getting the message out.  

However, when the council began to move forward to find a consultant to help steer the project, council met with strong resistance and a campaign against moving the museum and to ‘Save our History’.  The city stopped all forward movement and held a meeting with all stakeholders of the MHHS, artifact donors, and interested citizens to discuss the project.  The outcome of that meeting was to create a facility committee for 131 S. Main street.  This committee had an engineering firm study the building to determine the feasibility of rehabbing the space to keep the museum in place.  After months of meetings and studies, the final (over 100 page) report came back with the environmental concerns – mold, mildew, foundation damage, electrical concerns, lead paint, asbestos, roof – and the estimated cost of 1.  Rehabbing the entire building, 2. Rehabbing just the floor with the museum, and 3. Rehabbing just the bottom two floors.  All options were more money than the city had without a possibility of return, so the idea of using the space for rental income was dropped, and the possibility of rehabbing the space for the museum was too costly.  

The committee returned a recommendation to the council that we sell the building.  The city found a project team to work on building the new museum space and arranging for the moving of the artifacts when needed.  The team includes museum architects, lighting and acoustics engineers, and others that bring their expertise to the project.  They proceeded with the design and the construction bid went out this spring to build out the space in the Municipal Complex.  

This space will be done by the Fall of 2025 and the museum exhibits will be moved to the new space.  The museum will be open more days a week and will have additional exhibit space near the city offices in the Grand Hall.  

The sale of the Old City Hall building will allow the city to cover much of the cost of the design, construction and upgrade to the exhibits that will take place.  The city chose to sell the building under an economic development statute so that the future use of the building is assured to be an economic driver for Main Street.  The current proposal is a restaurant and office space.  The building will have to be rehabbed and the historic nature of the building will have to be maintained per the contract. 

I believe this project will be a positive for Main Street and a positive for the museum as the artifacts will be in a safe, climate controlled space and will undergo an upgrade from professional museum designers.

No one likes paying taxes.  I don’t like it either, but one thing being on council has helped me to see is how our tax dollars are spent. In the case of our water and sewer rate, Mount Holly utilizes a third-party consulting firm to perform a rate study and help analyze and determine the rates for the next five years.  This was done five years ago and will hopefully, be done every five years going forward so the city ensures it is collecting the correct amount of money for the treatment of our water and sewage.  

As we all know, the cost of nearly everything has been increasing.  The cost of the chemicals, staffing, and equipment needed to treat the water and sewage as well as maintain the lines, pump stations, and water towers associated with the city’s utilities is increasing as well.  It is anticipated to increase slightly each year as the cost of all these factors increases.  The rate study that was conducted in 2024 determined the estimated cost to do business based on anticipated new construction, capital repairs, operational cost, and new residents paying into the system.  We collect only what is anticipated to be needed for the operations and repairs to the system.  The money collected for the water bill can only be used for the city’s utilities, so it will not be used for any other projects or to fund city operations outside of the utilities department.  

While it is not pleasant to have a higher water bill, I hope you can take some reassurance in the knowledge that the city is being fiscally responsible and collecting the money it will need to do the repairs and maintenance to the entire water system to ensure that we can get clean, fresh water long into the future.  

As for the tax rate, while all of our tax bills have increased recently, the City of Mount Holly has actually decreased the tax rate twice while I have been in office (over the last 8 years).  When I was originally elected in 2017, the tax rate was 56.5 cents/$100.  In 2024, we lowered it to 40.5 cents/$100 in an effort for the city to remain revenue neutral – or not collect more than we were before.  Our overall city budget has actually decreased by 6% this year due to diligent efforts by our city manager and staff. 

I have been a strong advocate for lowering the tax rate when the city can and fought against those that were resistant both times, often asking for staff to push even further.  I will continue to look to lower the tax rate when possible.  However, I will not lower the tax rate arbitrarily without regard for our staff and the incredibly important services they provide such as utilities, police, fire, and parks & rec. 

Does this mean I don’t support new projects and upgrades to our parks, events, and other offerings?  Absolutely not, I have found that there are creative (and legal) ways to pay for many projects the city wants to complete without raising taxes (i.e. grants, TIFs, property sales, etc.).  I think we should reinvest our tax dollars into our city and that council should continue to be good stewards of those dollars.  So, just keep in mind this campaign season when you hear someone propose an idea that sounds really exciting and impactful to ask them how they plan to fund that project.  It is one thing to have big ideas and another to know how to get them done without negatively impacting the city’s finances. 

While I know this is a hot button topic for many, the truth is that the decision to collaborate regionally with Charlotte Water for the city’s wastewater treatment was made 8 years ago before I was even on council.  The only vote I ever got on this topic was whether to decommission the old plant or leave it sitting there indefinitely continuing to smell.  Obviously, we opted for the less smelly route.  

While some are still angry about this decision, it is Mount Holly’s reality.  I can rehash all the reasons I still believe it was a good decision – the State was going to start fining us for our violations, the NCDEQ has been pushing the entire state toward regionalization, the cost of building a new plant would have been outrageous (don’t like your water bill now, imagine if we’d had to build a $50-100M plant!).  But, the deal is done, the dotted line has been signed and it was signed a long time ago.  The deal struck made Mount Holly a bulk user meaning you as a citizen actually pay less than citizens of Charlotte.  And the deal also states that they can’t raise our rates unless the rates across the entire water system for all customers are raised.  So, we won’t be singled out for a hike.  The city attorney did a great job of protecting Mount Holly on this deal.  While we had little choice, I believe the city is protected and we will have the capacity for growth for many years to come. 

Mount Holly has been experiencing a bit of a cultural renewal lately.  In recent years, we had the wonderful Awaken Gallery open on Central Ave downtown and the Arts on Main program formerly in downtown Gastonia moved to Mount Holly taking up vacant space in the building behind the municipal complex.  

The citizens of Mount Holly identified arts and placemaking as a priority in the 2008 and 2018 Strategic Vision Plan.  In the first years after I was elected, the council voted to include an annual budget line item to help fund art in the community.  The city created the Public Arts Committee – a group of creative citizens that provide feedback and direction for the city’s art projects.  Since its inception, we have beautiful murals, sculptures, and outdoor galleries.  It has even led to private donations and investment.  Mount Holly has always been a beautiful city, but now it is just a little more colorful.  

In almost every conversation I have with citizens, there is a request for another grocery store and more shops and restaurants.  The city has heard you and we have helped encourage a number of new restaurants in downtown as well as the surrounding areas.  We have a number of wonderful places to eat.  Every open space on Main Street is occupied and when a tenant is planning to move, it is often rented to a new tenant before it can even be listed publicly.  This is a good problem to have.  

But, the reality is that the businesses downtown and throughout our city are mostly small businesses.  They struggle and have hard times.  They often rely on year-end sales to bolster through the tough summer months. 

I believe nearly every citizen of Mount Holly loves to see our quaint downtown full of shoppers and diners wandering from shop to shop.  I know I love to have wonderful shops to buy presents and new books.  That is why I have been a vocal advocate for our downtown businesses and their owners from the early days of my time on council.  I believe that we as citizens need to support these businesses to keep them healthy and open.  I also believe that the city has the power to do things to help them as well – like hosting events to bring people downtown, installing lights on Main Street to create an attractive ambiance to draw patrons, and creating paved and maintained public parking for those patrons.  There is more that the city and all of us citizens can do to help support them and to keep these lovely shops open for many years to come. 

If you love the shops and restaurants in Mount Holly, then patronize them.  Buy a book or a shirt, grab lunch, a haircut, or a beer with a friend.  That is how we keep them open and we keep our city thriving.  

The Mount Holly City Council had a choice after completing the transfer of our wastewater from our own aging wastewater plant to the Charlotte Water facility on the other side of the river.  We could fill the tanks with dirt to cover what was there, or we could completely decommission the plant to remove contaminants so the property could be used in the future.  The council opted to decommission and sought funding from the state to help cover the cost.  The state granted us with a $15M grant to cover the decommissioning.

The plant will have all structures removed and the sewage pumped out.  Then the soil and contaminants will be removed.  The property will be a pleasant smelling, clean slate. The city has limitless options for what to do with the 11-12 acres of riverfront property next to Tuckaseege Park.  The two that seem most talked about are to 1. Build ball fields and expand the existing park for much needed fields and courts, or 2. Sell the property for mixed use development and use the sale of the property and the future taxes from that property to build a bigger sports complex elsewhere in the city.

Expand the park.

If we choose to expand the park, the city will likely gain a multipurpose field for soccer/football and a baseball field.  The land will also need to include parking for the fields as well as additional bathrooms.  The city will have to fund the entire project as there is no planned revenue source for the expansion.  This will likely be a several million dollar plan that will most likely require the city to get loans and acquire debt.

Sell the land.

If we choose to sell the land where the waste water plant is currently, the city could realistically get as much as $6M.  If the land was sold to a developer, the potential mixed use commercial and residential property could result in a large investment in the community.  The city could utilize the projected future tax revenue from that property to finance several million more.  The city could conceivable build a sports complex with multiple multipurpose fields, tennis and pickleball courts and additional gym space for volleyball, basketball, and indoor soccer.  All without raising taxes or taking on debt as the financing was created prior to developing the project. This would leave the beautiful Tuckaseege Park and the Greenway intact but add additional recreational space for our city’s youth programs.

This topic is only at the very beginning stages of discussion.  The waste water treatment plant isn’t even decommissioned yet, but either way, the city wins with this upcoming project.