A Sometimes-insider’s History of the Chatham Coalition, parts of which may even be true -- introduction

Now that the Chatham Coalition is folding up their tent after a 7+ year run, I’ve decided to put my thoughts and especially recollections of them down to remember. 

This is a history of the Chatham Coalition as I remember it, and as I experienced it.  It is not a definitive or authoritative history.  Even though it is written, it is more oral history than anything.

I did not and will not do extensive fact checking on this history.  The fact checking I will do is based on my email archives and on bulletin board archives only, and information I can find with google searches. 

I did not and will not contact people mentioned in this history to get comments or clarifications or get “their side” of a story.  This is intentional.  I am not a journalist or historian.  Many of these people are my friends, acquaintances and rivals and I want this to be my recollection and not be colored by what they want me to say.  However, that said I welcome comments to this series of blog posts, and anyone is welcome to respond to or clarify what I say in the comments on this blog.

Who am I to write this history? 

It is important when reading anything like this to understand the context, where the author is coming from, and where his biases may be.  By way of introduction I moved to Chatham County in 1999 from Cary, where I grew up (yes it’s true some people did grow up in Cary, not everyone moved there).

When I was living in Cary in the 1990s I was politically active to an extent but not a large extent.  I was active in Citizens for Balanced Growth and peripherally active in the campaigns they supported.  These included Glen Lang, who was the first candidate in the Triangle area to emphasize smart growth as the centerpiece of a local campaign and who eventually became first a town council member and then a very controversial mayor of Cary, and his allies like Jack Smith and others. 

Other members of that group that I worked with were Stan Norwalk, who is now a Wake County commissioner, and Harold Weinbrecht who is now mayor of Cary.  However despite that little bit of name-dropping I had and have no influence over any of them and it’s been over a decade since we worked together.  None of them would likely recognize me on the street today, I mention them just to show who some of the people are who came out of that group.

At any rate I was never in the inner circle or as deeply involved in Cary politics as I have been in Chatham.

After moving here to the Moncure area  I engaged in local politics starting with opposition to a multi-state regional landfill in Chatham County in late 2000.   I worked on the campaigns of Phillips and LeGrys in 2002, and Cross and Barnes in 2004 and 2008.  I also was involved some in the 2006 commissioner campaign but not nearly as much as the other years, one reason being I spent October and a good part of November out of the country in 2006 on job-related travel. I did not participate in the 2010 commissioner campaign, unless you count online arguing and debating as participating, which I really don't. 

I was never a member of the Chatham Coalition’s Steering committee though they did give me the humorous (and completely unofficial) title of Ward Heeler after the 2004 election.  My view of the Coalition has always been that I am not one of them but I worked with and helped them when I agreed with them, and didn’t when I didn’t.

The Coalition was in my opinion overall a positive force in Chatham County, though they went wrong as they got more powerful and successful. 

It is not my intention to whitewash Cross and Barnes or to kick the Coalition people when they are down (OK, maybe a little bit) but to tell the history of the Coalition from one reasonably (but not completely) informed point of view.