Connie Wessner

The Election Hub Questionnaire

Please provide demographic information about yourself to help voters (age, education, current occupation, where you live).

62; MA, Politics and Public Policy, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, 1986; BA Government/English (min), Franklin and Marshall College, 1985; Executive Director, Davidson Housing Coalition, Davidson

Why are you running for this role and why should voters pick you?  Please share any experience in an elected role that would be relevant to voters.

I’m running for a seat on the Town Of Davidson Board of Commissioners because I have a deep affinity for the town my family has come to call home these past 30 years. In that time, I’ve served on an array of our local nonprofit boards, including chairing the Ada Jenkins Board, town and regional task forces and advisory boards, including 2 terms on our planning board, the county’s Future of the Library Task Force, and co-chairing Davidson’s Pedestrian Safety Task Force, and two previous elected terms on the Town Board. I believe in the depth of talent in this community and I think I bring the skills, relationships, and experience to foster stronger partnerships between the Town and its nonprofits and civic organizations.

Here’s what living, working, and serving in Davidson has taught me:

• Leadership is a team sport. At its best it knows how to rally people around it and when to take the assist. It knows how to listen, how to serve, and how to knit diverse interests together in pursuit of a larger purpose.

• Civic progress is incremental. We build on foundations laid before we arrived. The impact we leave should empower a next generation, not enshrine us.

• Relationships matter. The quality and authenticity of the connections we make with each other shape outcomes.

Servant leaders open doors. Citizens power this town.

I’m asking for Davidson residents to cast one of their five votes for me because:

• I am truly interested in other people’s stories. I listen. I connect. I’ll take the time to have a conversation and consider your thoughts.

• I am a student of Davidson’s lore and its history. I love this town for its quirks, its stumbles, and its aspirations.

• I’ve served Davidson wherever and whenever a need arises. I can play a part in encouraging new leaders to step forward too.

Tell us about 2-3 professional accomplishments you have achieved in your work experience (not limited to public service) that give voters a sense of your leadership style or skills.

• Working together with the citizens of this community back in 2009, I helped develop a new vision for the vital role small, town-based libraries play in our local library system. We saved our Davidson Library from closing when the county considered closing it and centralizing services in larger, regional branches. The result would have been a loss of a critical community gathering space that draws people from all over our town and all walks of life together.

• More recently, in 2021, Mayor Rusty Knox named me to a Pedestrian Safety Task Force he convened in the wake of several, tragic pedestrian and cyclist fatalities in Davidson. The members of the Task Force elected me to serve as the co-chair of the group. Together, we developed a comprehensive set of findings and recommendations, including securing a Vision Zero Resolution from the Town Board of Commissioners that continues to shape Davidson’s road safety agenda.

What is one thing you would like to accomplish in the first six months if elected?

I would like to help our Town effectively embrace the progress we’ve already made in fostering neighborhood-based approaches to affordable housing that speak to the dignity and contribution of the people living in it and reflects Davidson’s hallmark architectural design context, scale, and functionality.

What is your position on the proposed transit tax and why? Will you vote in favor of it or against it in November?

I will vote for the 1-cent sales tax because Mecklenburg County residents desperately need an adequate and sustainable public transportation system that puts fewer cars on the road, improves pedestrian safety, and encourages the use of alternate transportation, including bicycles, buses, and trains. Still, it bothers me that as a state we seem to want to build critical infrastructure through regressive taxes and privatization only. Shifting costs to the people who can least afford it is a short-term solution that in the end takes a toll on all of us.

Until we solve that inherent inequity, I think the Town should do all it can to acknowledge and respond to the impact of the sales tax burden on people with very low incomes. That’s where stronger partnership and collaboration with our local nonprofits can make a difference. We don’t necessarily need more programs. We need to use public resources to amplify existing services and make sure we’re reaching as many people in need as we can.

What endorsements from any notable NC organizations or individuals have you received?

I don’t accept or seek endorsements from organizations. We are a small town that continues to aspire to keep our small town feel and neighborly values, even as our population grows. Local elections are about forging relationships with your neighbors.

Tell us something unexpected about you that voters may be interested to know.

I am a proud native of Washington, DC, and left my hometown only grudgingly 30 years ago when we moved here so my husband could join the faculty at Davidson College. I never expected to think of Davidson as my new hometown or to come to love small town life as I do now.