Pat McCrory Elected Mayor

November 7, 1995

As mayor of Charlotte for the past eight years, Pat McCrory has been part of a period of un-precedented growth for the city. The latest figures put Charlotte as the twenty-first largest city in the country. With that growth has come an elevation in national stature of the city and its mayor. McCrory, who is running for an unprecedented fifth term, has hobnobbed with President Bush and works closely with Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge.

McCrory has spent much of his tenure encouraging the city's growth, then attempting to get city staff and council to deal with it effectively. He's a champion of "smart growth" and transit. He promotes public-private partnerships, although he has been criticized of late for partnerships that give the public much of the burden (i.e. the arena).

In so doing, McCrory has created a new paradigm for the position of mayor in Charlotte. Our mayor has to be comfortable on the national level as well as influential here. Our mayor should be an incessant cheerleader. Our mayor should be able to recruit businesses here as well as work to ensure the success of the local economy.

We won't really know the full impact of McCrory's tenure for years. If someone were to put a list like this together in twenty years, McCrory's election might not be on it. Or he may be revered as the model mayor. More likely, it will fall somewhere in between.