2005 Rural Partners Forum
Remarks by Don Davis, Mayor of Snow Hill
It is my pleasure to come before you today and I want to thank Billy Ray and the Rural Center and all those who are joining me today and you who are working each day in your communities in different ways. It's my opportunity and my delight to come to speak with you about Snow Hill, to tell you about some of the things that we have been able to be very fortunate to do and some that areas in which we are still challenged. In other words to build a case as to why we are vital and why we must respond to certain needs. As we move forward today I figure we will look at this picture of a young lady participating in our Fourth of July parade. She was moving down the parade on her tricycle so I figure we will take off on this journey today talking about Snow Hill, exploring and pinpointing the location, sharing a brief history, looking at some of our successes, our challenges, and something about Snow Hill tomorrow.
Snow Hill is at the center of it all. We are centrally located in Greene County, between four major cities, which are Goldsboro, Wilson, Kinston and Greenville. We serve as the county seat, and our population is right about 1,500. Our history takes us back to the early 1700s when the mission settlers moved into the area. Snow Hill was a Tuscororan stronghold, and the community was chartered originally in 1828 and served as a major trade artery mainly between the cities of Wilson and New Bern. I would also like to point out to you that history or rumor has it that Snow Hill was once very close, within a vote or so, of being the state capital of North Carolina. I share with you this picture that shows our historic community.
So what have been our successes? I will summarize our successes based on our ability to integrate technology into our community, our ability to develop small businesses, and also placing emphasis on our ability to enhance quality of life. As you look at this picture, I want you to really pay attention - this is changing how we view rural communities. I want you to really think about this. What you see here is young Justin sitting outside by a fence not too far from his home right off the sidewalk. I was coming home from a preaching center, and I saw Justin sitting outside by the fence and Justin is on his laptop computer. Now the reason this is important is every child in Greene County and Snow Hill in grades 6-12 has been provided with a laptop. Just imagine how this is radically changing how we view small communities. Now this is the power of our vitality. I remember as a child riding my bicycle, and many of us in the neighborhood would gather and we would get together to play WWF wrestling. Those were some of the things we did on a typical day - we rode our bikes and met. These pictures are candid pictures. Nothing was staged. These are true pictures. I stopped to talk to Justin and I went on to talk to his mom to make sure I could share the picture. I turned around to start walking back to my car and look what I discovered, as to changing small communities, kids riding their bicycles to meet on the street corner with their laptops. Now this is another part of this. Working with the county through a TOPS grant, we are in process right now of bringing wireless connectivity across the county. What you see here - the kids came to this particular street corner because if you see the kid on this bicycle there's a pole behind it that is the access portal for the internet so they are connecting to the Internet and meeting at the street corner. I believe that this shows that there is an enormous vitality within small communities especially based on our ability to integrate technology within our communities. This is something that we are extremely proud of in our community but not only that. My son was one of many who had the opportunity over the summer to go into a summer computer camp in which the kids in first and second grades are taught the fundamentals of how to handle this laptop. So, as they approach the sixth grade they are familiar with the laptop already. Not only that - in our pre-K center, IBM has provided several centers for preschoolers. So this has been a big part of our community. Right now we are in the process of making our community wireless. This is something that we have taken near and dear to heart in our town hall. We realized that there were many processes that could have been streamlined if we upgraded our system, so we went to a major systems upgrade within our town hall. Technology has been key to us, not only technology but also our ability to develop small business. I remember nearly three and a half years ago going into office, looking at our downtown community. Many of the buildings were boarded up with plywood. If you go downtown today, that plywood is off the windows and what you can see in this picture is actually a business incubator. Mayor Kearney is with us today. He worked with the historical society and I am proud that the town of Snow Hill worked with the historical society to bring a new museum and visitor center into our downtown community. The problem three and a half years ago was empty buildings. Our problem today in Snow Hill is parking, and that's a good problem for us to have right now. The root of this has been our ability to facilitate and collaborate in our business retention and expansion efforts. The person that has been vital to our community is Robert Masters who has worked with a development partnership that actually is a model of a continual development partnership. It has been very important in bringing in people, taking ideas and helping to take those ideas and making them a reality. The town has been extremely instrumental in not only taking the idea of the development partnership but has paid particular attention to make sure that we walked residents and potential developers through our policies and processes. We enjoy a newly formed chamber, founded about two years ago. Again, these are things that were not originally in place, but some of the things that were important for us were getting the infrastructure in place to facilitate development.
This is important for us - about two and a half years ago, the Snow Hill community lost several major manufacturers, resulting in a loss of over 30 percent of our jobs. But I will have you know that today, through these efforts and our various partners coming together, the town and county has put together a set of packages for a major expansion to industry here. The key to it, again, has been trying to pull people together who are willing to sit down and seriously talk and collaborate and work together. So two and a half years ago we experienced a major closing; today we successfully have increased our tax base by nearly 15 percent.
I think another thing for us to always look at and never take lightly in our communities is the importance of quality of life. It is my pleasure to share with you that yet again in our community one of the major accomplishments and things that I am really proud of is a few weeks ago we had the opportunity of hearing John Edwards announce in our community that every single student in our high school will be provided their first year of tuition free for college. These are efforts that are being made as part of the pilot program. We are trying to assess college enrollment - can we get our kids to college? One thing that is going to be important is while they are at college, as we continue to work at business development, are we able to get them back into our community afterwards? That's part of the aim.
Also there are some things that we did right inside the Town Hall itself. One was increasing core competencies by strengthening our employee benefits because we realize that we have limited resources. The whole philosophy is that if you really take care of the people you, have working for you they will increase the level of service that they are providing to residents. Then maybe we can take it a little further. Another thing that we did, speaking of employees and staffing, is we have reorganized. Our population is 1,526, but we made a commitment to go ahead a little into professional management, and six months ago, we appointed a town administrator. This is something we are proud of because other than a mayor, you are what happens in the community. If you do it, then it happens. If you don't do it, then it is not going to happen. That's what was taking place in Snow Hill, but we realized the importance of making a firm commitment to go ahead in seeking professional management of our administration.
Other things that we have done to enhance quality of life. We supported the business center, we built a new park. Right now, the county is placing a multi-recreational complex on the edge of town that is something that will benefit not only the county residents but definitely those in Snow Hill. And we placed emphasis on existing facilities and infrastructure that's there. We've invested in a community center. Working with residents in the community, we have also re-habbed an old softball field, and right now it is my pleasure to report to you that we've been having weekend tourists to come in, including the champions of the tournament from Morehead City. So these are some things we are extremely excited about.
A few other model programs - You think of playing the violin, typically a nontraditional instrument for many people. Yet, what you will see is that over 200 kids are in our program - a program that is divided roughly into 1/3 Hispanic, 1/3 African American, 1/3 Caucasian. It's a very diverse program and the importance of this for us is we are drawing the link between the instruments and achievement. The research supports the link between playing the instrument and community service as well as academic performance.
Again, trying to place emphasis on building human capital has been important for us. We have a very unique dual language program for our school kids in which you find first through third graders are in classrooms where half the class speaks Spanish. The others are English speakers, and they are learning from each other and they rotate from English world to Spanish world.
Just a few other things I want to point out here. We have incorporated youth into community relations and into our strategic planning process. We are having one of the largest housing sub-divisions built since the seventies, and we have a new pediatric and dental center. Just want you to see a few pictures. Residents truly make the community, and I can also say residents truly can break the community. That's a reality. As this slide show, infrastructure is essential for community support. That has been one of the biggest things we have focused on. I also want to say we are one of the most progressive communities in North Carolina. I truly believe that, based on some of the things we have been able to accomplish, but I say that trying to build the case for vitality of small towns this is not something we have very rich human capital to do. Our challenges, you have heard many of them - trying to get non-traditional partnerships to take place, that has been a tremendous challenge in our community; unfunded mandates have been an enormous challenge in our community; and limited resources. The way we've approached limited resources in our community has been to take care of the people we have working for us, reaching out into the community, building partnerships in an attempt to build capacity within the community. There are some things that we are gaining through volunteers and we are entrusting our volunteers with those efforts. Also I will continue to emphasize the point of technical assistance that is provided by the Rural Center and other agencies that has been really critical.
What are some of our initiatives when we talk about "Snow Hill Tomorrow"? That is actually the coined phrase for our strategic planning process. Some of the things that are near and dear to our future are continuing efforts to develop Contenea Creek and tourism. I think this is something that we need to also explore - how we can capitalize on our natural resources. Snow Hill, being the center of four major cities, has enormous potential of being a bedroom community. Especially I'm hopeful that the Global Transpark will continue to progress. The other thing, based on the central location of the town, being surrounded by these major areas, is this concept of being a headquarter center. Coming to Snow Hill means that you are able to capitalize and expand your market base, so that's one of the things that we are really trying to point out. And our ability to increase our technology is one thing that we are working on. As we continue with some of these investments - and I really look at all these things I have spoken of as investments - as we look at our investments, hopefully the yield will be increased education of our skilled labor force so that people are willing to come back to a place that they call home. So, in summary, I've shared with you where Snow Hill was and a brief history of our community, some of our successes, our challenges, and where we are heading for tomorrow. And you see this young lady here, she was at a youth extravaganza and this was the end of the day for her. She was tired and ready to go. This is getting towards the end of my time. I'm tired and I know sometimes you may get tired, but as we keep on going on this journey we must know it is because of these small kids that make it worth it. Thank you.
