Thanks to The Roxboro Courier-Times for publishing the candidate questionnaire for all candidates in the Republican Primary in the 2/15 edition!
As a Certified Economic Developer, it was nice to see that everyone agrees economic development needs to be a focus for the county and that experience matters!
If you missed it, I have pasted in my responses below, as well as posting a video testament to my work ethic and economic development track record.
Be sure to get out and vote for qualified candidates during early voting or on Primary Election Day - March 5th!
Courier-Times Commissioner Questionnaire
Name: Sherry Wilborn
Age: 50
Occupation: Certified Economic Developer, Commercial Real Estate Broker and Consultant
Political experience: 9 years of close interaction with Roxboro and Person County elected leaders through employment with Person County Economic Development; working with local, state, and national legislators on economic development priorities and needs; involvement with the campaign to Elect Jason “Skeet” Wilborn for Person County Sheriff in 2022
Civic involvement: Boards and Memberships (All current): Roxboro Area Chamber of Commerce, Roxboro-Person County Home Builders Association, Kerr Tar Regional Council of Governments, Roxboro Savings Bank, North Carolina Economic Development
Association, International Economic Development Council; Voting; Running for Office; Engaging with elected leaders at the City, County, State, and National levels on matters affecting Person County; Volunteering with political campaigns; Volunteering with and donating to school, church, and civic organizations
1. What is the main issue you will focus on, if elected? What is the county’s most pressing need?
The county’s most pressing need is to increase our tax base and shore up our infrastructure to handle our needs for the growth that is coming now and into the future. This is how we will most effectively have the opportunity to guide and control that growth and be able to fund government services without increasing the burden on the individual taxpayer. We will have additional tax money coming into county coffers through new industrial and residential development. A development report from the City of Roxboro estimates potential population growth for the city of nearly 4,000 people over the next 5 years based on current development projects. Ongoing investments and expansions at Duke Energy, POLYWOOD, and other sites will bring in additional tax revenue. Those funds need to be invested in ways that continue to make us business and development friendly, such as education and workforce development (including capital improvements for schools), water/sewer infrastructure expansion, highway and airport access upgrades, and industrial site development. My focus will be to bring the City and County together around these needs, with existing relationships and knowledge of our systems.
2. What areas of county government should receive more attention or funding? What are your budget priorities?
Every year, budgetary needs for mandated services and those that support them increase. I am part of a law enforcement family, and we all want excellent public safety, public health, and educational and recreational opportunities for the young and aging alike. Those services can’t run without others that support them, such as IT and GIS. My budget priorities are more about bringing in new revenue to fund services through means other than property tax increases, and I talk a lot about how I would approach that through economic development strategies in other responses here as well as on my website and Facebook page (both found by searching (“sherrywilbornforpersoncounty”), but I would also want to focus on inefficiencies related to the county budget that come from challenges rural communities face with employee attraction and retention (turnover is a great expense to any organization), time and money spent on addressing issues with aging facilities, both owned and leased by the county, and time spent on public records requests that greatly impact our productivity.
3. What should the county prioritize when it comes to economic development?
Economic Development is cyclical. When you have product (buildings and sites) and infrastructure, you focus on marketing and recruiting. As you see activity increase, you focus on more product and infrastructure development. Right now, we have very limited product, and infrastructure does not extend to parts of the county that favor development. The county should prioritize product and infrastructure development as well as leveraging existing assets and resources to bring in new private sector investment. These assets include the non-profit arm of economic development that was established to be quick and nimble in 1991 and has supported industry expansions such Spuntech, GKN, US Flue Cured Tobacco, and others that have provided jobs and investment in previous seasons. We have abundant water capacity through the City of Roxboro, access to the Triangle, Triad, and Southern Virginia, a park at Mayo Lake with great potential (as well as many other parks), a regional airport, redevelopment opportunities in blighted areas, and vast natural beauty, including farms that can be incorporated into economic development strategies. We also have more opportunities to partner with support organizations, such as the Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Development Authority to host more business- and development-related events to bring attention and revenue to Person County.
4. What does transparency look like to you and how would you demonstrate it in office?
Transparency is imperative for public bodies to practice, but it has become a political buzzword that receives too much focus. What some people mean by it is, “I think I need to know everything that is done and said by every government employee and official.”
That mindset cripples our effectiveness as a local government and handicaps our competitiveness when it comes to economic development. Person County just adopted a public records request policy based on having received 208 public records requests in the past 18 months. When I was a county employee, we had begun to receive this barrage of requests, and they were all from the same group who did nothing with the records they received to increase the general public’s knowledge of government activity. They likely cost the county taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars in upper management staff time to spend weeks reviewing and preparing the responses so as not to violate any laws. There is no way to set a value on how that lost productivity could have benefitted the taxpayers.
The meetings of all of our government boards are open to the public. The City and
County elected board meetings are live streamed on YouTube and posted for later viewing. The minutes of all elected and advisory boards are available to the public, mostly online. No action can be taken in closed sessions. There are exceptions to open meetings law that are allowed by NC General Statues, without which, rural communities could never compete for economic development projects. Attracting companies away from metropolitan areas and into rural communities requires more negotiation that private companies would not engage in if the conversations could not initially happen without disclosing their plans prematurely and risking stock values, employee stability, etc. Anyone who thinks about anything from whether they would want their favorite team’s coach to reveal his playbook to having the President to disclose wartime strategies can understand the importance of confidentiality in competitive or strategic situations. Government officials, staff, and appointees who do not honor appropriate confidentiality are actually the ones who are unethical and irresponsible with their duties, not the other way around.
I’m not saying there’s not room for improvement on the frequency of updates from a countywide perspective, but the word we need to focus on is Democracy. Voters have the opportunity and responsibility during election seasons to do their best to elect
candidates that are qualified to lead, motivated to do so for the right reasons, and trustworthy to make decisions on behalf of the majority who elected them and then trust those elected with the responsibilities endowed upon them.
When I was the Economic Development Director, I created and maintained a department Twitter account, Instagram account, and professional LinkedIn account to share as much information with the public as soon as possible related to economic development activity in addition to press releases that were sent to the media and posted on the EDC website. I also worked with other partners to implement an interactive development map to be housed on the EDC website, which I maintained, to allow the general public to track development projects. I share this to say, I have a demonstrated track record of taking extra steps to keep the public informed of development activity while also responsibly and appropriately managing the confidentiality needed to build trust with the private sector to grow our economy.
As someone recently pointed out to me, my record IS a public record. There is more information available to the general public about my public- and private-sector service to the county through news articles, social media posts, and websites than any other
candidate. Ten years’ worth of public history seems pretty transparent and sufficient to establish the qualifications, motives, and attributes that I will bring to office.
5. What makes you different than the other candidates? Why should you be the voters’ choice?
My candidacy is unique because I bring a decade of historical knowledge of the inner workings of both the City of Roxboro’s and Person County’s Governments and the assets of both, as well as the resources available to both to be leveraged for the benefit of our citizens. I have a decade of economic development experience, which includes being a Certified Economic Developer (CEcD), and traveling the region, state, and country to promote and advocate for Person County. I have a current network of elected leaders, service providers, and economic development professionals to utilize to advance the needs of and opportunities for Person County. (I encourage voters to see my Visual Resume on my website.) And, similar to how I responded to the previous question, my voice has remained consistent over a decade. Voters can trust that the words I speak and the words I write are mine alone. They can look back over the past 10 years to know whom they are getting for the next 4 years.
6. What is your proudest accomplishment in public service?
My proudest accomplishment is successfully leading the recruitment efforts for POLYWOOD’s initial location here in 2018 and assisting their decision to expand here in 2021 to secure the largest jobs and investment announcements in Person County in at
least 2 decades with a pledged investment of over $90 million and the creation of more than 650 jobs. I am also proud to have accomplished that initial investment and other significant milestones while being the lone employee in the Economic Development Department, as well as later becoming the first female Economic Development Director in Person County.
Author Bio:
Sherry Wilborn is a Certified Economic Developer and a Person County native who grew up in the City Lake community as Sherry Clayton. She has been married for nearly 22 years to Jimmy Wilborn, who is a Lieutenant with the Person County Sheriff's Office. Jimmy and Sherry have two sons, JT (20), and Jack (18 in February - just in time to cast a vote for his mom in the March primary!) and have lived in Timberlake for the past 6 years.
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