NCLM Southern City Volume 71, Issue 2, 2021

SOUTHERN CITY QUARTER 2 2021 32 Local Leadership: Board Profile What resulted was a roadmap of concerns both specific and uni- versal—issues as local as the moratorium of utility payment and as global as racial equity—that, in retrospect, serves as a travel log of the last 12 months. Robinson was guided not just by her own vision, but of an aggregate vision comprised of the visions of towns big and small—what she calls North Carolina’s “great breadth of diversity.” She’s proud of many accomplishments achieved through the COVID era. Things as administrative as finding new ways to operate virtually, to things as momentous as the publishing of the League’s Racial Equity Task Force Report—the culmination of a months of work that will better support and accelerate cities and towns’ work on diversity, inclusion and equity. Additionally, she was central in the advocacy effort for cities and towns to receive financial support, which was realized in March with the passing of the federal American Rescue Plan. “Although we experience similar challenges, those challenges have so many different nuances whether we’re a rural community or urban community, whether our economies are fueled by tourism or tech or so forth,” Robinson said. “For me personally, it was a year of enlightenment.” Rather than some great balancing act, the interplay between her work and her family serve as complementing motives for Robin- son. She notes that she is the only elected official in Cary history to have a child while serving in office—and she did it twice. Rob- inson also mentions that the initial recruiting pitch to get her on the council naively highlighted the minimum requirement: three meetings a month. She instead turned that into a two-decade engagement that has permeated her entire professional life. “Everything you look at as you go through your community, you do through the lens of leadership,” Robinson said. “You look around and say, ‘This could be better,’ or you see a development and say, ‘We need a higher standard.” “It’s so much more than a few meetings. It’s a way of life.” continued from page 31 Everything you look at as you go through your community, you do through the lens of leadership . You look around and say, ‘This could be better,’ or you see a development and say, ‘We need a higher standard. It’s so much more than a few meetings. It’s a way of life . » Jennifer Robinson , Cary Councilmember