NCLM.ORG 21 Q&A with Senator Michael Lee against her, and I felt pretty strong about what was going on in our state, and ran against her in 2008, and lost that election. And then Julia decided she was going to retire from the North Carolina Senate. It was actually a pretty close race in 2008 … and so I said, ‘Hey, open seat, I’m going to run again.’ And then I ran against—I had a primary—ran against Thom Goolsby (who served in the Senate from 2011–2014). And lost that election also. So, when Thom beat me in the primary, I ended up kind of coming around and then helping him in the general election…. And when he was getting ready to step down, retire, that’s when he and I talked, and I ran again. In your discussions with local officials, what kinds of things do they bring you in terms of requests? And how do you figure through them so you can get things done together? ML: It depends. We have a number of municipalities here. I usually just meet with the elected officials. Sometimes it’s a chair, sometimes it’s an individual member. Sometimes it’s a couple folks from one of the governing boards. Sometimes I’m meeting with a fire chief or a police chief… Usually, they’re through discussions with both elected and nonelected individuals in the different municipalities and counties. And then departments and organizations within those counties and municipalities. Good point about different jurisdictions. Yours includes some beach towns. What’s unique about that in terms of your role as a senator? ML: It adds a whole other scope to it. It’s related and not. It’s related because the tourism communities, our beaches, are a vital part of the whole county, the whole community, and state for that matter. But it’s unique in that the beach towns are generally responsible for maintaining those state resources. So, beach renourishment is obviously a big deal. Our marshes are a big deal. And those are typically only within the beach communities… So, the environmental component is significant, and the economic development component is significant. It’s very different in a beach community versus another part of New Hanover County. Is there anything you’d like Southern City readers to know? ML: I think the most important thing is good communication and conversations. Sometimes when you’re working with organizations, that doesn’t always happen, and sometimes there are individuals within a larger organization and there’s inconsistent conversations that are happening. Sometimes that’s challenging for legislators. Y’all have a team, and a good team, of government relations folks who communicate with me and other legislators. But sometimes there are individual needs of municipalities or concerns … and sometimes it’s better to have those personal communications rather than it having to percolate through a large association. So, it’s a good practice for leaders in your area to reach out, call your cell phone… ML: Yeah, they usually just call my office, email my office, or call my cell phone if they have it. And even if the (League) is advocating for a particular policy, I always like to hear from individual communities, to the extent that there’s one or two that have a significant kind of issue or impact. The League is pretty good about that, identifying that community and then tying them into that conversation. But if there’s something in my community, most of the folks here know they can reach out to me, give me a call. Sometimes the issues are time sensitive, so, rather than let the issue come and go, I would prefer a phone call. Sometimes I just can’t do anything. Sometimes we can impact a larger audience. Sometimes it ends up being something that multiple municipalities are dealing with.
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