Profile: Dempsey Wilcox seeks ways to enhance communication
By Frank Ruggiero
ruggiero@wataugademocrat.com
The following is part six in a series of profiles of candidates running in the Boone municipal election.

While Dempsey Wilcox earns his living as an accountant, one could easily say he moonlights.

For 12 years, Wilcox has served as a member of the Boone Town Council, often working late into the night with fellow council members on matters oftentimes unnoticed by the public.

A council member is anything but unnoticed, however, when running for reelection, and Wilcox is no exception as he attempts to reclaim his seat on Oct. 9.

With 12 years under his belt, Wilcox has an intimate knowledge of the issues that most affect the town of Boone, and the largest, perhaps, is Appalachian State University. He called the relationship between Boone and ASU a “two-way street,” with both parties guilty of offending the other.

“I think the town could do a lot more,” he admitted, saying the straw that broke the camel’s back was the council’s handling of the college of education situation, for which the university is proposing a new building near downtown Boone that does not meet current land-use regulations. “Both sides have to be willing to compromise.”

Under current land-use regulations, Wilcox said, the proposed building would legally have to occupy five acres, rather than only one, as currently proposed by the university.

“It needs to be give and take,” he said. “The town needs to be willing to move in a new direction, but you can’t sit around and say they need to cooperate with us, then never give any cooperation on our side.”

The same applies to other large institutions that compose the community, including the county, university and health care system. A lack of good communication, he said, leads to missed opportunities. For instance, when the county expressed interest in pursuing a new water source jointly with the town, “We basically blew them off,” Wilcox said. “If the county wants to buy water from us, fine. The town shouldn’t be the one to tell the county what to do in its own jurisdiction.”

Water is another weighty situation, with the town actively pursuing the acquisition of an additional water source to meet future demands. The process will be considerably expensive, Wilcox said, since money will have to be spent to pipe the water back to town. Eventually, the current treatment facility will have to be high-rated, and then a new one will be built.

“And one of the ways to [finance] that is to sell water,” Wilcox said.

Under Ordinance 05-01, which was enacted as a temporary measure to conserve water until a new system could be built, the town council may only allocate 25,000 gallons per day per year for a six-year period.

Wilcox emphasized the key word for 05-01 is “temporary,” and he said the council was meant to revisit it.

“After several years now, I’m very unhappy with how allocations are being done,” he said. “I find the ‘shortage’ is much less than this council is leading the town to believe.”

Rather than conserving, he said the ordinance is holding back water that should be available by right for new customers. A large percentage of water pulled from the sources is treated and placed back into the rivers,” Wilcox said, adding, “We put in more water than we take out.”

The water situation, as it’s commonly called, is not so much a shortage as it is a preparation, he said. “It’s a much bigger sin to have water and not let people have it.”

Wilcox added he’s also uncomfortable with the quasi-judicial hearings now held for water and sewer requests of certain amounts.

“I feel like we ought to be looking at capacity, not waste, but if people want to use water, let them use it up to our capacity to raise money for the expansion,” he said.

As it is now, the situation is costing the town dollars in economic development, as people are reluctant to develop in a town where water and sewer service is uncertain, he said, adding that the shortage is only on paper.

While developments are affected by availability of water, they’re also affected by steep slope and view-shed regulations. Wilcox was the sole council member to vote in opposition.

“People need to realize this is two issues – steep slope and view-shed,” he said. It’s been nearly a year since the regulations were adopted, and Wilcox said people are unhappy with the expense involved in the steep slope regulations that require an engineering and geological study for development on a slope that’s been determined steep.

“The health and safety issues (of steep slope regulation) are legitimate, but the view-shed is a different animal,” he said. “I believe the large number of people felt we had to do something about large developments on hillside lots but never thought it would include single-family homes.”

If reelected, and if the majority of council members agree, Wilcox said he would support leaving the steep slope ordinance as is, but removing R-1 and R-A zoning designations from the view-shed overlay map and leaving high-density uses there, “so we’ll never have another Village of Meadowview on the side of the hill.”

“I believe this is close to the middle ground, that most of the community was wanting to see,” he said. “The view-shed is nothing but an aesthetic standard, and it really doesn’t have anything to do with health and safety.”

Wilcox said he would also support smart growth, in terms of moving forward with the already-commissioned smart growth audit and the use of such principles, “but in the end, I think we need to set those principles and let somebody build something.”

This would include affordable and student housing. The criteria for affordable housing, such as multi-family housing, he said, should be off steep slopes, along major corridors and away from neighborhoods. Such developments are being forced out into the county, he said, adding to already congested traffic and parking lots in Boone.

“If someone comes in and meets several criteria, we should say yes,” Wilcox said. “There’s a lot of lip service on affordable and workforce housing, but very little action in providing it.”

Wilcox praised the current council for its efforts in preserving single-family neighborhoods. Regarding the affordability of homes, though, he suggested a joint venture between the town and university.

When candidates for the vice chancellor for student affairs at ASU were being interviewed, one told Wilcox how the University of Florida would buy houses from neighborhoods and renovate them to sell at an affordable price to young professionals and their families, ultimately keeping the property on the tax rolls. The town, he said, would assist with the occasional variance or water tap-on.

“Then you solve two problems – one, affordable housing for new faculty and staff, so they don’t have to live in Creston or Trade, and, two, it brings working families back into neighborhoods.”

Wilcox is one of the candidates endorsed by Citizens for Change, a political action committee formed out of ardent dismay with the steep slope and view-shed regulations, among others passed by the council.

For more information, contact Dempsey Wilcox at (828) 264-1075 or dwilcox3cpa@bellsouth.net.