Rocky Mount’s Problem Is Not Unnamed. It Remains Uncorrected.

STILL NO NEWS ON THE FORENSIC AUDIT HERE’S MY THOUGHT WHILE WAITING

I write because I hope to give people language for their experiences, their memories, their feelings. Three novels later, I write the blog, Mainstreetrockymount.com. to help people see the painting of Rocky Mount, differently, as it hangs on the wall.

I have on my shelves books about writing. I have taken workshops, gone on retreats, filled notebooks and underlined passages. Like many writers, I have my saints, Pat Conroy, Ian McEwan, Rosamunde Pilcher, Henry Kissinger, David Halberstam.

I admire their command of language, their authority of voice, the way clarity seems inevitable in their hands. I wished I possessed that kind of magic.

I got some help with this wish. After reading a series written about the saints, I said to a friend, “I could never be like this.” She answered, wisely, “God already has a St. Francis. What He wants is a Saint Stepheny.”

That line stayed with me because and it clarified how I try and think about my writing today. The task is not imitation. It is fidelity, to one’s own voice, one’s own place, one’s own responsibilities.

So what readers have here is not Pat Conroy, but a devoted observer learning as she goes, and remembering a garden writing seminar I attended when they asked the question; how many ways can you write about the color green?

How many times can I write about Rocky Mount’s ‘troubles’ with new insight? As much as I love the research, the architecture, the businesses, and the people whose stories give Main Street its heartbeat, I find myself continually washed up on the steps of the civic disruption Rocky Mount is experiencing, again.

I admit that I am a political junkie who reads political books, attends a City Council meeting here and there, yet is running out of ways to talk about “green” – the dysfunction that continues to plague the City.

A seven-member City Council and a Mayor are elected to serve the common good. That is not a ceremonial role. It requires stewardship, restraint, and the willingness to confront behavior that erodes public trust.

The lingering mystery is why those on Council who operate with personal agendas are not challenged by those who claim not to share them. Why disruption is tolerated, normalized, even enabled, while the cost to the city grows more visible by the day.

And the City Manager…..Rocky Mount’s reputation is suffering. The consequences are real, economic, civic, and moral. A city in this position cannot afford the luxury of no one leading the charge to hold people accountable and therefore, restore trust and reputation.

Rocky Mount cannot pretend that preservation, economic vitality, and civic pride exist apart from leadership willing to act on behalf of the whole city.

Historic downtown does not suffer because people lack affection for it. It’s stymied because talk has become a substitute for action, when dysfunction is named but never corrected, and when accountability is endlessly deferred.

We cannot move forward until our civic structures support shared responsibility rather than protected silos. (a system, process, department that operates in isolation from others)

A return to citizens voting in all ward elections as a practical step toward restoring balance, accountability, and a sense of common ownership in this city’s future. Our possibilities will continue to be sabotaged until our leadership changes, and the ‘my agenda’ becomes ‘our agenda.’