Principled yet polarizing

Thomas Crowder walked out on Raleigh's budget debate last year, convinced his beloved Pullen Park carousel was getting shortchanged.

He cast the City Council's only vote against the Soleil Center, comparing the Crabtree Valley skyscraper to a giant pickle.

And for months, he has skewered plans for a downtown Marriott, bringing the centerpiece hotel to a dead stop. He'll probably continue making his case at today's council meeting.

Crowder, elected to the council three years ago, is gaining prominence as a persistent critic in the debate over Raleigh's future. But he is winning few allies.

His detractors on the council and at large say his refusal to compromise is overshadowing his good ideas. They label him as an all-or-nothing perfectionist.

Even the council's most diplomatic member, James West from Southeast Raleigh, questions Crowder's effectiveness.

"His leadership approach is somewhat polarizing," West said. "And it appears to me that he is not willing to sacrifice his personal agenda for the common good."

Crowder, a Democrat and environmentalist, has avid support in District D, the southwest Raleigh neighborhoods he represents. His goal, he said, is to find what's best for them and the rest of Raleigh.

"My motto is, I want to be able to go home and sleep at night," Crowder said. "I want to make sure that a compromise isn't a compromise for the city."

A native son

Crowder, who turns 50 this year, is the only one of Raleigh's eight council members born and raised in the city. Aside from a few years in Myrtle Beach, S.C., he hasn't lived anywhere else.

The son of a plumber, Crowder attended Broughton High School when the city had few others. He became an architect through a 13-year apprenticeship program.

District D hugs N.C. State University and contains many of the city's older, inside-the-Beltline neighborhoods. Much of it is student housing. It has produced a long line of council activists, starting with Miriam Block, the council's first woman, who was elected in the 1970s.

Crowder especially cites her leadership in shifting power to average residents and away from developers and backroom deals.

He drives the southwest Raleigh streets incessantly, noticing garbage cans left too long at the street, making a note to nag the city manager about them.

He rides a bike to work on warm days, part of his drive for streets that don't depend on cars. He eats burgers for lunch at the Player's Retreat neighborhood tavern, where the waiters know his name.

"I think he is just right out there on the front lines," said Elizabeth Byrd, chairwoman of the city's West Citizens Advisory Council. "Anybody who tries to get in touch with him can get in touch with him. He answers every e-mail."

He first ruffled feathers on the city's Planning Commission, where he was tagged as anti-development. The council replaced him, calling him too outspoken, but he soon made it back on, with help from Mayor Charles Meeker and then-Councilman Benson Kirkman.

Then, in 2003, Crowder challenged Kirkman and beat him, running as a leader who could protect Raleigh's neighborhoods from too-quick growth.

"I feel Raleigh is at a crossroads," Crowder said at the time. "The question is going to be: Do we want a first-rate Raleigh? Or are we going to be a second-rate Atlanta?"

Taking his own path

As a fellow Democrat and southwest resident, Crowder was widely expected to follow Meeker's lead on the council.

But he surprised many with his vote against reopening downtown's Fayetteville Street to traffic. Crowder wanted the street to be wider, with room for diagonal parking or a trolley.

"He's a little bit blustery," Kirkman said of his old opponent, "and that irritates people."

Crowder surprised again with his vote against the city's tree ordinance, a limit on clear-cutting that Crowder considered too weak. The idea, Meeker's baby, nonetheless passed last year.

All last spring, Crowder fought for more money to restore the carousel at Pullen Park. During a meeting when the city budget was headed to a vote, Crowder left, expecting to be excused. His colleagues, irked by his leaving during such an important debate, didn't excuse him and voted without him.

Late last year, Crowder launched a three-month rant against EIFS (pronounced EE-fus), the synthetic stucco slated for the Marriott walls. He has compared the product's quality to that of an Igloo cooler.

Meeker remains frustrated that the issue is unresolved after 90 days, but he declined to comment for this story.

Others feel betrayed by Crowder. Council member Philip Isley, who represents Raleigh's northwest, said Crowder often breaks promises.

Before a Feb. 7 meeting, Isley said, Crowder pledged his support for a shopping center on Six Forks Road that was unpopular with neighbors.

But once at the council table, he declined to support it. Later, Isley said, Crowder explained that the project was doomed anyway and he wanted to send a message.

"It's very frustrating," Isley said. "It's hard enough to do this job, but you have to be able to rely on what neighbors tell you."

In two-plus years on the council, Crowder has relentlessly pushed for housing inspections and punishments for landlords who fail to keep up property.

Dozens of landlords have appealed with their sob stories -- bad tenants, poor health, broken lawn mowers -- but Crowder is seldom moved.

West has pleaded lenience for elderly landlords who find themselves strapped for cash -- many from his own district.

"Good people, because of the rules, are being punished," he said.

Crowder's toughness plays well in southwest Raleigh, where rental and student housing is plentiful, but West wonders about the big picture.

In the wider scheme, he asks, are trash cans on the street as dire a problem as drug houses or prostitutes wandering the streets of Southeast?

"I don't see the same kind of focus," West said. "We have to figure out a way we can get to broader goals."

Looking ahead

Crowder's obstinacy has won him admiration in his district, where many supporters thank him for standing tough.

"He looks beyond the immediates and visualizes what Raleigh should be 50, 100 years from now," said Mary Belle Pate, chairwoman of the southwest CAC.

That is Crowder's explanation for most of his decisions. He doesn't want the Raleigh of 2050 looking back and asking, "How could they have done that?"

He wants the Marriott deal to work, he said, even though he knows the developers may throw up their hands and walk out.

But in the end, they're not who he's trying hardest to please.