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When his first wife got a job in North Carolina, Starkweather started writing for the Chatham County Herald, a weekly newspaper he eventually bought and ran for 11 years.

"It was the kind of job that fit my personality and skills," he recalls, adding that he used the paper to investigate the county government.

In 1986, having sold the paper, divorced and remarried, he entered law school at N.C. Central University and joined the county planning board.

Dogging his foes

"Jeff Starkweather is tenacious," says Mark Barroso, a county activist who has led the effort to keep Wal-Mart out of northeastern Chatham. "If he's on to you, he's like a dog that's bitten your ankle and won't let go."

Some say Starkweather can be divisive, and leaders in the black community accuse him of not caring about their concerns.

Several refused to comment for this report, including Mary Nettles, the Democratic leader the coalition helped beat in District 3.

Thompson, who won a spot on the ballot in District 5 and is a friend of Starkweather, acknowledges discontent with the coalition in the black community.

"He is a confident person, and people mistake that for arrogance," Thompson says. "He has real heart and wants to make sure people, regardless of race, creed or color, are treated fairly."

Morgan, who received 38 percent of the vote in the primary and was the principal target of the coalition's fury, would only say its members are "a hard-working group of people."

Nick Tennyson, who leads the Home Builders Association of Durham, Orange and Chatham Counties, said his group will be watching the new leadership.

"It's like a dog chasing a bus, but when he finally catches the bus, what does he do with it?" he said.

Sprinting ahead

Starkweather, with his mop of curly brown hair and glasses, and his tendency to mutter to himself at meetings, could play the role of an absent-minded professor. But he tends to work more like the Tasmanian Devil.

"I'm a person who is accused of having an idea a minute," he says, adding that he probably has attention deficit disorder.

That is how he explains the dozen speeding tickets on his driving record and why he ignored a subpoena from the N.C. State Bar to respond to a complaint from a former client.

"I was doing way too many things at that time," he says.

But it's that same energy that has helped Starkweather make his mark on the county.

"He has a clear picture of strategy and direction," says Jan Nichols, the coalition's treasurer and Web designer.

As a disc jockey played John Lennon's "Power to the People" at the General Store Cafe on election night, Starkweather was already planning for new battles.

Chatham's election results, he said, were a victory for controlled growth and a challenge to other communities to take back their governing boards.

"We want to be communicating with other cities in the Triangle to do what we did here on the state level.

JEFFREY STARKWEATHER

BORN: May, 5, 1947, Oakland, Calif.

FAMILY: Wife, Dee Reid; son, Sampson Starkweather; daughter, Emily Tinervin; granddaughter, Ryan Tinervin; parents, Sampson and Martha Starkweather; siblings, Stephen and Marcia.

EDUCATION: N.C. Central University School of Law 1989; B.A. political science and economics, University of Redlands, California, 1969

CAREER: Executive director of North Carolina Smart Growth Alliance; attorney, Governor's Advocacy Council for Persons with Disabilities, 2004-06; lawyer in Pittsboro, 1992-2004; assistant federal public defender, eastern district of North Carolina, 1989-1991; editor and co-publisher, Chatham County Herald, 1973-1984.

CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS: Chatham Coalition, founder and president; Chatham Citizens for Effective Communities, board of directors; Pittsboro Together; two terms on the Chatham County planning board; Chatham County Arts Council, vice president, board of directors, volunteer legal counsel; Mental Health Association of Orange County, board of directors, 1996-1999; Chatham and Orange County Dispute Settlement Centers, volunteer mediator, 1984-1994; Chatham County Soccer League, co-founder and coach, 1983-1986.

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