Smathers trusts local leadership

Mayor says local level is most vital

The day after a pair of hurricanes brought floodwaters down the streets of his mountain town, Canton Mayor Pat Smathers saw that help had arrived. It was not from Raleigh or Washington.

"I looked out on the street and I had every volunteer fire department and municipal fire department in Haywood County and eastern Buncombe County helping us," Smathers said. "The city of Charlotte Haz-Mat team and swift water rescue team were there."

Those weary days in 2004 reinforced what Smathers already believed: That local government makes the most important decisions and takes the most tangible action in residents' lives. City and county government is where police are dispatched and decisions about growth get made.

At the same time, he said, it is the least-funded and least-empowered level of government.

The high-water days of 2004 triggered Smathers' decision to run for lieutenant governor, and he is campaigning as a champion of local government. He acknowledges that the state's second-in-command has little real power but pledges to turn it into a megaphone for communities. His theme: "Local leadership statewide."

"The only thing I can do and will do as lieutenant governor," he said, "is raise the level of awareness."

Smathers, a former Duke University football player, looks like one, with a stocky build and gregarious manner.

His 28 years in the National Guard echoed in the somewhat lecturing style of his remarks to a veterans group last week.

More than once he began sentences with, "Look" or "Guys."

"I'm laying it out here for you, guys," Smathers said. "I need your help."

Smathers retired from the Guard as a lieutenant colonel last year, and he's trying to tap into the state's dense military and veterans population.

Richard Kingsberry, a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools transportation specialist, served with Smathers in the Guard and praised his ability to incorporate his subordinates' ideas into a plan, to get them to buy into a group effort.

"He doesn't grab the bull by the horns," Kingsberry said. "He grabs the bull and says, 'How can we tackle this bull together?' "

The floods after Hurricane Frances and Hurricane Ivan put Smathers in the spotlight during a state crisis. He emerged as the primary motivator within his city and the chief mouthpiece for help outside it.

Ronnie Mills saw his Riverview Farm & Garden store submerged in 9 feet of water.

During the cleanup, Smathers was constantly on the street comforting and pumping up flood victims' spirits, Mills said.

"This was a man who was looking at his hometown in devastation," Mills said, "still holding his head up and telling people to do the same, encouraging them to go on."

Smathers' complaints about a shortage of funding and authority for local governments are echoed by many mayors, but he acknowledged that the two biggest chunks of the state budget -- Medicaid and schools -- go to local governments. That money comes with restrictions, though, he said.

He wants the state to focus on issues best handled at that level, such as roads, courts and prisons. His power-to-the-people message can sound populist, a label he doesn't shy from.

"If that means you represent the people's interests," Smathers said, "then you can put that across my forehead."