More than Parks: Mayoral Candidate and Navy Vet Touts City Accomplishments on Her Watch
City Council Member Maureen Copelof said that she's about a lot more than just parks and pushed back on the notion that she and other city leaders lack vision for the future.
BREVARD — What’s so funny about parks?
Nothing, says Council member Maureen Copelof, one of four candidates running to replace longtime, outgoing Brevard mayor, Jimmy Harris.
“They laugh at me and say, you built a dog park,” she said. “But that’s okay, because I have a vision of where we are going, and it’s bigger than a dog park and it's bigger than a basketball court. It’s creating these places where people can connect and we can really increase communication across the community.”
Park construction may not be the central issue in Brevard’s most competitive mayoral race in at least two decades, and it’s certainly not up there with affordable housing or economic development.
But parks — usually reliable crowd pleasers — have emerged as a surprisingly controversial topic in the nonpartisan race and provide a clear lens for viewing both the current election and a range of recent city initiatives.
To critics of current city leadership such as mayoral candidates Dee Dee Perkins and Chuck Chapman, at least some of the new recreational projects, and especially the Depot Railroad Avenue Park, are highly visible examples of the city’s misplaced spending priorities.
To Copelof, they show how the city gets things done: by identifying a need, securing outside funding or other contributions, by enlisting community support.
They are also signs of the city’s general productivity in recent years. Brevard is not just doing a lot for parks, she said, it’s just plain doing a lot.
“I’m very proud the city has been moving forward in such a great direction,” she said. “We get an incredible number of grants and we have great community buy-in.”
Community Work
Copelof, 66, moved to Brevard full time in 2009 — after retiring at the rank of Captain following a 30-year career in the U.S. Navy — and began building a record of community service.
She has worked with groups as diverse as the American Legion, the Rise & Shine Neighbors in Ministry after-school tutoring program, and the Free Rein Center for Therapeutic Riding and Education.
She continued her activity after being elected to Council in 2017.
Even Geraldine Dinkins, a Council member often critical of what she calls Brevard’s “power center” — a group, she says, that includes Copelof — acknowledged Copleof is a “very hard worker.”
As chair of the city’s Downtown Master Plan Committee, Copelof said, she initiated the push for the recently completed new version of the document.
(Perkins, also a member of that committee, said the new plan was her idea.)
Copelof’s research on affordable and workforce housing helped form the basis for a report presented to council earlier this year, and she pushed for the scheduling of an Oct. 29 Council workshop that will consider a range of strategies to address what she and Perkins agree is the city’s most pressing problem.
When HCA’s purchase of Transylvania County Hospital raised concerns about diminished care, Copelof emerged as a community liaison on the topic. She has been a prominent backer of the Mary C. Jenkins Community Center, which is quickly taking shape on a donated parcel west of downtown.
She has applied this same energy to her campaign, becoming a visible presence on city streets, identifiable by her bright-red hair and her sign-adorned MINI Cooper hatchback. She has knocked on the doors of more than 1,300 city residents and raised, according to the most recent campaign finance report, $18,561, which she described as a natural result of her outreach.
“I haven’t held a single fundraiser,” she said.
So, she wants it known, she is about more than just parks. But she’s about parks, too, and proud of it.
During her time as vice-chair of the city’s Parks and Recreation Committee, the city has secured funding to extend the Estatoe Trail to the Mary C. Jenkins site, embarked on the construction of downtown’s Clemson Plaza, completed the Depot, two skate parks, a playground and basketball court at Silversteen Park, and, yes, the Brevard Dog Park.
The idea for it came from a community group, she said. The city secured a donation for its site — 2.7 acres near the city’s Sports Complex. Secured it twice, as matter of fact, Copelof said — first from the hospital’s previous owner, Mission Health, and then from HCA.
The city and community backers went on to collect donations of both $40,000 in cash and expert advice from, for example, a local landscape architect, which allowed Brevard to fill a need at a bargain price.
“We make these partnerships and we leverage the enthusiasm of the community,” Copelof said — and “for the $80,000 the city put in, we now have a world-class dog park.”
What’s the Vision?
Busy though the city may be with current projects, it has failed to plan for long-term challenges, said both Perkins, and Dinkins, who supports Perkins’ candidacy
“Maureen always talks about the great things happening in Brevard, but I fail to see her overarching vision for the city over the next five to 10 years,” Dinkins said
That criticism is not valid at all, said Copelof, who said she learned to juggle both day-to-day work with long-term planning in the military, especially during a posting in Japan that anticipated the duties she would assume as mayor.
As the manager of a Naval base, she coordinated with local officials and oversaw “services such as police, fire, public works, finance, schools, housing . . . and recreational facilities,” she wrote in response to a NewsBeat questionnaire.
To the charge that the city has failed to update its 19-year-old land use plan, Copleof said that work is well underway, and the city is poised to hire a consultant to help complete it.
The Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) hasn’t received a thorough review since its implementation in 2006, Perkins said. Copleof said it is a “living document” that is regularly amended as needed.
“I don’t think the UDO is out of date at all,” she said.
The city in recent years has planned and is carrying out a thorough upgrade of its water and sewer systems, which has been funded mostly with grants and low-interest loans from the state Department of Environmental Quality.
She also has a long-term vision for attracting manufacturing business to the city, a vision that might include offering property-tax incentives to companies that guarantee well-paid jobs.
And it might include greater city involvement in capitalizing on the opportunity presented by the 525-acre, long dormant former site of the Ecusta Mill paper plant, which would be annexed into the city if it is developed.
Building there has been stalled, economic development officials said, by the land’s history of pollution and agreements that require owners to indefinitely monitor contamination.
“We’ve spent (more than) 10 years trying to find a buyer,” she said. Working with Transylvania County, she added, the city “should look at how we can make it more attractive . . . (and) maybe that means assuming some of those risks.”
Bipartisan Support
But her big overall vision, she said, is of a more cohesive, mutually supportive city.
This is the reason she supports Mary C. Jenkins, the Estatoe Trail, and the regional Ecusta Trail that would connect Brevard with Hendersonville. In June, the city agreed to take the lead on building the stretch of the Ecusta in Transylvania and apply for a grant that would pay for most of this work.
“My focus has been, ever since I came back (to Brevard) full time, on building community so that everybody really thrives,” she said.
This, in turn, has earned broad political support, she said, the discussion of which led to one point of agreement with Perkins. They both say city races are nonpartisan for good reason and reject the notion that, as registered Democrats, they are competing for a limited number of progressive voters.
Copelof says she has plenty of conservative supporters, including fellow veterans. She also has the backing of residents who, for example, appreciate her work on projects such as Silversteen Park, in the historically African-American Rosenwald Community.
One of them materialized as if on cue, walking by Silversteen as Copelof sat at a shaded picnic table for her NewsBeat interview.
“How are you doing, Ms. Copelof?” he called out.
“I’m doing great,” she replied. “Did you vote yet?”
“I got you covered,” he said, adding that he was also encouraging friends and neighbors to get to the polls. “I’m rushing them out there for you.”
The Candidate:
Maureen Copelof, 66
Website: maureenformayor.net
Education: Bachelor’s degree in religion, University of South Carolina; master’s degrees in business administration from the University of South Carolina and in political science from Auburn University
Career: Retired Captain, U.S. Navy, three Legion of Merit awards and the Defense Superior Service Medal
Public Service: American Legion, Rise & Shine Neighbors in Ministry after-school tutoring program, Free Rein Center for Therapeutic Riding and Education.
Personal: Married, no children
Brevard Connection: Property owner since 1993, full-time resident since 2009
The Job:
The City of Brevard mayor serves a four-year terms and receives an annual salary of $10,500. Early voting continues through Oct. 30.