Not a "Seagull": Brevard City Council Candidate Kevin Jones Pledges to Keep City on Current Path
Jones, a former manager at General Motors Co., said he will not be a critic of current policy, but will seek to continue what he sees as the Council's constructive work.
Editor’s note: This is the first of a series of profiles of candidates for City of Brevard Mayor and City Council that will appear before the November election.
BREVARD — Kevin Jones saw leaders he respected in his 32 years in management at General Motors Co. — the ones who formed plans based on research and data.
He also saw the kind of leader he didn’t want to be: a “seagull.”
They were the “executives who flew in from Detroit,” he said. “They squawked, they flapped around, they c------ on everything, and they flew back out.”
So Jones — one of four candidates running for two open seats on the Brevard City Council — said that if he’s elected, he’ll be an advocate for city employees and a supporter of current city leadership. He says he’s not running against his one incumbent opponent, Mayor Pro Tem Mac Morrow, so much as he’s trying to fill the seat of another sitting Council member, Maureen Copelof, who is running for mayor.
“I hope that whoever fills Maureen’s Council seat, whether it’s me or somebody else, would appreciate the fact that they are in a relatively strong position to make decisions because of the work that has already been done,” he said.
That means he won’t dramatically change the city’s approach to taking on its biggest challenges, such as encouraging the construction of affordable and workforce housing, managing growth, upgrading utilities and completing recreational projects such as the Ecusta and Estatoe trails.
But partly because of his background in the corporate world, he will push for a more long-term, carefully considered approach to these issues.
The city has pledged money to support workforce housing in the past, which is perfectly appropriate, said Jones, 68, a native of New York City and a graduate of Columbia University.
For example, he said, a developer is currently requesting that the city forgo water and sewer hookup fees (total value of $2,750 per unit) for two small houses that it plans to rent for $600 per month.
“If you can get a new affordable unit for $2,000, don’t you have to do that all day long?” he asked rhetorically.
But he would rather the council develop a policy for awarding such incentives based on a study of their costs and benefits rather than deciding on them piecemeal.
Planning is even more crucial for highly ambitious strategies to support reasonably priced rentals, such as the creation of an affordable housing trust fund, which he said is worth exploring, and the creation of an “inclusionary zoning” district, which he sees as an essential.
Such a zone would allow high-density projects but require a set percentage of their units to be rented at rates within reach of working residents. These apartments would be close enough to downtown to allow residents to walk to jobs. And because stores and restaurants there would benefit, he might ask them to contribute.
“This question should be asked,” he said. “If businesses benefit from people staying in affordable housing near them, are they willing to play in our sandbox?”
If he sounds like a liberal, he said, that’s only partly true, because he’s also a “fiscal conservative,” who advocates controlling property taxes as the second prong of his affordability plan.
Long-term residents could be protected from the tax increases that have come as property values have soared and millage rates have not quite been adjusted downward in compensation.
“Do they get insulated from future property tax increases, for maybe a year or three years? I think that’s an interesting question,” he said.
That would leave a proportionately larger burden for the growing population of residents who have moved to Brevard after selling high-dollar properties in, for example, New York City.
“Once we shelter the groups that need sheltering, let’s just let the market do what the market does,” he said.
The value of planning, he said, has already been demonstrated in the city’s ability to apply for grants and low-interest loans such as the ones paying for the current Gallimore Road Sewer Rehab project.
The city also has plans in place for its Estatoe Trail that will put the city in a good position to receive the $21.1-million federal infrastructure grant that it is seeking to fund the multi-use path — and that cover most of the costs of other projects, including the the stretch of the Ecusta Trail in Transylvania County.
“This is a city that is applying for stuff,” he said of Brevard’s actions during the Covid-19 pandemic, “while many municipalities around here are ducking and covering.”
This work will go into what he thinks is the best available strategy for promoting economic growth, including bringing in well-paid manufacturing jobs. Transylvania County is better positioned than the city to offer tax incentives to incoming businesses. And the city doesn’t have the resources to, for example, bring in the kind of high-dollar developer needed to take on the challenges at the vast former site of the Ecusta Mill paper plant, which would be annexed into the city before any construction begins.
“The city’s job should be mostly to make this a nice place to be so businesses want to relocate here,” he said.
That’s why he moved here from Atlanta in 2009, after the younger of his two step children attended Brevard College in the early 2000s. He takes in its atmosphere almost every morning, walking several miles from his home near downtown and stopping in for a caffeine fix at Quotations Coffee Cafe on East Main Street.
He has developed friendships among local residents and business owners who, he said, have been the sole contributors to his campaign. (The first campaign finance reports for this office are not due until Sept. 28.)
His feel for the city has motivated him to serve on the city’s Board of Adjustment and as chair of the Brevard ABC Board, as well as unsuccessfully running for Council two years ago.
He wants to highlight its best aspects, not seek out its worst, which is an approach formed in another phase of his career, working as a financial advisor after his retirement from G.M.
A colleague told him the best way to snag prospective clients was to exploit weaknesses in their current portfolios.
“He said, ‘You know, Kevin, I find a scab and I pick at it,’ ” he said.
“I think that is unfortunate behavior . . . If I can’t get elected because I can’t find fault with the current city management, then that’s the way it is.”
The Candidate:
Kevin Jones, 68
Website: electkevinjones.com
Education: bachelor’s degree in economics, Columbia University
Career: General Motors Co., financial advisor
Public Service: member, City of Brevard Board of Adjustment, Brevard ABC Board, 2019 candidate, Brevard City Council
Personal: Married, two stepchildren
Brevard Connection: Property owner since 2006, full-time resident since 2009
The Job:
Brevard City Council members are elected to four-year terms and receive an annual salary of $6,700.