Transformative mayor, Jimmy Harris, announces he will leave the job after 22 years
Praised as an "advocate and ambassador," for Brevard, Harris said he has accomplished most of his original goals. His departure will open the door for future candidates.
By Dan DeWitt
Brevard NewsBeat
BREVARD — Brevard Mayor Jimmy Harris was new to the job in 2000.
He hadn’t yet established himself as “the face of Brevard” and the famously personable and available “sidewalk mayor.” The city hadn’t yet lost the manufacturing jobs that would force it to build a new economy based on the scenery of the mountains.
Still, during a break in a meeting that year, Harris said, he was confident enough in his role and his vision for Brevard that he led council members out of the chambers on West Main Street to show them the future.
“I pointed to the ridgeline (north of downtown) and I said, ‘That’s our money-maker if we can keep it, if we can keep it.’ And we have and it’s turned into something great,” he said. “A lot of people want to come here and I don’t blame them.”
Harris, 59, announced this week that he would not seek reelection after serving 22 years as Brevard’s mayor, longer than anyone in city history.
The time is right, Harris said, because he’s fulfilled his original campaign promises to coordinate traffic signals and connect downtown to the Brevard Music Center with sidewalks and Brevard Elementary to Brevard High schools with a multi-use path flanking Gallimore Road.
But to fully appreciate his contribution to transforming Brevard, city leaders said, residents should do what Harris encouraged council members to do in 2000 — look at the big picture.
“There’s been no better advocate and ambassador for our special community than Jimmy,” said Clark Lovelace, executive director of the Transylvania Chamber of Commerce, “and for that I think he’s going to be remembered for a long time to come.”
Though the city has long attracted retirees and visitors, said Mayor Pro Tem Mac Morrow, it historically made little effort to capitalize on them. For many years, city law banned serving alcohol except in private clubs. There were no upscale restaurants, no breweries, none of the packed streets that are now seen as a major challenge.
“You would have never seen any need for additional parking,” he said. Then came the early 2000s and the closure of the DuPont film plant, the Ecusta paper mill and the Coats North America thread factory and, with these closures, the need to find a new economic identity.
Harris supported initiatives such as the Heart of Brevard, that helped create the city’s busy, inviting downtown. He pushed for water and sewer upgrades that allowed it to attract visitor-friendly businesses such as Oskar Blues Brewery. He advocated for bike trails, parks and playgrounds that enhanced the city’s appeal to tourists and residents.
“He helped shepherd the city through that transformation, when we did lose a lot of the manufacturing plants, to an economy that focuses on tourism, on the arts, on outdoor activities. All those things played together to recreate our image and I think it’s been very, very successful,” said Council Member Maureen Copelof, who made news of her own on Friday.
Copelof, whose term expires this year, said she plans to run to fill Harris’s seat. Fellow Council member Maurice Jones also said he is considering a run for the job.
They and others ticked off a long list of projects that have been completed or well advanced on Harris’ watch; two skate parks, a dog park and the Mary C. Jenkins Community Center; the first and several subsequent sections of the multi-use Estatoe Trail, including the stretch along Gallimore; the Bracken Preserve with access to trails leading deep into Pisgah National Forest.
He did it at big events, such as the White Squirrel Festival, which Harris helped to establish and where he shone as master of ceremonies.
“You give Jimmy the microphone and Brevard comes to life,” said Council member Geraldine Dinkins.
He did it from his downtown business, Harris Hardware and Farm Supply, from Brevard City Hall right next door. And he did it on the streets between them, where his willingness to engage seemed less about political calculation than affection for the city and its people.
“He has a huge sidewalk presence,” Dinkins said. “He’s been the face of Brevard for obviously over two decades.”
An example of how his approach and standing advanced his goals was the creation of the Bracken Preserve, which was crucial to maintaining the view he pointed out 21 years ago. The city owned most of its 400 acres — long coveted by residential developers — but access was blocked by a strip of land owned by Josephine Renzulli, whom Harris knew as a customer of the store. “She used to come in all the time,” he said.
He worked this connection, first sending a request to secure the right-of-way to Renzulli’s lawyer and, when that was rejected, mailing Renzulli a hand-written letter, the response to which he remembers in detail 15 years later.
“I was at the very center of town and the phone rang and I said, ‘Hello,’ and she said, ‘Jimmy, Jimmy Harris?” This is Josephine Renzulli,’ ” Harris said, imitating Renzulli’s genteel southern accent. “I said, ‘Hey, Josie,’ And she said, ‘I have your letter in front of me . . . can you come and sign this on Tuesday?’ ”
Two days later, he and Morrow were on a plane heading to Renzulli’s home in New York City to close the deal.
As much as she appreciates Harris and his accomplishments, Dinkins said she isn’t happy with everything he’s done.
His openness extended to developers, she said, and too much of the city’s growth has been mapped out in their initial meetings with Harris, Morrow and select staffers. She has criticized the building of Depot Railroad Avenue Park as wasteful of taxpayer money and the variances that helped create the “a crazy patchwork” on U.S. 64’s “fast-food row.”
“There’s a number of people who have served this town for over two decades together, and I think complacency snuck in somewhere along the way, in the sense that ‘we already know how to do things,’ ” she said. “I’m very excited to be looking at the next chapter of Brevard.”
Copelof and others rejected this notion, pointing to the ongoing improvements in parks and utilities and the imminent construction of the community center.
“I don’t see any complacency in our town,” she said. “I see incredible development and a sense of moving forward.”
And it has taken a level of commitment that Jones said he especially appreciates as he considers running for the job.
“While he’s been mayor, he’s had a family and he’s run a business and that is one of the most difficult juggling and balancing routines that you can pull off,” he said.
Yes, it’s been hard work, said Harris, who estimates he spends about 20 a week on his duties as mayor. But it’s not the reason he’s leaving the job, and it never seemed like much of a burden because of his connection to the city.
It’s a little-known fact that such a well-liked resident is a member of a not-so-well-liked group, Florida transplants.
In 1972, his father, Mabry, moved the family from Homestead, Fla. to Brevard, where he started the family business and went on to serve 12 years as a council member. Harris took to the town immediately as a 10-year-old boy, he said, and has felt the same way about it ever since.
“I remember walking down the streets of Brevard when we first moved here and thinking, ‘I just love this place. This is my home.’ ”
He got his "legacy" project finished before he leaves office. Over half a million dollars approved (Landreth voted NO) for an outhouse with a hideous sculpture (approx. 12k) when there are city streets in the economically disadvantaged neighborhoods that need some/decent sidewalks and street lighting. They pay taxes, too.
Dan, is this a scoop? Very nice story.