Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Mount Airy Mayor Jack A. Loftis recently invited me to serve on the Tourism Development Authority Board here in Mount Airy. It’s an exciting opportunity to help craft the future for tourism in town. The recent issue on the front burner is where and how to locate a proposed new visitors’ center, since the wonderful old blue building on North Main Street—the Robert Smith House—on November 1 ceased to operate as a visitor center. This past Thursday at 2 p.m., I attended my first meeting as a voting member of the TDA board. It was rocky and divisive, and the board was divided—even polarized. A motion to accept a draft plan for the proposed new visitors’ center—the sketch for which we’d just seen presented minutes before—was passed by a 4-3 vote. (My vote was cast on the losing side.) My feeling and argument was that the public needed to have an opportunity to look at and comment on the proposed new modern building—the largest single expenditure that the TDA has ever made—before we rashly voted on it. In the haste to move forward, I was outvoted along with two colleagues. I left the meeting tense and agitated, but in some ways pleased that I’d thrown my hat in the ring, pleased that I had agreed to serve, vowing to be better prepared next time.