Clemmons voters overhaul council

Clemmons voters, spurred by a group led by the former mayor, overwhelmingly voted down a $6 million bond that would have paid for improvements to Lewisville-Clemmons Road, and voted to overhaul the entire half of the Clemmons Village Council that was up for re-election.

The bond would have raised property taxes in Clemmons over the next 20 years to finance those road improvements. Proponents of the bond — including Mayor John Bost and the three incumbent council members on the ballot — had said the improvements were necessary to keep developing the road and to calm traffic there.

Bost, who won enough votes to keep his seat by less than 2 percentage points, said he believed the election had been corrupted by an anti-bond group led by former Mayor Nat Swanson.

Swanson's group, The Real Friends of Clemmons, handed out sample ballots at the polls that encouraged residents to vote against the bond and indicated which candidates the group supported. For the village council, those candidates included Nick Nelson, a 27-year-old financial analyst who was on the ballot, and two write-in candidates, Norman Denny and Mike Rogers. The sample ballot also encouraged voters to write in Jim Hayes, a former Village Council member, for mayor, rather than vote for Bost.

Three incumbents — Nan Holland, Jack Ingle, and Larry McClellan — all lost their seats.

Bost said the group's tactics were "immoral" and showed his disgust late Tuesday.

"What we did was go back to 1986 with the same leadership — it's blind leading blind," Bost said. "The way that the polls were manned — in some cases, (we had) seniors who were instructed how to vote, who were even followed almost to the door."

Bost said he believes that some people, confused by the pollsters, erroneously thought that in order to vote "no" for the bond, they had to write the other names in.

"That's why you see people getting 2,300 votes. That's never been the case in Clemmons — something was skewed there. Now it may not be illegal but it was immoral."

Swanson said those allegations were untrue.

"Nobody followed anybody into the polls," Swanson said. "The people of Clemmons are smarter than I think some people give them credit … and those older people still have a mind of their own. John needs to, I think, start leading again. The council, along with John, I think, got misled by some of the consultants they had and there wasn't enough communications with the community. They've lost touch with the community. I hate that it had to be contentious — I really hate to see the community get split like that — but I hope we can heal things quickly and move on."

Tuesday night, Bost implied he might not accept his win, though he refrained from saying so outright.

"There are a lot of places in the community where you can give your time and be appreciated and supported by true servant leaders," Bost said. "I found a great deficit in Clemmons today of true servant leaders, and maybe even honest men."

When asked if he would turn down the mayoral re-election, Bost replied: "I'm not going to comment."

When asked when he might make a decision about whether to keep the post or decline it, Bost again replied: "I'm not going to comment on that."

Bost won about 51 percent of the votes for Clemmons mayor. Hayes won about 49 percent, according to complete but unofficial results.

Nelson, who linked himself with the group that opposed the bond, won about 30 percent of the votes, according to complete but unofficial results. Two write-in candidates, Norman Denny and Mike Rogers, won the other two seats that were up for election Tuesday, each with about 15 percent of the vote.

Nelson said he intends to continue going door-to-door to hear from residents in the village about what they want from their local government. Nelson said he attended homeowners association meetings as part of his campaign and said those were good places for elected officials to hear from residents.

"I feel like a lot of the same discussions about the Village of Clemmons are popping up at these neighborhood meetings, and I think we need a representative from the council to be there to bridge that gap of communication between the neighborhoods," Nelson said. "I think there are a lot of citizens out there who are ready to have their voice be heard."

Nelson won the most votes in Tuesday's election, an honor Bost said would lead to Nelson being appointed mayor pro-tempore.

Bost said the election Tuesday set Clemmons' progress back.

"No one won today," Bost said. "And I can tell you this: As a true leader, I am grieving. … I lost the political will to do what was right for Clemmons."

What the residents of Clemmons did over the past 15 to 18 months with the comprehensive plan is now "dead in the water," because all of those things require funds, Bost said.

"And all of those things required that we address Lewisville-Clemmons Road, and we cannot save enough money to do that on our own," Bost said.

But Swanson said Tuesday's election showed that Clemmons residents would not accept public debt.

"We don't need to be in debt like everybody else in the country," Swanson said. "The council was convinced we needed to step in where developers were operating and help them out, but really, that's not our job."

Swanson said he believes the members of the current Clemmons Village Council had lost track of the village's priorities.

"They are all good people, especially the mayor," Swanson said. "We had good people on the council; they just got misled or out of touch with the people here."

Swanson said Hayes and Denny were traveling together with their wives out of the country and so were not available for comment.

Rogers said he believed voters wanted new leaders with new ideas.

"The council is supposed to keep citizens informed about what's going on," Rogers said. "We need to hold some town meetings. The council members need to go down to the communities and talk to some people. I don't think they've gotten the true pulse of the community in a while. And maybe with these new folks coming on board, we'll be able to get out and get some good feedback from the citizens."