Q. What do you think is the most important issue facing Rock Hill in 2005?

A. The biggest issue that we're continuing to face is the challenges of growth. We continue to grow at a pretty fast pace, and it's important that we continue to try to do that in a quality way.

Q. Was there any goal for 2004 that you felt was not reached?

A. We still haven't quite finalized the TIF (tax increment financing) district (to help pay for the redevelopment of the Textile Corridor). We've got the school board on board, and we're close with the county. And my hope is that'll be done here in the very near future. ... My hope would've been that we could've done it much sooner. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying that's something we still need to finalize in order to be able to get moving completely here like we would hope to do with the Textile Corridor. It's going to happen. It just hasn't happened as fast as I'd like.

Q. What can people expect to see happen in the Textile Corridor in 2005?

A. I don't know if we will be able to point to a lot of visible results during the next 12 months. What will be happening ... will be probably behind the scenes. I would like, like everybody else, for us to have early success there. But whether or not that'll occur in 2005 or whether it will be later than that, I don't know. There'll be a lot of work going on, but it might not be as visible to the general public as perhaps we'd hope. ... We continue to have a good bit of interest in the process and in the concept, so I think it holds good potential.

Q. Regarding downtown development, how do you think the city is doing?

A. We take some steps forward and then we find ourselves taking a step backward. ... I am pleased with the fact that we do have

interest in the remaining empty buildings in the downtown area for redevelopment. ... We have discussions going on with the county relative to this joint justice center, which I think would be a big plus for the downtown Rock Hill area. ... It just takes a lot of that kind of conversation to get to a point where something actually happens. But I really believe that we are going to reach a tipping point. Whether or not it'll occur in 2005, it's hard for me or anybody else to predict. But we do see good signals. It's not like we've got a downtown where nobody's talking about it or there's not some private development interest. We've made significant improvements to the parking deck. It's now being utilized more and more. Those are the kind of public investments which can be made that enhance the usability of downtown.

Q. Do you think residents as a whole are interested in downtown as a place to be, or is that something from another era?

A. Some folks have grown up with suburbia as a way of thinking about their community. But I think that every city needs a strong central core area. In the downtown area here we have office, we have retail, we have restaurants, we have the library ... there's a lot of activity which is occurring down here. It's not as much as we want, but there's a lot here. ... I think we've done a good job with our festivals and those kinds of things which draw people into the downtown area. ... It's not Manchester Village at this point in time. But nevertheless, it has strong capabilities, and I think we're going to see more of that.

Q. There's talk in the development community that Rock Hill is making it hard for developers to build here with impact fees and other new guidelines. Do you think those claims are accurate?

A. From a residential standpoint, our council has taken a very strong position on raising the bar in relationship to residential development. That's because we were an easy mark as a growth center. We were an easy mark for track builders who are building cookie-cutter houses. That has a high profit margin on the front end, and many times those kinds of large subdivisions will not look as good when they're paid for as when they were purchased. What I like to tell my developer friends is I'm interested in you building neighborhoods, not building houses. ... We have plenty of housing that falls within the range of affordability for people. And we need to make sure that whatever housing development occurs in the future occurs at a higher quality. ... And I'm not trying to speak negatively about those types of homes, except to say that we were seeing an awful lot of them. ... Raising development standards and creating an atmosphere in which it's easy to do business, I think, are two different things. ... We ought to make it easy for people to do business. But ease of doing business and at what level you do business is two different discussions.

Q. Talk about the goal of the City Council's planned trip to Washington, D.C., in March.

A. In any growing community, the goal, quite frankly, is to share with our representatives in the federal government and to approach various offices and agencies in the federal government so that they fully understand some of the kinds of objectives we're trying to achieve -- and to seek revenue, to seek resources for helping to accomplish those objectives. It's important that we look for funding at every available source, and there is funding in the federal government. ... We need to be there, sharing our story with the federal government and seeing if we can't find financial support to accomplish the kinds of things we want to do. Some of those are physical improvements, whether it's water or sewer or homeland security.

Q. You're up for re-election this year. Are you planning to run again?

A. I'll be thinking seriously about that in the coming months and will probably make a decision sometime in the spring. We've got a lot of things out there that are in the works, and there's a lot yet to be accomplished. I want to see these things accomplished and I want to see them through. ... You kind of have to gauge whether or not people like the direction the community's headed, what we're doing. All that kind of blends into a decision. I want to think about that this spring and probably test the water a little bit, talk to people and hear from people about what they think about it.

Q. Do you think people in general are happy with the direction the city's headed?

A. I think so. ... I don't sense that there's a lot of negative things out there. Obviously, there are always going to be issues, and there will be different opinions about those issues. I don't have or hear of any overriding negative kinds of things that people are concerned about. So I would hope that maybe that's an indication that they feel like it's in the right direction.