Chris Deshazor: Running for the 4 Year Seat for the Holly Springs Board of Commissioners aka Town Council

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Amanda Benbow Lunn (00:09):
Hello friends, you are listening to
the Holly Springs Deep DivePodcast, soon to be called the
NC Deep Dive.
I am your host, Amanda BenbowLunn, and today I am honored to
be speaking with Chris Deshazoras part of our candidate segment
for the 2023 Municipal Electionfor Holly Springs.
Chris is running for thefour-year seat on the board of

(00:31):
commissioners for Holly Springs,also known as Town Council.
He will be running up againstStaci Almquist, Brian Dennis,
Danielle Hewetson, and JackTurnwald.
You will be eligible to votefor up to two of these
candidates for this seat on yourballot for the municipal
election.
As with all the candidatepodcasts, I am taking their

(00:53):
introductions directly fromtheir website as an effort to be
as fair and non-biased aspossible.
Chris and his family moved toHolly Springs in 2007.
He and his wife have raisedtheir two boys in this beautiful
town, and their sons attendedWake County Public Schools.
Chris was appointed to theHolly Springs Planning Board in

(01:13):
2017 and served as the chair ofthe planning board for the past
two years.
In addition to the planningboard, he has also been a member
of the Land Use AdvisoryCommittee, Housing Affordability
Study Committee, as well as amember of the Tree Advisory
Committee.
Chris has coached baseball withthe town's Parks and Recreation
Department since 2007, as wellas coached in other leagues in

(01:36):
and around Holly Springs.
Though both of his sons havegraduated, he still enjoys
coaching to help teach baseball,the game that he loves and
played growing up in nearbyDanville, Virginia.
Professionally, Chris leads thetalent and organizational
development function for asoftware company.
Chris is a crucialconversations and situational

(01:56):
leadership certified trainer andwill complete his MBA at the
University of North Carolina atWilmington in October of 2023.
Chris is in the process ofbuilding organizations and
leaders.
Without further ado, friends,let's dive in.
All right.
What does democracy mean to you?

Chris Deshazor (02:17):
Democracy right into it.
Democracy for me.
Amanda, first, thanks forhaving me.
I'm excited to be here.
Democracy means giving people anopportunity to have a voice.
Democracy means every personhas a voice, and a fair voice.
What's really interesting is Ithink that it's funny that I'll
go here with this, but Hamiltonwas a great, great play, and I

(02:39):
was listening to that soundtrackthe other day again, and
there's a piece in there.
They say you're not going totake away my shots.
And democracy to me means thatall people have the ability to
feel free, to be able to dothings within reason, like you
can't go into I can't walk intothe middle of a restaurant and
yell fire, I get that, butgiving people the opportunity to

(03:01):
have their freedoms and to bewho they want to be, and giving
us a chance to just be people.
I live by a thing of justhumanizing people and, at the
end of the day, if we learn tohumanize people, I think we
would, as all together could bereally good.
And so democracy is reallyabout the people and giving
people a chance to be who theywant to be, but giving them a

(03:24):
fair chance.
Every person should have a vote.
Every person should have achance to make their statement
and if your candidate wins,great if your candidate doesn't.
But we also have the chance todo something, like I am doing
running for office to make achange.
So we should have thatopportunity and I love the fact
that I am able to do this.
In a lot of places, peoplearen't able to do what I'm doing

(03:45):
, so I am very privileged and Iam honored to be able to be here
and do something to run.

How long have you lived in the area?

Wow, great, I've lived here for almost 17 years.
So a few years ago and I saythat a little tongue in cheek 16
years ago, I had an opportunityto move to North Carolina for a
company that I was working withat the time, and what's really
funny is my wife at the time.
At the time we had a seven yearold and a three year old.
Well, he was really six and ahalf, he had just turned seven
and at two and a half year oldit was about to turn three.

(04:14):
We were living in the DC areaand it was 2007.
And the opportunity came up tomove to North Carolina.
My wife found Holly Springs andshe calls me one day and said I
found this place where we couldbuild a house we could get away
from.
We were living in the DC areaand we could move away from the
traffic and we came down, welooked around and we found the

(04:34):
house that we built and we werea little nervous.
This was right before the bustof 2008,.
But we sold our house inNorthern Virginia and we moved
and both of my boys have grownup here.
I was talking to my oldest theother day, who's now 23.
And I said you know, would youever move back to the DC area?
He says, dad, I don't reallyknow that area?
He said I was a kid.
My youngest, the only thing heknows is North Carolina.

(04:57):
You know, he knows NorthCarolina.
He knows Holly Springs.
This is where both of my kidswent to elementary, middle and
high school and have graduated.
My oldest graduated from UNC.
My youngest is a sophomore atUNC, Charlotte right now.
They are North Carolina kidsand so I've been here 17 years.
One of the most interestingthings about me is because my

(05:17):
kids we always wanted our kidsto be active.
So one of the things that Ireally liked when I first moved
to Holly Springs.
You're driving around and wefound Womble Park and I'm a
baseball guy, I love baseballand the first thing I saw was an
adult men's league practicingat Womble Park.
We got the oldest at the timeenrolled in the Parks and Rec
program and one of my dearestfriends today she asked me.

(05:39):
She said would you help, coach,if my husband helps you coach?
And I said no, I'm not doingthat, and my wife says yeah,
he'll help.

You got volunt old.

But you know, what's really interesting is I
look back at that 2007, thatlittle team, and since then I
have coached so many kids inHolly Springs because coaching
is one of the things that I loveto do.
I love the game.
I coach baseball because, notfor me, it's all about.
I think we can teach kids.
It's a great game.
There's so many things thatkids learn from the game about
discipline.
They learn about failure,success, how to win, how to lose

(06:13):
, how to be a leader, how to bea follower, how to be a part of
a team.
There's so many things that areimportant.
I love teaching it and so wehad a successful rundown here
coaching baseball and watchingthe kids grow and seeing some
really good baseball in thisarea.
I mean there's a lot of kidsfrom this area that are now
playing at higher levels college, couple in the pros, several in

(06:34):
the pros that I can personallysay I know these kids, I have
seen them before, a couple ofthem that I've coached at one
point in their career.
They didn't get there becauseof me.
Just let's make that clear.
There's nothing about me, butit's really.
It's a thing of.
These are some great kids, andso we've been here along the
answer 17 years.
This is home.
This is where we have reallymade our roots.
I love this area.

(06:54):
It's kind of fun.
What's really interesting littlefact we moved in and we decided
to build a house.
Coming from Northern Virginiahad never we've never done that
before.
So the Walmart in Holly Springswas starting to be built at the
same time.
Guess which one was finishedthe first?
Walmart, of course.
So you know, when we firstmoved in, Heather would,
Heather's, my wife, Heather,would get up in the mornings and

(07:14):
go to Fuquay to shop, to getgroceries to bring back home to
beat the rush where now we doour shopping right here in Holly
Springs.
We don't have to go to Fuquayor Apex to shop.
That's a beautiful thing.
So we love it here.
We've been here 17 years andplan on being here for a while.

Yeah, I moved to North Carolina in 2006,
but not to Holly Springs until2008.
So for me, that Walmart wasthere.
So I find it amusing when I'mtalking to people like how long
have you been here?
Well, what was here when youcame?
And that tells a little bit ofa story.

Well, what's also interesting, now that you
know we've been here and theseare our roots, you know we've
lived here.
I remember when the Targetcame; I'm not a shopper, you
know.
I mean, I'll tell you, I'm notthe one that's like everyday,
like I need to go and shop, butI have this thing.
I like going in the Targetbecause the people I won't say
they're mean in other places,but in Target they have the
Starbucks and I'm not a bigcoffee drinker but I think the

(08:12):
Starbucks is a very social drink, so I'll go in, I'll grab a cup
of coffee and you never knowwho you see.
The last time I was in there Isaw like five people that I
hadn't seen in a while like, hey, how are you doing?
It's good to catch up withpeople.
I used to do this thing inWalmart and it's kind of funny.
There's a friend of mine who'smom, who's she's now passed, but
at the time she was here andshe would be in Walmart.
So I would see her and I wouldgo and I would grab something

(08:34):
from a shelf and stick it in herbasket and I would walk away
and then I would walk around andI'd do it again and I would see
her looking like I didn't putthat in my basket, but after a
few times she wouldn't noticethis to me.
So after I've done that acouple of times, she'd always
know that I was somewhere by.
That's what I love about HollySprings is, you know, we can see
the people.
This is a community.

(08:55):
You see the people that youwork with, you see the people
that you coach with, that youlive near, and we're just a
little community that I like,that.
I want to keep that feel aboutHolly Springs and I really
really, really like that.

That is really the charm of Holly
Springs.
I love that too.
Yes, why have you decided torun for our town council?

That's a good one.
I've been on the planning boardfor six years.
That all started because theold town manager, who I knew
through baseball, had reachedout to me and said hey, there's
a seat open on the planningboard.
Would you have you ever thoughtabout that?
And I said, Chuck, I don't knowanything about the planning
board.
What is this?
And he said the planning boardmakes recommendations.
They review projects and theymake recommendations to the town

(09:34):
council.
The planning board is the bodythat is citizens, but they're
appointed by the town counciland they make recommendations.
I said that sounds pretty coolin my brain.
This is our way of handling thetraffic, because by then traffic
was getting a little crazy.
Now I'm going to backtrack alittle bit.
I came from Northern Virginialiving right there 395, 495,
right there in the Springfieldmixing bowl in Northern Virginia

(09:55):
.
Anybody listening to thisthat's ever been there when
you're taking 95 North, you'llknow that's a traffic nightmare.
So we moved from there here andwhen we first moved here people
would say, oh my goodness,traffic is so bad and I look at
my wife and she'd look at me andwe go.
They have no idea.
Well, as people started growingin, this town really exploded.
Traffic started getting alittle tighter, so I joined the

(10:17):
planning board, thinking ooh,I'll be able to take care of
traffic.
I had to learn a lot, because Idid learn a lot in those six
years and it really was thefirst two years I learned a lot
about the unified developmentordinance, we call it the UDO.
We learned about how we plan tobuild, about what the
developers bring to us.
So, as I had been a part ofthis planning board I'm always

(10:38):
one that likes to serve Ithought it was a really good
idea for me to run for towncouncil to help us grow.
My platform is aboutresponsible growth.
It's about engaged leadership.
It's about focusing on thefuture and unifying this
community.
All of those things for me, arethe things that are really
important to keep that charmthat I was speaking of of Holly

(10:58):
Springs.
We're a great community andwe're a community that sometimes
we want leaders that can listen.
We want leaders that canunderstand what others are
saying.
We don't always have to agree,that's okay, but we learn from
each other sitting on theplanning board.
I've been the chair of theplanning board for the last two
years and I can tell you that,probably over the last year,

(11:20):
we've had some really toughthings that have come before us
and we've, as a board there arenine of us and on that board
we've had some really fantasticdiscussions, to the point that
after those discussions, afterthe meeting, we'll say, man,
that was a good meeting and townstaff is there and town staff
will advise.
But we're saying that was areally good meeting and we make
recommendations to the towncouncil.

(11:42):
Now I really want to help drivesome of those things that I've
been recommending, and I won'tsay I that we have been
recommending.
I want to help to drive thosethings.
We have a great town and wejust need to keep driving it.
Jim Collins's book Good toGreat.
I want to keep us from good andmove us to great.
That's what I want.

Awesome, let's say you win your election
as a member of the town council,do you feel your job to make
important decisions should bebased solely on your own
thoughts, your political party'sthoughts or as representative
as possible of every single oneof your constituents and why?

Transparent leadership.
It should be of the people.
I just went out.
I went out today to canvas alittle bit, and this is a very
diverse community.
I've met people from all, fromliterally multiple walks of life
.
Today only talked to probably20 people.
Everyone's different.
So I have the saying that I sayfrequently and throughout this

(12:36):
campaign.
People will hear me say thismore and more often your view of
the stage depends on your seatin the audience.
Where you're sitting willchange your view.
Sometimes it's hard to sit insomeone else's seat to
understand their view, so we mayhave to ask them hey man, what
does that look like to you?
And so for me, as an electedofficial, I am elected to

(13:00):
truthfully represent all people.
And so, as we are elected torepresent all people, we have to
listen.
And my wife said something theother day we were talking.
She says and I love thisanalogy we were talking and we
were talking about peopledisagreeing.
And she said you have two feet.
She said so when we agree we'retogether.
If both of my feet agree,they're going to go at the same

(13:21):
time.
That means I'm going to hop andI may not be able to get there
as fast as I want to.
However, when I have my twofeet that are doing two polar
opposite things, they may notagree.
They may go in unison.
But now we can move forward.
It's okay to not agree.
It's okay to have differences.
We try to try to understand.
There have been several thingsthat I've learned.
I told you when I joined theplanning board I thought that I

(13:43):
was going to be Mr Traffic Guy.
Well, I had to learn and I hadto dig in and learn and I had to
listen to people and listen toneighbors, listen to folks,
change our views.
That's how we grow.
There's a really good book outthere called Mindset by Dr Carol
Dweck, and I'm a reader.
But I'll tell you this I'm areader professionally, I should
say professionally.

(14:03):
I lead talent development for asoftware company.
So I train managers, I trainemployees, I lead people.
My job is to make people dotheir jobs better, in a sense.
But really, how do my managerslead better.
Growth Mindset is one of thosethings that I truly live by.
I was given the book about fouryears ago and I started the book
with a lot of skepticism.
Here's another one of thesequack books that someone's

(14:26):
giving me to read.
Yeah, I will read it, but whenI actually dug into it, growth
mindset, saying it's a change,it's saying can I change, can I
adjust?
Is my glass half full?
How do I see things?
So when we talk to people, justbecause we don't, you know,
everyone doesn't agree that's OK.
When we think about things ofthe town, I was just driving out

(14:47):
on 55, just coming back and Iwas like, oh my God, this
traffic is a little crazy today.
Everybody has an opinion on it,but what can we do to help
everyone with that?
And if I were to run right nowand say I am going to fix the
traffic in Holly Springs, I'd betelling a lie.
But I have to listen to people,and if you listen, people will
give you some really, reallygood ideas.
So for me, as a person that'srunning for the town, I have to

(15:11):
represent all people.
That's why I like the fact thatthis is a nonpartisan election,
because it should be.
When we're talking aboutresponsible growth, that's not
partisan.
When we're talking aboutunifying this community, that's
not partisan.
When we're talking aboutengaged leadership, that's not
partisan.
When we're talking about thefuture for my children and
everyone's children, that's notpartisan.
So we have to do these thingsfor everybody.
So that's where I would go withthat.

Perfect.
How do you intend to gatherinput from the community before
casting important decisions?

First you have to ask.
If that's questions, I thinkthat's number one.
You have to have availabilityand flexibility to give people a
chance.
One of the things that I'velearned with this campaign is
it's hard to get information.
A lot of people aren't thinkingabout it.
We can have formats, we canhave forms, we can have lots of
different ways, but one of thethings is just being out, being

(15:59):
human, being real, talk topeople and when you ask
questions, instead of alreadyhaving your mind made up, listen
.
So I'll give you a really goodexample, something I did with my
campaign and it's alsosomething that I did when I very
first started with my job.
I was hired as the director oftalent development and they had
not had my position before.
I was hired to build theirtalent development and their

(16:21):
organizational developmentdivision.
So I had been doing a job verysimilar to that for the past
five years.
I have much experience, lots ofexperience.
However, I did something thereand my first month I told my
hiring manager, I told my VP.
I said I need a listeningcampaign.
I want to listen.
I'm not going to offersuggestions.
I'm not going to tell peoplethat this is what I'm going to

(16:43):
do or this is what we should do.
We're going to listen.
I met every executive.
I met most of our leaders.
I met a lot of our frontlinemanagers and I met a lot of our
employees and I just askedquestions and I still have those
notes.
I took a lot of notes listening.
When I started this campaign, myfirst month of the campaign, I
announced and, as you know,everybody's excited hey, Chris
is running, we're excited, let'sdo this.

(17:04):
Pause.
My first thing that's on myFacebook.
I said I'm doing a listeningcampaign, I'm listening to
people.
I want to hear what you'resaying.
I want to hear what's importantto you.
So I had my platform, but Iactually tweaked my platform a
little bit based on the needs ofthis community, because it's
not about me.
There were councilmen before me.
There will be councilmen afterme.
There's mayors before me.

(17:24):
I'm not going for mayor, that'snot in my purview, but there's
going to be mayors after thismayor.
There's going to be peoplebefore us and after.
So we have to listen and livein the now and help make
decisions that are reallyfocusing on right now and that
propel us into the future.
So I really think that it'simportant to listen.
I've said this to a lot of kidswhen I coach little little kids

(17:46):
in baseball hey, buddy, you'vegot one mouth and two ears, so
you got more of which one.
Let's listen.
So I kind of take that to heartfor myself, in which I try and
listen a little bit more.

What do you believe are Holly Springs's
strengths?

We're cool.
We're better than Apex, we'rebetter than Fuquay.
Okay, I'm just kidding.
Seriously, what I think are ourstrengths are that we actually
have a lot of really good thingsgoing on.
We have some really good parks.
Right now we need more, but wehave some good parks.
We have really a lot of peoplethat are moving into the area we
are now getting businesses in.

(18:22):
Our tax base is now getting alittle bit more aligned to where
we think it should be.
There are lots of places wherewe can go out and eat.
I can live where I work, so Ican work in this community now
and live here.
I think that those are some ofthe strengths, but, truthfully,
the biggest strength of HollySprings are the people.
Are the folks that live here,are the folks that are walking

(18:43):
down the streets.
I tell you what I love.
So spring is a lot of people'sfavorite time of the year,
because we've been bundled up inthe house all winter long and
we're just not talking.
We made Facebook or something,but you're not seeing anybody.
But it's like that first 50degree day and people are
walking their puppies, they'retalking to folks.
The people are what make thistown special.

What do you feel are the town's weaknesses?

We need to have some affordable housing options.
That's a tough conversation fora lot of people, because when
you start to say affordablehousing, people will say, okay,
so what does affordable housingmean?
So to me, affordable housingmeans having the ability to have
housing for my first responders, my teachers, my police
officers fall into that, firstresponders, kids that are
graduating college that want tocome and live in this great town

(19:31):
and start their family and beable to.
Yesterday, we were driving.
We saw a new townhouse that'sfor sale and that townhouse was
going for $400 with fees andeverything, and the average
approximate mortgage on that was$2,700 a month for a young
family.
That's a lot.
So having options I thinkthat's one of the things that we
need to do is making sure thatwe have an option for families

(19:51):
to be able to move in here, andthat doesn't mean when we say
affordable housing, that doesn'tmean that we're going to have
all of these houses in one spot.
We need affordable housingoptions throughout the town so
that people can build it.
For a lot of folks, their houseis their biggest investment.
So giving them a chance to beable to get in here and give
back to this community, that's Ithink that's for me.

(20:12):
That's one of those thingswhere we need to put a little
focus.
We did have the affordablehousing study.
Planning board voted seven tozero and we agreed on that
affordable housing study.
The town council tabled it.
I thought we missed anopportunity there because the
affordable housing study wasn'tsaying this is what affordable
housing is.
Well, it did say that, but itdidn't say this is what we have
to do.
But it gave options and one ofthe things I actually sat on

(20:34):
that committee very purposeful.
At the time I didn't know I wasrunning, but affordable housing
is very important to me.
When I sat on that committee,one of the things that I learned
because I had the same questionwell, I don't want to offer, I
don't want to raise people'staxes, I don't want to come in
and say, okay, everybody needsto.
If everybody comes in and paysX amount of dollars more, we can
offer these affordable housingoptions.

(20:55):
But what I learned during thatand that was about a year that
that committee ran was thatthere are programs out there.
There are many.
There are several programs.
There are many differentvendors and different folks that
are willing to offer and helpwith affordable housing so that
we can have these options and alot of times when we say
affordable housing options,people say, oh well, that means,

(21:17):
like you know, multifamilyunits, which brings more traffic
.
Affordable housing actuallycould mean that we're all having
options.
What happens if a developerdecides and I'll use very easy
numbers developer says okay,team, we're going to build 100
homes and we are going to have aprogram where people have to
apply and they can get thesehouses at X price.

(21:38):
That's an affordable price.
As a part of the agreement,they need to stay in the house
for so many years I'm makingthis up as I go, but you know,
use so many years.
And how do we, how does thedeveloper make out on that?
Because the town says we'llgive you an incentive that will
reduce the price on a water hookup or something like that.
For me, we have to think outsideof the box.
Affordable housing is one ofthe things I think we're lacking

(22:01):
.
The other thing that we need todo is we need to, we need to be
able to do something to helpwith the actual traffic and the
traffic problems here.
That's a very complex issuebecause we're waiting on 540.
It's coming.
The transition period is tough.
However, when Fuji and Amgencame in, there was a question
that was asked on the PlanningBoard and I asked this question.
I said will you, as a company,adjust your times that people

(22:24):
start working so some come in atseven, eight, nine, so if
everybody doesn't have to comein at eight o'clock we can
stagger the times that helps.
The other thing that I did askof them I said will you offer
incentives for people that willride public transportation?
Now I do think that that'ssomething else.
We could do a better job tryingto entice public transportation
.
But if I can get a certainamount of folks that are working

(22:47):
in some of these places to havepublic transportation to and
from work, now that takes carsoff road.
Another one that we just saw onthe Planning Board, a company
that's building a biopharma inthe middle, but on the sides
they' re building residence.
If those houses are affordable,where people can live now
people can live where they wereand they do not have to drive
from everywhere else to get towork.

(23:08):
That also takes cars off theroad.
It also helps with the traffic.
There is not a solution thatwe're going to snap our fingers,
but these are some grassrootsthings that we can do and think
outside of the box and worktogether.
That's for the betterment ofall people.

Perfect, I'll go ahead and ask this
question.
We've answered a little bit ofit, but you can expand as you'd
like.
Many voters seem to be unhappywith the influx of growth in the
area and its ramifications,like traffic and a lack of
prepared infrastructure.

Sensible growth, responsible growth.
We have to work with thedevelopers.
So one of the things that I'velearned on the Planning Board,
sometimes a developer will comein and they will say, hey, we
want to do this and okay, let'sgo, let's go.
So I'll give you a really goodexample, every development that
comes in, they have to do atraffic impact study, a TIA, so
the traffic impact study is done.

(24:04):
And when they do this trafficimpact study, they do it in a
mile radius, and of that mileradius, they will come back and
say to us we're going to do afrontage in and a front, a right
in and a right out on afrontage.
I think that we, as a town, oneof the things that we have to
do as a town is take a macrolevel look at everything that's
coming in and the timing, andthe town does that to an extent.

(24:26):
But I am thinking that we wantto do this just a little bit
better, because when we look atthis from a macro level and we
see how this affects everyone,we need to be able to say, ok,
let's change this a little bitand change this a little bit,
Because the two developers arenot talking, they're just trying
to do their thing and maketheir money, but we need to be
able to have the town staff bethe go between.

(24:47):
A really good example of thisis the Planning Board,
couple of months back we hadtwo projects on the same night.
One project is in town and it'sa mixed use development.
That mixed use development iscoming into town, going to be a
series of condos and on thebottom there were going to be
some stores and things like that.
So that's on the bottom, and sothey were talking about the
traffic we talked about that.
They actually do have a cutelittle dog park coming there.

(25:09):
So I thought that was important.
Just saying, well, coming rightdown the street, right behind
Holly Springs School, which isabout a half mile away from that
, we have another mixed usedevelopment.
I voted no on both of those onPlanning Board, and I voted no
for one reason and one reasononly.
I love both of the projects.
I thought both of the projectswere necessary for the town.
I thought both of the projectswould bring business.

(25:31):
I thought it would bring somenew housing options and a
variety of housing options.
But the reason that I voted nowas because both of those are
coming on Main Street and wherethey're coming on Main Street
and Holly Springs.
Neither of those were talkingto each other.
So the amount of cars that wewere adding there.
I voted no and in the notesfrom the town I said I would

(25:54):
like for the town, council andstaff to look at a way of
coordinating this.
If we can coordinate this andmake it better, then it's a
great project.
Otherwise we're going to have aproblem.
And I said that becausepersonally I can't get out of my
neighborhood at five o'clock inthe afternoon.
I can't, and that's not fair toa mother or father or a parent

(26:16):
I should say that's trying toget their child up to Womble
Park to baseball practice at sixo'clock.
Yeah, you've got to leave atfive.
So let's just imagine this.
Now,I've lived this one.
You've been in the office allday.
You get off, you get at 5:15.
You left a little bit early.
You get your child, you makesure they have a quick snack to
get to the baseball practice.
Children are always excitedabout baseball or soccer

(26:38):
practice.
You get them in the car, youhave your other kid and you're
hoping that you've got to getthem to dance or something like
that, and then you've got to sitin traffic.
If I've got to sit in trafficfor 40 minutes to go less than a
mile and a half, that's aproblem.
It's a huge problem.
The fact that we have parks andrec programs is fantastic.
The fact that our kids can playright here in this town, that's

(26:58):
fantastic.
But the fact that it's takingme sometimes 30 minutes to get a
mile, mile and a half, that isproblematic.
So responsible growth meanslet's say, let's have
conversations before we arebuilding these things in.
Now I will say this.
I don't think any othercandidate will talk about this.
The town actually has a really,really good process.
Before a project comes in, itcomes to the land use advisory

(27:21):
committee.
Land use advisory committee ismade up of a Planning Board
representative, Town Councilrepresentative and staff, and a
developer will come in and saywe're thinking about doing this
and we'll give them ideas.
I sat on that committee forseveral years.
We'll give them ideas.
Once that goes through andstaff works with them and does
all of their things, then itcomes to the Planning Board.
Planning Board makes theirrecommendations.

(27:43):
Then, it goes to Town Council.
So there is a process, and ourtown staff wonderful.
I will tell you, they arefantastic.
However, we have to just beable to tie these things
together, and I think it'simportant that we do.

Yeah, I do think that sometimes we get
stuck.
I'm going to use the wordnarrow-minded, but not
necessarily in that negativecontext.
We just we have the tunnelvision on because we're focused
on whatever is right in front ofus.
Sometimes we need that biggerpicture, the overall everything,
so that we can see how somethings work together and how
some things might come intoconflict, that if we just make a

(28:21):
few little tweaks, we canalleviate that conflict.

Agreed, agreed, and sometimes you know I mean
it's really talking.
It's talking, it's working,it's working together.
One of the things that I reallyenjoy about my professional job
is I get teams to work together.
I have a program that Ifacilitate called Building
Effective Teams, and how do Imake sure that I accelerate them
to be effective together sothat they can work with other

(28:45):
teams?
And what a lot of the teamsthat come.
They think that it means justtheir team working together.
It's like our little team, it'smy little team and we're going
to work together.
That's part of it.
But how do you work with yourcounterparts?
How do you work with yourvendors?
How do my engineers work withmy sales team?
And they work with themarketing team and they work
with the HR team to create afantastic product.

(29:05):
That's the same thing that wehave to do in the town, and it's
not easy.
I'm going to be honest with you.
It's not easy, but sometimesit's a matter of saying back to
what I said before, just goingto listen a little bit and
listen to other folks and sayhave we thought about this?
And working together we can getthere.
The town is doing a good job.
We're going to do a great job.

You have mentioned some of this, but what
are ways you have served thetown and its people?

I've coached baseball, I've coached
basketball.
I actually coach soccer oncebecause they didn't have a
soccer coach.
Now I'm going to say this onefor the folks that are ever
listening to this you don't wantChris Deshazor coaching your
soccer team because I don't knowsoccer.
However, I learned somethingthat year.
I learned something really,really, really important.
I signed up to coach that teambecause we needed a coach and

(29:54):
they weren't going to be able tohave a team that year.
At that time, my youngest sonwas like seven years old.
It's a rec soccer team but Ifound someone in the
neighborhood who was a soccerguy, who loved soccer, and Jason
was the guy who helped me.
And I told the parents hey,listen, I will be the guy that's
sending you emails.
This guy's going to coach yourkids and Jason, he would come to
my house and go okay, todaywe're going to do this and you

(30:15):
put your foot this way.
You don't have to be the actor,you don't have to be the expert
, you don't have to knoweverything, but you have to
surround yourself with peoplethat are willing to learn and
willing to teach you.
That's the same thing for TownCouncil.
So when you ask some of thethings that I've done.
I've coached.
I've coached a lot.
I've actually I've served onthe Planning Board and as a part

(30:36):
of the Planning Board, I was amember of the Land Use Advisory
Committee.
I've been a member of multiplecommittees, but the one
committee that I've just beenappointed to or volunteered for
is the Tree Advisory Committee.
So I'll be honest with thepeople out here.
What you see is what you get,folks.
I was appointed to the TreeAdvisory Committee I'm not ap
pointed, I volunteered, I shouldsay, for the Tree Advisory
Committee.
I was thinking okay, folks,what am I going to talk about a

(30:57):
tree?
I know nothing about a tree.
Councilman Hewetson is on therewith me and we have.
We share this view.
We really truly do.
We both were sitting there.
We learned a lot about trees,but it's about making this town
a Tree City, USA.
Does everybody know that we'rea Tree City?
Does everybody know that now,when, when developers are
developing houses not for likean Amgen, but when they're

(31:19):
developing houses you can't justclear cut, and so now that
saves our environment.
Our environment is so importantfor us.
So you can get a tree in yourneighborhood if your street tree
is dying.
My neighbor street tree isdying and to replace that is
quite expensive.
But the town has a program thatwill help replace those street
trees.
People don't know those things.

I did not know that.

So those are the types of things that we have to
do.
We have to communicate thosethings out to folks.
So when you ask, what have Idone?
I've always served and you willprobably hear the story at some
point.
For me, when I was a little boy, I grew up in Danville,
Virginia.
Danville is right across theborder in Virginia, about an
hour and a half from here.
My mother never worked.
My mother was always thevolunteer.
She did Girl Scouts, she didthis, she did that.

(32:04):
But the one of the things thatI remember and she laughed at me
when I was home a couple weeksback and I told her about this
the Red Cross.
She volunteered for theAmerican Red Cross and on
Thursdays my mom would drive theRed Cross van and they would
deliver food to people in need.
I remember that.
I don't know why that stuckwith me, but I remember being
probably seven years old and Iwas a little kid that would take

(32:26):
these boxes of food to thesepeople that needed and they
would aw, who is this cute kid.
Yes, I think I was cute.
I don't know, they would saythat I was just some little kid
with no hair but still don'thave hair.
But I would go and I would handthese boxes to people.
For me, watching my mom whoserved her entire life, she
served and so for me it'simportant to serve.

(32:46):
I don't look at this as apolitical position.
I look at this as a way ofserving the community.
I look at this as a way oflistening to the people and
doing the things that help themmake their lives simple.
People shouldn't have to thinkabout Town Council every single
day.
You should be able to come homeand say, hey, I need to go over
to Tzatziki's and get somethingto eat and be happy with that.
Or go to Target and pick upwhat you need, or Walmart or

(33:08):
whatever.
So for me it's about servingand I've always served.
When I coached baseball, it's afriend of mine and I that
started the travel team that westarted here.
We started the travel team witha particular goal.
We wanted to prepare young menat the time because it was all
boys.
We wanted to prepare them toplay middle and high school
baseball and I remember John andI being very excited that very

(33:28):
first team that we had and allof our boys made the middle
school team.
That was a big thing.
All of the boys made the middleschool teams, their respective
middle school teams.
We did it, not for us, but itwas because we were helping the
kids.
He knew baseball really well.
I think I knew baseball and theguys that I coached with all
the time, we knew the games whowere always giving back.

Here's a really good story (33:48):
A couple of years ago my neighbor
he knew that I coached a littlebit and I coached both of my
boys and my youngest son wasplaying high school ball at the
time and he says yeah, Deshazor,we're looking for someone to
coach and I'm going to coach.
Will you help me out?
I was like, but Jim was likeyou know, I don't really know a
lot, but you know played when Iwas a kid, I'll coach it.
He says really, so I'll coachit.
He said you don't have any kids, I'll coach it.

(34:09):
Got it Called up my buddy, DanDan.
I didn't have to get the wordsout of my mouth about coaching.
Dan was like yep, I'm there.
We coached those little boys.
We had no kids on the team.
My son and one of his friendsthat played for me, that
actually graduated from HollySprings High School this past
spring, coached with us and wecoached those little boys and
had fun for no reason, but justwe wanted to give back to the
kids.

(34:29):
We love the game.
Serving is in my blood.
It's what I do and honestlyI've done Planning Board.
I, hopefully, will be electedas a Town Council representative
.
I'll serve there, but I willalways serve.
Until the day I leave.
I will always serve.
That's important to me.
You have to give back.
I teach my sons that you haveto give.
You have to give more than youreceive.
You always just do so.
That's why.
That's why I serve.

Have you been a consistent voter in town
elections?

Yeah, now, this one's important to me then.
So I will tell you this one,and voting is one of the most
important things for me ever.
I started voting when I was 18.
So I turned 18 in May.
I voted that fall by absenteeballot because I was a freshman
at Virginia Tech and I was twoand a half hours away and I
wasn't driving home.
You know you can't drive homeon a random Tuesday.
I've always voted in everyelection.

(35:14):
Now it's easier to vote becauseI can do the research and I
tell people all the time to doyour research.
So there's a site online andsomeone posted all of the
candidates voting records.
Mine was the most robust.
I vote in every single electionMunicipal, Midterm,
Presidential.
I always vote and I do myresearch.
I research everything.
I think it's super important,but there's a reason why.

Amanda Benbow Lunn (Host): What's that? (35:35):
undefined

Chris Deshazor (Guest) (35:36):
My ancestors we're not able to vote
.
They had to fight to vote.
My ancestor s did not have theopportunity to cast their vote
and make their voices heard.
So I have an obligation tothose that came before me to
cast my vote and to cast my voteso that those that come after
me can cast their vote.
Yes, it's on a Tuesday beforewe had early voting, I made a

(35:57):
way to vote, and if that meantthat that morning I couldn't go
workout or something and I hadto be up and at the poll early
before I went to work always andI stressed that to my sons that
is a right.
That's why this country wasbuilt so that we would have that
right, and so for me, voting isextremely important.
People will say, oh, my votedoesn't count.
You can't count what you don'tcast.

That's true.

And nowadays it's so easy to find information
.
It's just Google someone.
I've learned that in thiselection.
I've posted all kinds of stuffabout me, my platform, things
that are important to me, butpeople will talk to you.
People will ask where do youstand, what do you believe?
And so I believe it's importantto vote.
I believe it's important forevery person to have the right

(36:40):
to vote, and I believe that forme, it's one of those things
that I will always say.
That's another thing I willalways vote.
There's not a reason that I'mnot going to vote.
I will always vote.
I look forward to it every year, actually.
I think it's fun.

With great privilege comes great
responsibility, and that is oneof the biggest responsibilities
I feel we have as citizens inthis country, because it did not
just formulate by itself.
Our freedoms were not justgiven.

That is a very true statement.

Amanda Benbow Lunn (Host) (37:06):
We have to be assertive and make
sure that we are doing our part,and Democracy is a team sport,
and if we're not all playing,then we're not reaching our
greatest potential.

You know it's something that you asked earlier
.
You asked about democracy.
The beauty of voting is, if theperson or the platform or the
process that you want did notget voted for, it was voted
against.
We have an opportunity.
We can still run.
Yet I can't run for presidentright now, sorry, I don't have
that kind of money, those kindof funds and that's not really

(37:36):
don't want to do that.
But there are a lot of things ina local election.
Think about the things that thelocal town council handle.
They handle the development inthis town.
They handle the budget in thistown.
They handle the town taxes, allof these things that directly
affect your and my bottom line.
And if you think about theaverage family, if you ran every

(37:57):
family kind of like a business,you've got a bottom line,
you've got your budget, you'vegot your what you can do and you
can't do' s but your bottomline.
There are certain things theyused to say this when I was a
kid there's certain thingsyou're gonna do in life.
You're gonna pay taxes andyou're gonna die.
They say that.
So with the paying taxes theTown Council helps with.
They set those groundwork ofwhat those taxes are locally.

(38:18):
So those are some of the thingswe we and when we look at the
budget,

Absolutely.
So you have mentioned a littlebit, but what are your areas of
focus for your campaign?

My true area of focus is responsible growth now
I say responsible growth becauseit's more of an umbrella and
that umbrella narrows down to acouple of different things.
We start talking aboutresponsible growth, we can talk
about affordable housing.
When we talk about responsiblegrowth, we can talk about a
little bit of traffic.
But how do we grow thesedevelopments?
One of the things that want tomake sure that I am clear about

(38:52):
is I think that the current TownCouncil and the council before
it did some really good jobs ofbringing in some businesses.
Mayor Sears did a good job withthis, think Ma yefskie's doing
a decent job with this.
The mayors, the towns they aretrying to bring in businesses.
We need to make sure that wecontinue to bring in businesses
that can level the tax base sothat the tax burden does not
fall on us as much.

(39:14):
We'll always have to pay sometaxes, but if we can have a tax
base and the businesses can helpwith that, now we have people
that can work these businessesas well as give tax revenue to
the town, that helps us out,helps us out a lot.
So my focus is trulyresponsible growth.

Okay.
When making important decisions, sometimes you have to make
compromises or choose the leastsucky thing.
In the following scenarios,which would you choose?
Decreasing lot sizes of homesin order to allow a greater
number of homes to be availableat a lower price point.
Or increasing lot sizes todecrease the number of homes

Ooh, tough one, but I would have to choose
option a.
I choose option a because wehave many homes in Holly Springs
right now where the average.
So we had a thing with the townthe other night and they said
the median house price is $375.
And I smiled I think it was$375 or $345 and they said, oh,
but that's taken off of the taxassessment.
Remember, the tax assessmentwas taken four years ago because

(40:26):
we have a new tax assessmentcoming this year, so that number
was really off.
If you look at it, the averagehouse price right now is $525.
So my answer to that would bewe would offer smaller lot sizes
, smaller houses, which adds alittle bit of density, which
people want to move here.
Yet what we also need to do atthe same time is if we can have

(40:46):
people that can work at some ofthese businesses and not have to
travel at entry ways to routeone and add different entry and
exit exchanges on one and 540and add other amenities such as
I would love to see us have aswim bubble here.
You know something like a swimbubble and things like that were
people don't have to travel outso far and they can do their
things right here.

(41:07):
That's the best of both worldsfor us.
That's an absolute bestsolution for us and, at the same
time, one of the things that weneed to do as we are doing that
.
One of the things that isreally cool is really great that
the current UDO, UnifiedDevelopment Ordinance.
It requires that all houseshave plugs for EV chargers.
Okay, so now more people canbuy electronic vehicles

(41:27):
fantastic.
However, what if we have moreand better charging
infrastructure throughout thetown?
What if we have better and moresolar options throughout the
town?
What if some of those smallerhouses are built with solar
options so they're using lessenergy from Duke energy and more
energy from natural sunlight?
That's what I mean by thinkingoutside of the box.

(41:48):
It's not written that we have togo this way and it's the worst
of the worst.
We can build this so that it iseffective for all people and
beneficial.
We just have to, sometimes, toyour words compromise, think a
little bit.
And again, I don't have to bethe expert, because I'm not, but
we can learn from the experts,the engineers and the stormwater

(42:10):
engineers.
I've learned so much aboutstormwater, stormwater engineers
in my past few years and I waslike, really, this is, and it's
actually really interesting, butI'm not the expert, but I have
the folks that are the experts.
I will tell you this.
A couple weeks back there was alot of research going around
about the town is going to runout of water.
"We don't have enough water.
Fortunate I am privilegedenough.

(42:32):
I would say I'm fortunate.
I won't say privileged; I'mfortunate to have the
relationship with the town staffthat I reached out and asked a
question and I met with some ofthe planners that explained it
to me and they explained to mewhat we were using.
So if every project that's onthe books were to be completed
today we're not maxing out thewater consumption, we may be

(42:54):
close.
It may be a little scary butwe're not.
However, the town staff isalready working on other options
because on other options onwhere we can connect to for
water, getting the pipes largerso that consumption can hit to
eight millions of gallon ofwater per day, which currently
today we're using two and a half.
So we have that team working onthat.

(43:15):
They have a long term plan.
A lot of people don't know that, we don't understand that and
one of the things that I like isthat the staff is willing to
talk about that.
A couple weeks later in theSouthern Living magazine they
explained some of that and forfolks that read it was like okay
, doesn't still mean that we cango willy nilly and just use all
the water in the sun, becausewater is a resource.

(43:36):
However, there is a plan.
So when I answered thatoriginal question, you know what
do you do.
We have to have that long termplan.
The other question that I wouldprobably toss back if that was
to ever come up, is how doesthat fit into the long term plan
of Holly Springs?
Holly Springs does have a longterm plan.
How does that fit into the longterm plan and does that meet

(43:57):
the needs?
As we are expecting to hit65,000 people by 2030, does that
meet the needs of this longterm plan?
And so those are the questions,and that's a tough question,
but it's a question that shouldbe discussed and it's a question
that it can be answered.

Okay, the next scenario would you choose
having fewer amenities andknowing many constituents may
not be able to participate inthose amenities because there's
not enough space, in order toavoid raising the town's taxes,
or would you be more prone tothinking ahead and feel it might
be better to raise the town'staxes to a certain point in

(44:31):
order to be reasonably proactivewith the growing population?
And by amenity I do includepublic safety, law enforcement,
fire department, along withparks and recs.

That's an interesting one, because the
more people you bring in the tax, they will pay taxes for that.
So in a sense, the way that Isee that I see this question is
the more people that come in.
You have to have so many peopleper light.
Law enforcement and lawenforcement has grown.
Police and fire has grown.
There's a chart that the townmanager has that shows the
growth over time and it showsthe amount of employees over

(45:02):
time and that chart actuallyshows, when you truly look at it
very closely, it shows thatthey are lagging a little bit.
It really does, based on thechart that I saw.
Now I think that as a town, whenwe raise taxes on something
like that, the easier answer forthat is we need to make sure
that we have businesses, becausewhen you think about it, we
didn't have a lot of majorbusinesses here in 2007.

(45:23):
It was mostly retail and otherthings.
So if we can bring in somemajor industrial not industrial,
but major businesses that areemployers, that are here and
they can help the tax rate, thenwe're not going to have that
burden of a tax rate, becauseone of the things that's
important to note is that anAmgen, Fuji and all these come
in.
There are pieces around parksand recs and making this a
walkable community that theyhave to comply with as well.

(45:46):
So many greenery trees andwalkable pathways and things
like that.
So I don't think that that,for me, that question is not as
much if that burden is on thetown, as much as can we do the
right thing and bring inbusinesses so that that business
tax rate is here.
So we're 70/ 30, we're 70% townand 30% business, which means

(46:07):
that we're still lots of lots ofpeople, but as we grow, let's
continue to grow the businessesalong with that that helps the
tax rate.
That tax rate helps to makesure that we actually have the
amenities for the town.

Could you go a little further into like?
I own a house, I own property.
I understand that when I'mpaying town taxes it's coming
from property taxes.
So when you are talking aboutthe taxes that businesses pay,
is that because they own theland and it's the property tax
for that, or there are otheravenues of the tax?

That and there's other avenues.
So a good example is when Fujicomes in, there are incentives
that were given in the town andthey may get a tax break for the
first five years.
Maybe, let's just say they doso.
The amount that they're payingback into that may be new the
first five years, but after thatthat money is paid back into
the town.
That adds into the coffers andthe town does these things like

(47:03):
that to entice these businessesin, because these businesses can
go anywhere, adding a hospitalright here, super important.
That hospital is a business andemploys people and will add
back to the tax base.
So, yes, my taxes will pay WakeCounty taxes and my local tax.
But as a home owner let's saythe easiest way to say this we
need to pay 100 bucks.
In a perfect world if we needto pay a hundred dollar tax bill

(47:26):
, the residents paying 70% andthe businesses are paying 30.
Today I think it's more likethe residents are paying like
82% and it's like 28% orwhatever that number is.
I'm not mathing really rightthis minute.
But the business are payingless.
But as we bring in morebusinesses, they add more to the
tax base, which makes theburden from the actual residents

(47:50):
less.
So the actual residents willalways pay taxes, we will, but
we need to bring in businessesto help with that tax base.
The best way that the analogythat I'll give here is that if I
am paying the taxes in my housein and I'm paying let's say I'm
paying $10 a year I'm going tomake this very easy and a
business is paying $3 a year andthe town needs $13 a year.

(48:14):
Let's say the town needs $15 ayear and I'm paying $11 a year
and all the businesses arepaying their four.
But if we get more businessesin and those businesses are
paying five and I'm paying 10,that helps me out.
So as I add more things andmore people come, I'm still
paying $10, but now we have moreamenities, we have more things.
We have a swim bubble.

(48:35):
We now have the ice skatingrink that is actually coming.
We actually have dog parks.
We actually have theskateboarding parks.
We have all of these thingsthat are available for our
people and one of the actually Ithink that we are focusing on
as well having amenities for ourseniors.
Haven't talked about those,haven't talked about those at
all but having amenities for theseniors and things for them to

(48:57):
do.
So those are the things that wehave to be able to build out
and and, Amanda, I think this isone of those things in which we
have to really think about itand we have to work at it and
it's not easy and have difficultconversations, but making sure
that it is a part of, andworking with that long range
plan.

Okay, and then the last scenario would you

choose (49:17):
allowing commercial property owners their rights to
remove trees on their propertyor trying to maintain tree
buffers to lay environmentalconcerns, aesthetics and
cleaning the air, especiallybecause of the landfill odors
that we sometimes experience?

That's very simple.
That was not.
You should have led with thatone.
That's an easy one.
They need to come in and theyneed to have tree buffers.
We need to have tree buffers.
We need to have trees.
The landfill odor.
Where I live and you work righthere at Arbor Creek so you can
definitely smell the landfill.
We need to have those treebuffers.
About two years ago, Heatherand I get up one morning and we
smelled gas in the house so wecalled the gas department

(49:57):
because you know we're a littlenervous about that.
And they came over and the guystarts laughing.
He goes that's not gas, buddy,that's the landfill.
The landfill is just that bad.
We have to have tree buffers,we have to have natural tree
buffers.
I like the fact that we are aTree City USA.
I mentioned that earlier.
I really like that fact.
I like the fact that developerscannot cut trees just for the

(50:20):
sake of cutting trees and clearcut.
One of the real interestingpieces is when we get
developments.
Have seen this a lot on thePlanning Board.
When we get developers thatcome in, developers will give us
there's, there are many of themthat will say you're asking for
us to maintain 20%, we'remaintaining 30% of the trees and
they're planting trees andbecause it's hard to cut all the

(50:42):
trees down, then plant littleones, because it takes so many
years, let's leave some of thisnatural buffers.
Let's leave some of thesenatural trees and let's add this
one.
It's prettier too.
It's much better for theenvironment and that probably
should be number one and numberthree.
It just helps everybody andthese developers want to be here

(51:03):
.
So because they want to be here, they will do the right things.
Sitting on the Planning Boardfor six years, I've not had a
developer that's come throughand say, well, we're going to
balk at this and we really needto cut these trees down.
Never heard that.
They're always like, yeah,we're going to actually leave
more, we want to leave more.
Interesting, it's really reallyimportant.

Is there a limit to what you feel may be
reasonable if a situationwarrants increasing taxes during
your term?

What do you mean ?
Like for how much we shouldraise taxes?

Yes, like would you come in and say we're
going to raise taxes $10 millionto do this?
Like, do you have some sort oflimit?

Well, there's always a limit.
The answer there is you have tolisten to the people.
You have to listen to thepeople.
You have some people that willsay it doesn't matter, raise the
taxes, I'll pay it.
You have some people that say Ican't do this now and I don't
want to raise this anymore and Iwant to stay here, but I do not
want to be taxed out of my owntown.
So the number one answer therefor me is to listen to the
people.
The second thing is you raisetaxes only when necessary.

(51:58):
We don't raise taxes for justfor the sake of raising taxes,
and sometimes we have to look atsomething and say is this
necessary right now?
The answer that you always getwell, if you don't do this now,
you know it's just going to bemore expensive a year down the
road, chris, that may be true,but there may be other
alternatives.
We never know what the economyis going to do.
We never know.
We don't know those things.

(52:18):
However, we should not justraise taxes just because it
seems great.
What's great for me is notgreat for someone else.
As I said earlier, my view ofthe stage depends on my seat in
the audience.
So my seat in the audience as aperson that is retired and
living on a fixed income, versus, and so I'll give you a couple

of different scenarios (52:35):
Person that's retired, living on a
fixed income and the person thatI talked to today.
They were so cute.
They were a young couple.
They had two little twin girlsI think they were, and they were
probably two, and they had aninfant and I was like, ooh, you
got it bad right now, justkidding.
Seriously, when you really thinkabout it, they have three
little ones raising the taxes onthem, trying to pay daycare and

(52:56):
buying food, and for them it'sdifferent versus someone who is
working a job and your kids areout of college or you have kids
in college.
There're all these differentviews of the stage.
My job as a Councilman is to beable to listen to each person
in each seat and understandtheir viewpoint and see how this
is going to affect them andfind out the best way to make

(53:18):
something happen that has theleast amount of impact on
everybody.
That's my job and that's not aneasy job, but I am willing to
step in and do that.

Do you feel there are major areas where the
town is inappropriatelyallocating resources?

As of right now?
No, I don't know.
Let me rephrase that I don'tknow because I don't, I've
looked at the budget and thereare things like when I look at
the amount that we have forpolice, for policing and fire, I
think that's good.
I think we're actuallyunderserved there.
I do.
We just added, like thebodycams for our police.
I think that was necessary intoday's climate as a safety

(53:53):
feature, not only for ourresidents but for the police.
There's one of the policeofficers that actually
demonstrated this to me beforePlanning Board meeting and he
was saying he's like it's reallycool and his words were it's
really neat to be able to walkin and know that, no matter what
is said, I have a recording ofexactly what's going on.
That gives him a peace of mind.

(54:14):
I don't have a problem there.
So when I really say, are therethings that they're not doing
or shouldn't be doing, I can'tsay.
I can't say that there are, butI'm sure that there are
probably things behind thescenes that I would be aware of.
But that's where transparentleadership comes into play.
The town manager does a reallygood job of explaining the
budget and all of the thingsthat go into the budget, and I

(54:37):
think that that's always lookedat, but today I can't say that.
I think that there are placeswhere we're missing.
I and I will probably have adifferent answer a few months
from now, you know, with someother information.

Amanda Benbow Lunn (Host) (54:47):
B ecause you might be sitting in a
different seat?

Correct.
Thank you, yes, I'm sitting ina different seat, having a
different view of the stage.

Yes.
Do you have any creativesuggestions on where to get
alternative funds for the townto support the town's growth?

I would say number one.
I think you create the businesstax to come in and bring and
incentivize these businesses tocome in.
If we can get some really goodbusinesses to come in here and
work with us and in the work forthe town, because that builds
growth and this builds long termlongevity in the town.
I think that is one way.
Some other things to do is towork closely with the other

(55:22):
municipalities, and here's areally good example Wake Tech is
building a new facility righthere in Apex.
That's very close to us.
What happens if we build apartnership with Wake Tech and
help to bring in more employeesand more talent.
Now I wouldn't say talentedmore skilled employees right
here in this town, in this area,that they can get back in this

(55:45):
town, they can work in this town.
Now that they're already livinghere, they're already a little
bit more skilled and they canwork at these places.
We partner with some of thesecompanies that are here and that
are coming to build them up.
That's a creative way ofbuilding up that base.
Now I have people that areworking here.
They want to be here, they livehere.
I would love to see someone sayI've been living here for 40
years and I've done X, y, z.

(56:07):
We have that right now.
We have people that have beenhere, but some of those folks
are feeling a little bitdisplaced and I want to make
sure that they don't.
I don't want this to be a placethat's not safe for everyone,
that they don't feel comfortable.
I want people to feel like thisis home, and when you say,
where do you live, most peopledown here say I live in Raleigh.
No, you don't.
You live in Holly Springs and Iwant you to be proud to live in

(56:30):
Holly Springs, or as I call it,the Springs.
Be proud to live in HollySprings.
So those are some ways.
I didn't really give you anydirects, but I think we have to
be creative.
We've got to work with thebusinesses.
We've got to give people achance to make this proud to be
here, and I really, really thinkthat we have an opportunity to

(56:51):
do some of that.
I really do.

Okay, many times people, including those
who may be your fellow towncouncil members, have varying
opinions.
How do you approach a situationwhen there is a major
difference of opinion?

Professionally, my title is Director of Talent
Development.
One of my certifications isCrucial Conversations.
I am a Crucial ConversationCertified Trainer.
I have certified probably morethan a thousand people in
crucial conversations.
I live it, I breathe it.
I believe it more than anything.
One of the things that'simportant is that when you have
two sides and for anyone that'slistening to this that knows

(57:26):
crucial conversations or hasever been certified will
understand this; for those ofyou that don't, I will try and
paint the picture.
There's two sides and there'stwo different people, and either
they are.
If they're yelling at eachother, they're not hearing, or
they go to silence and they'rejust not listening.
But between those two people issomething called the pool of
shared meaning.
You have to give something intothat pool and I have to give

(57:47):
something.
And when you give somethinginto that pool that I can share
with and I give something thatyou can share with, we can start
to have a conversation.
So when we don't agree, as Isaid earlier, that's okay, but
we need to be able to give tothat pool of shared meaning.
Now that allows someone to sitin my seat and see my view of

(58:08):
that same stage that I wastalking about, so that you can
now understand my point of view.
I had a situation just today.
I was with some folks and therewas a situation, without going
into it, that people were justnot on the same page.
So I said folks, let's stop thetext messages and emails, let's
have a call.
We had a 30 minute call.
30 minute call ended up going alittle bit longer, but it was

(58:29):
fantastic because what theydon't know is it took something
directly from crucialconversations and I said what is
our purpose?
So the first thing that I didwas I dialed it back and created
a purpose.
Once you create a purpose, wecan get into that pool of shared
meaning.
So my professional trainingactually helps me immensely here
.
I use this a lot.
I've been married for 25 years.

(58:50):
I think that I wish I wouldhave known this like 25 years
ago, but it's been the last fivehelps me out a lot.
However, yeah, it's not goingto take there, but seriously,
it's really that pool of sharedmeaning.
How do we give into that?
How do we put in?
And it's like you give a littlebit, I give it a little bit.
How do we both give in equallyinto that pool of shared meaning
and get something out of that.
So when we don't agree,sometimes we have to pause.

(59:12):
And the other thing is, I dobelieve that we live in a
microwave society, and what Imean by that is in that
microwave society we want to putour popcorn in the microwave
and hit the button and pop it.
We don't even want to put threeminutes on the microwave, we
want a popcorn button that hitthe button and the popcorn comes
out the way that we want.
However, sometimes the bestpopcorn that you can make is you

(59:33):
get a kettle, you get somekernels, you get some oil, you
get some salt, you get thebutter and you put it in and you
put it on the stove top and letit cook a little slowly with a
pop thing on the top on it so itdoesn't pop everywhere and take
its time.
Sometimes you got to take yourtime.
We're in a rush all the time.
Everything is yesterday.
Sometimes we have to take ourtime and sometimes we have to
say I'm going to take a stepaway and I'm going to come back

(59:55):
to this.
That's not always an option.
Many times it's not.
But what I've learnedprofessionally, what I've
learned in my marriage, whatI've learned personally, is
sometimes it's best to stop,take a deep breath, try and
understand from the otherperson's point of view.
And now let's both of us giveto that pool of shared meaning
and if we're having a dialogue,rather than going to silence or
going to violence against eachother, that dialogue, good

(01:00:18):
things, can happen.
Absolutely, I live that everyday.
My crucial conversations, folks, that anyone that knows crucial
conversations will get that100%, 10,000%.
And those you don't, I willtell you it's a great.
It's actually another one ofthose really good books to read.
But practice and it's takenpractice.
I've not always been good atthat.
It's something that I've had topractice on.
You learn from your mistakes.
I've talked about another bookI had read Growth Mindset.

(01:00:39):
Oh, I've learned from mymistakes and I will continue to
make some mistakes.
I'm not perfect, just a guy.

Amanda Benbow Lunn (01:00:45):
Mm-hmm.
There are no mistakes, onlydiscoveries.

Chris Deshazor (01:00:48):
I like that.
That is a very growth mindsetthing.
I'll say this coaching baseball, my coach, my oldest kids, my
oldest son they're four yearsapart and I coached them.
I was a little tougher on thembut they were good.
They were good group of kids.
When I got the younger kids andI was doing a lot of things in
my professional career, I hadactually did performance reviews
on all of my players.
That's pretty funny.
Yes, that's the HR in me.
But anyway, when I coachedthose kids, sometimes when they

(01:01:11):
would make a mistake, instead of, you know, asking them a
question, I would ask moregrowth mindset questions and
they learned from that and theygot better from that and I
always appreciated that.
I appreciated that they didn'tfeel like someone was beating
them down.
They felt like it's okay tomake a mistake.
We're human and we all aregoing to make a mistake at some
point in our life, but we justhave to learn and grow from it.
So I like that.
I love that statement.

All right, just a couple more questions
here.
Do you feel the town could bemore inclusive?

Always, always.
The town is growing.
The town is growing at a veryfast rate.
I think the town could beextremely inclusive of all
people.
I think that the town itselfhas to work at being inclusive,
and the way the town was, evenwhen I moved here 16 years ago,
has changed and the demographicshave changed.
That's okay, that's just fine.

(01:01:58):
So we just have to make surethat we're inclusive, and to
make sure that we're inclusive,we have to be listening to all.
There's the whole thing.
We had the NDO.
The NDO was not signed and I'llgo on the record, and I've
always said this If we didn'tsign it, we should have created
something to make sure that allpeople feel included here in
this town, and so part of myprofessional job I do a little

(01:02:20):
bit of DEI work.
There's a piece on inclusion,but there's another piece of
that that's a little bit moreimportant is belonging.
It's okay to be included, butwhat if you're included?
What if you're included but youdon't belong?
We want people to feel likethey belong.
I want people to belong.
I don't want you to just feellike I'm included here in Holly
Springs but I don't belong inHolly Springs.
I don't feel like I belong inHolly Springs.

(01:02:41):
I want people to feel like theybelong in Holly Springs.
That is important, and so wehave a little work to do to make
sure that all people feel likethey are included and that they
belong in Holly Springs.

Okay.
Have you gained anyendorsements thus far and if you
gain more after the recordingof this podcast, where might
voters find that information?

They will find it on my website.
So there are severalendorsements that I have applied
for and we haven't heard fromthose.
I was endorsed by theDemocratic Party.
I did get that endorsement.
There are others that I amwaiting to hear from and I'll
just kind of wait on that, butanyone that will see that will
see that on my website.
However, what I will say is,more importantly, the

(01:03:25):
endorsements are important, Ithink, to an extent, because
they kind of are on thealignment of where things are.
Most importantly, I think thatevery person that's listening to
this podcast, every person thatwill vote, will know that for
me, what I stand for in myplatform is very important who I
am as a person One of thethings that I did say, and I
have been very, very vocal aboutthis.

(01:03:47):
I do think that sometimes, whenit comes to endorsements and
platforms and everything, youhave to get to know the person,
to know the person, because Ipersonally do not want to be
painted as just a this or a that.
I'm Chris, that's all I am.
I am Chris Deshazor.
I've been that for my entirelife and I want to be me and
that's important and I lovelistening to people.

(01:04:08):
I think that if people were toget to know me, and those that
have gotten to know me would sayyou know, I've had people that
I know right now that are saidto me Chris, just be you, don't
be anything else, don't try tobe anything else, and I'm not.
I'm just me, I'm just a guy.
I'm here.
I love this town.
I'm here really more thananything and I just want to
serve this town and I think it'sgoing to be a really good thing

(01:04:29):
.
This is a good phase in my lifeof where I am to do that.

Perfect, and where can listeners connect
with you and find out all thelatest information regarding
your campaign?

Facebook, instagram and my website.
So my website is www.
C hris4HS.
com so Chris4HS.
com.
Or you can connect with me atfacebook.
com/C hris4HollySprings.
Or Instagram Chris4HollySprings.
All of those are me.
We're doing a lot of really coolthings.
I'm having a lot of meet andgreets, meeting folks.

(01:05:02):
I've just added some doggybandanas that I'm very excited
about.
I'm just trying to get to knowpeople, as I did my listening
campaign and getting to knowfolks and meeting folks out in
the community.
You can find me as every personI've talked to I've said if you
have questions I asked thisquestion are you planning on
voting?
Do you know?
There's an election?
This is a really big one andyou know.

(01:05:22):
If you have questions, I wantpeople to reach out.
I want people to reach out andI've had lots of people on my
website, on mychris4hollysprings chris4HS com.
On that website.
On the bottom of the website,there's a page where, if you
want to connect with me, I'vegotten lots of feedback from
folks about things that areimportant to them and I
purposely respond to everymessage.

(01:05:44):
It's important.
It's important to me.
Do I have a group of folksthat's helping me out?
Yes, but we're all volunteers.
This is Chris's campaign andit's my job to respond to people
and that's what I do.
What you see today is what youwill see as a Town Councilman, a
person that will listen topeople, that will respond.
I am expecting that I will beat a lot of homeowners
association meetings, a lot ofmeetings and meeting a lot of

(01:06:06):
folks and listening to a lot offolks and driving this town you
know, think of it as the town isa bus.
I'm helping to drive it and allthe Town Council members are
taking a chance at driving thatbus, but we're driving and we're
making some decisions.
That makes it go and sometimeswe have to change the wheels
while the bus is moving.
That's fun, but we're drivingit and so I'm looking forward to

(01:06:26):
hopefully representing thepeople of Holly Springs.

All right.
Do you have any last thoughtsyou'd like to share with those
voting in the upcoming election?

Vote.
Make sure you vote, make sureyou do your research.
For everyone that's out there,make sure you're doing your
research.
I am the candidate that hasserved this town for the past
six years on the Planning Boardand though I've served on the
Planning Board, I don't takethat lightly.
I don't think it's anythinglike.
There have been many committees.
I want people to get out andmake that decision.
I hope, if you have questionsabout what I stand for or what I

(01:06:58):
believe or what I'm doing andhow I would handle something,
please do ask and vote.
And when you go to vote onNovember 7th, if you don't early
vote, take five of your friends.
Make sure that everybody votes.
I voted.
Turnout for the municipalelection is very low.
A lot of people don't vote.
These are the things thatdirectly affect you.

(01:07:19):
So, more than anything else,the decision that you make with
the Town Council will directlyaffect you, and I hope that
people get out and vote.
I really do.
I hope that you circle my nameon the ballot on that day and a
year from now you'll look backand say, wow, Chris Deshazor is
doing everything that he said hewas going to do.
He is working for me and he isaccessible.

(01:07:39):
He's listening to me.
I feel like I know him.
I see him everywhere and I cantalk to him.
He is not a guy that is justrunning just to run.
He's running for me.
I'm running for you.
I'm running for the people ofthis town.
I'm running to represent thepeople of this town.
So that's why I'm running and Ihope that they vote.
I hope that folks get out andvote and I'm looking forward to

(01:07:59):
interfacing with everyone.

Okay.
I have a lightning round ofquestions.
There are no right or wronganswers.
You can just speak to whatcomes to mind first.
What is your favorite book?

Mindset by Carol Dweck Yeah, Mindset by Carol
Dweck right now is probably myfavorite.

Okay, who is someone you look up to and view
as a role model?

My mom, hands down my mother.

What's your favorite way to relax and let go
?

Music.
It depends on the day anddepends on what's going on, but
it's definitely music.

What's one thing that fills your heart with
joy?

My family.

What's your greatest weakness?

Talk too much.

What was one thing you wished for as a kid?

A new baseball glove.
I used to say when I was a kidI used to say starlight, star
bright, first star I've seen,tonight.
I wish I may, I wish I mighthave this wish I wish tonight.
I wish for a brand new baseballglove.
I said that a lot.

Amanda Benbow Lunn (Host) (01:08:54):
Did you get the glove Chris Deshazor

(Guest) (01:08:55):
Eventually?
Yes, Eventually.
It wasn't the glove that Iwanted, I wanted a Wilson A2000,
but I never got the A2000, butI did get the glove, yes.

What's something on your bucket list?

What's not on my bucket list?
I want to go to Africa.
I want to go to.
I want to try.
I love to travel.
I really do want to see Africa.
I really want to go there.
I want to get to Paris.
I've never been to Paris.
I've been a lot of places inthe world, but Paris and Africa
are two on my bucket list.

Okay, and the last question.

The other bucket list thing will probably never
happen, which is to swing a batagainst a professional pitcher
just once in my life, but Idon't think that's going to
happen.

Don't say that there is always a chance.
What is your favorite thingabout yourself?

Chris loves to have fun and I love to laugh.
I mean, my wife says all thetime there is not a stranger you
have never met.
I love people, I like meetingpeople, I like talking to people
.
I love the energy.
I am an extrovert, I'm atrainer and I get energy from
people.
Oh man, that's me.
Just getting excited, justthinking about people and that

(01:10:02):
energy of it.
I like that.
I like people.
I love the energy that I getfrom people.

Introverts like me appreciate extroverts
like you.

That's exactly what my wife.
This is what Heather says allthe time.

All right, Well, thank you, Chris, so much
for trusting me and being partof our candidate segment for the
Holly Springs Deep Dive Podcast.
I wish you the best of luckwith this upcoming election.

Amanda, thank you for doing this.
I am looking forward to hearingit and looking forward to
hearing from all of thecandidates.
I think this is awesome and I'mreally appreciative that you're
doing this.
So thank you.

You're quite welcome.
Absolutely, I think everybodyhas a part to play.

Yes, they do.

Democracy is at the heart of all we hold
dear.
Our local governments have theinfluence to decide our
community's priorities.
These offices have a majorimpact on our daily lives and
can have real consequences.
They create and enforce localordinances, fund our local fire
and police departments, createthe structure and ambiance of

(01:11:02):
our communities and decide ourlocal property taxes.
Lower voter turnout in localelections means your vote has
even more of an impact.
Early voting starts October 19that the Wake County Board of
Elections and begins October28th and will run through
November 4th at the John M BrownCommunity Center in Apex and

(01:11:23):
the Avery Street RecreationCenter in Garner.
During early voting, you may goto any of these early voting
sites.
Election Day will be Tuesday,November 7th.
On Election Day, you have to goto your designated polling site
.
Please remember you will need avalid ID to vote.
This year, the voterregistration deadline is October

(01:11:43):
13th, though you may also beeligible to register at the
voting sites during the earlyvoting period.
And that brings this episode ofthe Holly Springs Deep Dive
Podcast, soon to be called theNC Deep Dive, to a close.
Make sure you check out all theother relevant candidate
episodes for the Board ofCommissioners, also known as

(01:12:05):
Town Council for Holly Springsand Fuquay Varina, at www.
HollySpringsDeepDive.
com, spotify, apple Podcasts,audible or wherever you
currently listen to yourpodcasts.
I will include helpful linksfor each candidate and voting in
general in their episode shownotes on our website.

(01:12:26):
If you have any thoughts ortopics you'd like to share, you
may do so through social mediaor via email at
hollyspringspodcast@gmail.
com.
Thank you for engaging intoday's episode and becoming a
more informed citizen.
Democracy is a team sport.
Together we make democracy workand our communities a better

(01:12:47):
place to work, live and play.
Your vote absolutely matters,your voice absolutely matters.
You, my friend, absolutelymatter.
Until next time, my friendsnamaste.
The love and light in me seesand honors the love and light in
you.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Crime Junkie

Ridiculous History

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Chris Deshazor: Running for the 4 Year Seat for the Holly Springs Board of Commissioners aka Town Council

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Crime Junkie

Ridiculous History

All Episodes

Chris Deshazor: Running for the 4 Year Seat for the Holly Springs Board of Commissioners aka Town Council

On Purpose with Jay Shetty