Decision 2010: Board of Commissioners District 5 race

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(Editor’s note: The following is part of The Mecklenburg Times’ coverage of the Nov. 2 elections.)

Age: 49

Hometown: Youngstown, Ohio

Family: Wife: Allyson; children: Abigail, 17, Anna, 12, Charlie, 12

Education: Bachelor’s degree in political science from Davidson College, juris doctor degree from the University of Michigan

Political affiliation: Republican

Neil Cooksey, who is running unopposed for a second term as the District 5 representative for the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners, said he has questioned “status quo” issues while serving his first term.

“I see my role as being a little sand in the oyster,” he said.

He said he is trying to bring an outside, business perspective to government.

An Ohio native, Cooksey graduated from Davidson College in 1983.

He graduated from the University of Michigan’s law school in 1986 then went into private practice with a concentration in construction law and government contracts.

He has been an attorney for Akima Management Services, an Anchorage, Alaska-based company that does federal government contracting, for the past two years.

He has been married for 22 years and has three children who attend Myers Park High School and Alexander Graham Middle School.

How long does he plan to serve on the commission?

“As long as I’m helping to move public policy in the right direction, I’ll stay,” he said.

What are the top needs and/or problems you plan to address if elected?

Cooksey said the top problem in District 5 is the top problem facing the country: making sure people who are trying to hang on in a tough economic time have jobs so they can take care of their families.

By the end of your term, what major accomplishments do you hope to have achieved?

Cooksey said he hopes by the end of his next term that the county will have a stable budget, which he doesn’t think it has now.

“I really see three R’s coming into play in the current election cycle,” he said. The first R, he said, is revaluation of properties. Cooksey said revaluation needs to be done in a way that doesn’t unfairly impact residential homeowners.

The second R is redistricting, which will take place after the county gets the results of the next census.

“We need to make sure that’s done in a way that doesn’t skew the balance of power that’s in Mecklenburg County inappropriately,” he said.

The third R, he said, is renewing or restructuring the county’s government so that it focuses on the services that citizens need and expect to have done in the most efficient way possible.

Tara Ramsey can be reached at [email protected].