Newman takes on creative projects
Education, reclamation pushed by commissioner

By Stacy Malkan
D.C. Statehood Green Party

Grey Newman knows firsthand about the grassroots. He works there, in the basement of the county office building, as Chair of the Mecklenberg (N.C.) County Soil and Water Conservation District.

Newman is proud to hold an office that may not be the first one that comes to mind when thinking of elected positions.

"I think I'm making a bigger difference here than I could at the county commission or city council because there's so much red tape there. I'd rather spend my time doing things I think are making a difference," he said.

Newman is a native of Mecklenberg County, a rapidly changing rural and urban landscape about half the size of Rhode Island and home to 1.5 million people. Concerned about environmental health in a place where 70 percent of the springs are unsafe to swim in, he decided to run for the Soil and Water Conservation District in 2002.

With hometown name recognition, a strong volunteer network and just $700, Newman got elected with 36,000 votes, beating out a 16-year incumbent Republican.

Newman first learned about the Green Party as an exchange student in Finland in the 1980s and got engaged locally when he petitioned to get Ralph Nader on the ballot in Georgia in 2000. He is now North Carolina's only Green Party elected official.

Since Newman has been on board, Mecklenberg has become the first county in the South to hire an urban conservationist, who wrote up some creative grant applications and scored $60,000 that the conservation district is using to take on a series of projects, "mostly deemed not worth it or too small," Newman says, such as educating inner city kids about the natural world and reclaiming community spaces in urban areas.

In one project, the district commissioners worked in conjunction with homeowners in a public housing project to clean up a stream that had been overtaken by plants and trash and install benches and walking paths.

At an inner city school, the commissioners are teaching urban kids about the environment and how it affects them. In one outdoor classroom, a group of low-performing kids created a butterfly garden, herb garden and a vegetable patch. "They really took to it. They loved it," Newman says.

He said he is pleased with what he's been able to accomplish as a member of the Soil and Water Conservation District, and by how good it's felt.

"It's been more fun than I thought," he said of his 20-hours-a-month service in the only non-paid elected office in the state of North Carolina. "I'm enjoying it, I truly am. Living here in Mecklenberg for 30-plus years, there are parts of it I'm seeing for the first time."

Newman urges other Greens to consider running for Soil and Water Conservation Districts, which exist on the county level in most states. "It's a great office for Greens to run for. I tell people I'm a Green and I ran for Soil and Water because I believe it's the place for a Green to be."