Brian Jenest Residence: Woodland Street Age: 52 Family: Wife Sarah, two sons; his mother, sister, niece and mother-in-law all live in Davidson Career: Landscape architect/managing partner of ColeJenest & Stone, Charlotte. Education: Graduate of North Carolina State University College of Design. Lived in Davidson: 18 years. Civic involvement: Davidson Town Board member (2007-9); current chair, Lake Norman Transportation Commission; Davidson representative to Mecklenburg Union Metropolitan Planning Organization (MUMPO); Davidson Planning Board (1994-2003); Davidson Housing Coalition board (2004); Davidson Land Plan Committee (1994-95); Davidson Cornelius Day Care board (1996-2000); member, Urban Land Institute.

Brian Jenest is an 18-year Davidson resident who has served the town on a variety of committees and boards, including for the past two years in his first term as a commissioner.

A planner by trade, he brings a career’s worth of expertise in planning, development, transportation and related issues. He notes that he has close relationships with officials in the towns around Davidson. Transit is a key issue for him and, as a Davidson commissioner, he also serves on the 1-year-old Lake Norman Transportation Commission, where he’s currently the chair.

In his first term, Mr. Jenest said planning issues have come easily, though there has not been much development. He’s spent more time getting up to speed on budgeting and other key board tasks.

In a second term, he would like to continue working on shifting Davidson’s tax base away from a heavy reliance on residential property taxes and more toward commercial. Having the town remain overwhelmingly residential “is probably not sustainable,” he said.

“So looking for other opportunities for revenue is probably important in a non-residential way. Not that we want to completely develop our town. But I think there are some opportunities for commercial development, either out on Highway 73, or in and around our downtown, or out at Exit 30,” he said.

He also is eager to see the next Town Board endorse the Comprehensive Plan, which is currently under development with the help of a consultant and a collection of study groups manned by more than 100 resident volunteers.

“We’ve been working on this vision for our town now for a year, we’ve got lots of great folks who’ve spent a lot of time and energy. We’re really kind of painting a picture of what we’ll be like over the next 10 to 20 years and I really want to see our Town Board see that through,” Mr. Jenest said.

Finally, he’d like to see Davidson and the board think more regionally and promote regionalism among area towns. “I really think we need to take a regional approach because there are a lot of issues that go beyond our town borders,” he said. Traffic, bringing the commuter rail to the area and air quality are all “bigger issues that I really think we need to also be part of.”

Mr. Jenest was not on the board when it voted in 2007 to buy the MI-Connection cable system. He said at a candidate forum two weeks ago that the deal was “out of the box” for a small town. Now that the system has invested to upgrade the system, it may be at the start of “something really great.” But he also said, “If at some point it doesn’t make sense to own it any more, the we’ll deal with it at that point.”

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