Hello, my name is Matthew Gronke, and I am running to be your new At-Large Councilperson for the Cary Town Council.

About Me

I have lived in Cary for almost my entire life. My family moved here in 1992. I attended Cary Elementary, East Cary, and Southeast Raleigh Highschool, graduating class of 2001. I graduated with a BS in Physics from NC State in 2013.

Since 2019, I have been a proud Stay-at-Home Parent to my lovely son, Myles, who just turned 4 years old. I’ve been married to my wife, Emma, for 9 years, and we’ve been together for 19.

I’ve been interested in local politics and improving the Town of Cary for much of my adult life. I currently serve as a Board Member and Treasurer of Triangle Off-Road Cyclists, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that builds and maintains local mountain bike trails in the surrounding area. I have also worked with state and local representatives on important political issues. I strongly believe in the power of citizens to voice their concerns to elected officials on how the government can better serve the community.

Issues

Many people don’t know this, but the unofficial motto for the Town of Cary Government is “The Local Government that Doesn’t Exist.” Consider what that means to you. To me, it means a town government that is inactive and unresponsive to the needs of the community. If the current Cary Town Council members agree that their local government “doesn’t exist,” then why are they even running for office? What do they plan to do in their positions if they want their government to not exist?

I have experienced this phenomenon first-hand in my dealings with the Town of Cary. As a Board Member and Treasurer of Triangle Off-Road Cyclists, I, and our groups of trail volunteers, have worked tirelessly to make sure there are hundreds of mountain bike trails all throughout Wake County and beyond. We have dug trail in Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Wake County Parks, and many others. The only local government that has been unable or unwilling to work with us is the Town of Cary. This, despite the fact that they proudly advertise themselves as a “bike-friendly community.”

On three separate occasions over the past half decade or so, a representative in the Town of Cary government has approached our organization to build trail on their land. Each time, we have responded positively, met with them, and asked them what they would need to move the project forward. We would email them project outlines, budget plans, and anything else they requested. Every time, the project would seem to vanish into thin air. Emails would go unanswered, and calls would go unreturned. Remember, we are an all-volunteer organization, using our own free time to build trail in the community. We just needed to be told when and where to put shovels in the ground, and we would happily spend the hours and funding to build the trail, but it seemed to be too much work for the Town of Cary.

A realization came to me: The Town of Cary is a local government that is flush with cash, advertising themselves as a “local government that doesn’t exist.” They are happy to have Tesla police cars and robot-powered buses while ignoring projects that don’t interest them.

I want to transform the Town of Cary government into a local government that does exist to serve you. I want the government to be more responsive to working on projects that benefit the community instead of just spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on flashy toys.

How do we do this?

I believe this starts with transforming Cary into a town that lives up to its messaging. The Town of Cary advertises itself as a bicycle-friendly community, so it’s time for it to start looking like one. Despite the positive transformation in the downtown, little has been done to make it a bicycle friendly area. Chatham Street, Acadamy Street, and Walnut Street should, at a minimum, have painted bicycle lanes and turn boxes to provided safe areas for people to get around downtown on a bicycle.

As a long-term project, I believe that we should eventually add, at a minimum, painted bicycle lanes to all major roads in Cary. As I’ve spoken about at Town Council meetings, anyone who has ridden a bicycle in the town knows that being on Cary Parkway on a bicycle is taking your own life into your hands. With painted lanes on roads such as Cary Parkway, Maynard Road, High House Road, and Kildaire Farm Road, we would provide a safe space for cyclists to commute throughout the town without putting themselves at risk. If you’re someone reading this who gets bothered when you see a bicycle on the road, consider that this will benefit you as well. By moving the bicycle to a safe, separated lane, you will not have to worry about them as an obstacle in the road. It’s win-win.

I look forward to working with you to improve this community. Town of Cary government has the resources to make great things happen, they just need to actually take action. Let’s show them that we want “a local government that exists.”

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Published @ July 24, 2023 3:57 pm