[piano intro] - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein.

Join me on the next "Side By Side", when we visit with one of North Carolina's top public servants.

He helped lead a North Carolina town into what Money Magazine calls "One of the best places to live in America."

Today we'll talk with Sean Stegall, the CEO and city manager of the City of Cary.

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[rock music] [pensive music] - Sean, welcome to "Side By Side".

You are the CEO of the town of Cary.

First of all, I don't know why you call it town, because you've got 180,000 people living in Cary, and some of our viewers may remember when Cary had 1000 people living there not all too many years ago.

Your city has grown by leaps and bounds.

What is it about Cary that's allowed it to grow so spectacularly?

- Well, first of all, I wanna thank you for having me here today.

It's a honor to be here, Dr. Qubein.

I think the key to Cary's success has been the fact of a growing economy, along with lots of parts of North Carolina and just a reputation for excellence.

So the people that have come to Cary were determined to make it different than where it was before, whether that was California or New Jersey or New York, they wanted to kind of have a special feel.

Over 90% of our residents are from somewhere else.

And so that has just really built upon itself over time and continue to propel Cary's reputation for many years.

- What is it that they wanted to see?

What is it that they want do differently?

- Well, I think they wanted to be free of many things, certainly cold weather for some of those states.

- Yes.

- But they wanted to be free of the bad politics and some of the things that really get in government's way of creating a great community.

And so they set up a community that's been very different.

The organization's been different.

How the government interacts with its citizens has been different, and one that is based more on rationality and kind of thinking, given many of our residents work for IBM or SaaS.

And so they just really wanted to have a local government, a community that was a cut above what they were used to experiencing.

- Hmm, let me ask, for instance, what you just said, others should learn from you.

It's safe to say that you have a more learned population in terms of formal education because they're working in technology and media and so on.

And it's also safe to say that the average, the per capita income of a family in Cary transcends that of most places, perhaps not all, but most places in North Carolina.

And if you agree with those two points, that alone then creates a fabric and a fiber in a community.

You know, beautiful streets, beautiful houses, because you have more money in your budget to make some of those things happen.

- Oh, certainly.

Well, Cary has a lot of built-in advantages.

I believe over 90% of our households have at least one college degree, many have several.

- Hmm hmm.

- Last time I checked, I do believe the triangle, so Raleigh-Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary, that area had the highest concentration of PhDs in the country, given- - Because of universities and research centers.

- Yes, yes.

So most certainly, having citizens that not only have disposable income but have an educational background is a huge advantage and certainly part of Cary's story.

- Hmm hmm.

And the growth has been meteoric.

- Oh, yeah.

- Right?

You start with a thousand citizens and then it grew and grew and grew.

And you crossed a hundred thousand somewhere in the 1990s or 2000.

- Hmm hmm.

- And now you have, how many?

- 190,000.

- 190,000 people.

- Yes.

Yes.

- Live in the city limits of Cary, North Carolina.

- [Sean] Yes, yeah, yeah.

- And most of them do not work in Cary.

- It's about evenly split.

For many, many years, for most of Cary's history, it had been a bedroom community, but we actually now import more jobs than we export.

And people are often very surprised to learn that about Cary.

- Hmm hmm, and when you look towards the future of Cary, North Carolina, what is it that you see?

I mean, you cannot keep growing at this rate.

I suspect you don't have the physical capacity to do that in terms of land, but maybe I'm wrong.

And you've had to create infrastructure when a city goes from a thousand to 190,000.

Clearly schools had to be built, hospital had to be built, more hotels, you have a beautiful hotel down there, and so on and so forth.

And so one cannot keep this level of growth over a long period of time.

Tell me where I'm wrong.

- Well, I wouldn't say that you're wrong.

I would ask you to think about it maybe a little bit differently.

Instead of growing out, we'll grow up so in Cary's future, tall buildings.

- But that's what they don't want!

Is that right?

I mean, they came from those environments.

What they love about Cary is this southern, beautiful, clean town?

- Hmm hmm.

- Might it lose some of its charm if you start going up 20 story buildings?

- Well, I think that's always the concern.

And what I know is that if you try to preserve, you try to hold onto the past, you pretty much eliminate any possibility for success in the future.

And so I don't think they have to be mutually exclusive, Cary retaining its charm and its appeal, but at the same time, having more urban aspects.

- [Nido] Hmm hmm.

- Which are better for the environment, they're more cost effective and they allow us to offer Cary to a completely different type of citizen as opposed to the kind we've had in the past.

So it allows us to grow in diversity as well.

- And so, you know, when I think about tremendous growth in a short period of time, which as you've experienced, surely there've been some major challenges, right?

- [Sean] Sure, sure.

- What are some of those?

What are some of the challenges that you, a CEO having to deal with it every day.

- [Sean] Sure.

- What are some of those challenges that you're facing?

And perhaps more importantly, more positively, what are some of the hopes and dreams and aspirations that you have?

- Well, I think part of the challenge is if people have moved to Cary in 1990, or if they moved to Cary in 2000, certainly it's larger and there's more traffic than there used to be.

- [Nido] Yes.

- So part of the experience for many our residents was to move from places like New York or Los Angeles where they escaped that type of traffic.

And certainly we don't have that level of congestion at this point, but it's certainly more than they had in the past.

And we also know that people tend to romanticize the past as well.

And so people don't want to lose, quote unquote, lose Cary.

I'm convinced that we won't.

I'm working every day to make sure that we don't, along with many other people.

And so I think just making sure that we grow smart, that we grow responsibly.

The challenges of growth that Cary experienced aren't evident in the community, which I always found fascinating when I would come to Cary as a visitor.

So I visited Cary many times before I worked for the town, and always really marveled at how well-planned and how thoughtful it was in spite of the fact that it was the largest growing municipality in the United States for several years in the 1990s.

So now it's just about making sure that we, as I said previously, grow in a manner that's consistent with our past, but also articulates what our dreams are for the future.

- Yeah.

And when I think of, you know, when I think of growth and the challenge that you just cited as in traffic, congestion, parking, et cetera, I look at Wilmington, North Carolina, another city that has grown tremendously.

I don't have the numbers.

I don't know what the comparison would be, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out.

Wilmington, North Carolina has catapulted itself into a much bigger city and has a lot of congestion issues, but they're addressing them with the help of legislature, DOT and so on.

And, you know, Cary is a city that, it's intriguing to me that you keep referring to it as a town.

- Yes.

Yes.

- When you have 190,000 people.

- Yes.

- I don't know if that's a branding technique on your part, Mr. CEO or that is a, you know, a carefully charted course to create some kind of an image in our mind that this is a tiny little village with wonderful people who know each other's names and- - Yes.

- Who bring cookies to the neighbors when they move in.

- Well, it really goes to kind of preserving the best things about the past.

So when I came to Cary and we launched a branding campaign, and one of my big priorities was to convince everyone to allow us to be called what we are and that is a city.

And maybe it was so I wouldn't keep mispronouncing it all the time, like I was being a city manager in my previous jobs.

But as I came to explore it, understanding just being called a town has a lot of meaning to our residents.

And while it doesn't have any, it's not borne out in the actual experience in Cary, it is something that they hold very dearly.

- [Nido] Yes.

- And so what we try to do is often not say town or city, but just say, Cary, Cary, North Carolina.

- Yeah.

- And then letting kind of people, if they call it a city, we don't correct them because they're right.

And if they call it a town, it's a town.

- Yeah.

- So.

- Just the word town conjures a certain image.

It's closer fellowship.

Cary is dependent, correct me if I'm wrong, on the fact that it resides in a triangle where your neighbor is Raleigh, your neighbor is Chapel Hill, your neighbor is Durham.

You don't have a university in Cary.

You don't have a sports team in Cary.

And so you're really intermingled.

You know, I don't wanna say you're in the shadow of a bigger city with many of the facilities.

- Hmm hmm.

- But in a way, you are a bedroom community, right, wrong?

- Well, we were a bedroom community, and certainly that was the case in the sixties, seventies, and the eighties.

And in the 1990s.

our corporate and business parks really developed.

- [Nido] Yes.

- And so, while we don't have a handful of just large employers, although we do have SaaS, we have many medium-sized businesses and many white collar jobs.

And so we're dependent upon our neighbors in a way every good community is.

- Yes.

- As Durham is dependent upon Chapel Hill and vice versa.

I think anytime a community starts to think of itself as an island, that's where troubles can really start.

- Yes.

Yes.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, there's a lot to be said to congruence and collegiality.

- Absolutely.

- In Guildford County and counties around Guilford County, we're seeing a tremendous spirit of growth now, economic growth, Toyota, Battery, Supersonic, Honda, et cetera.

And here's what I think about, I think about bringing all these companies and all of whom need workforce, and then we say, we've gotta create this workforce.

And sometimes, although I'm not a student of this, but sometimes simply as an observer, I look at it and say, can we?

Can we absorb all that growth?

Can we create all that workforce?

Can we have enough schools?

You mentioned traffic and congestion.

Can we have enough highways and airports and all the rest?

And what is your opinion about that?

I mean, when we look here at Toyota and Supersonic and Honda, you know, they talk in terms of we're gonna need 50,000 new jobs to accommodate this growth, and one has to ask the question, where do these come from?

- Sure.

Sure.

- So either they come, people moving as you suggested, people migrating to, or we need our universities and colleges and community colleges to really start thinking very, very seriously about how you create not just more people, but the right kinds of jobs that can meet those.

- Sure.

- Those demands.

those economic demands.

- Well, I can sum it up like this, at the start is, show me a community that doesn't have a growth problem, and I'll show you a community that wants one.

- Say that one more time.

That's intriguing.

- Show me a community that doesn't have a growth problem, and I'll show you a community that wants one.

- So every, so your premise is, every community wants to grow.

- Yeah, my premise is, if you're not growing, you're dying.

- I see.

- And so if you think of, just sadly, in Eastern North Carolina, a lot of these small communities that would do anything to have the growth challenges that Guilford County has.

- Of course.

- And because you're growing versus contracting or shrinking.

- [Nido] Yeah.

- And there's always opportunities in that.

And out of the two problems, one is the better problem of the two.

- Yes, Yes.

Well, I guess things are relative, right?

- [Sean] Exactly.

Exactly.

- They have to be in relative terms.

Now, the legislature in North Carolina, my opinion, has done an outstanding job in creating an atmospheric in North Carolina that attracts companies, whether it's a tax system, whether it's supporting communities.

What is it that you depend on with the legislature, you as a chief executive officer, city manager of Cary, North Carolina.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's interesting.

I do think North Carolina has been wildly successful.

And I think that's been a combination of North Carolina's wise decisions coupled with the poor decisions made by a lot of other states that have made them less attractive.

- [Nido] Yes.

- For business and for growth.

- [Nido] Yes.

- As far as the general assembly, we always think it's best when they just continue to preserve this low tax, which is very important for North Carolina.

- Both individual and corporate.

- Both individual and corporate, kind of a pro-business mindset.

And then also continue to move us forward in a lot of the more socially conscious things, such as investing in the environment, which is not only good for the planet, it's also good business.

And so we want North Carolina to continue to have that reputation as being an innovator, which has allowed for decades now, of continual growth.

And with a lot of other, my home state of Illinois has been shrinking for decades now.

- Population wise?

- Population wise.

- And many of those folks like myself have moved to places like North Carolina because of the advantages that are built into it.

And many of us have made that decision reluctantly, but it was the best decision for ourselves and for our family.

And so you learn from the mistakes of other states and continue to avoid those as we can mature as a state.

- What other states are doing a really good job?

Florida?

Texas?

- Sure.

Florida, Texas, you know, states really for what I hear from business owners, and you might hear this as well, while taxes are always important, they're often not cited as being as important as regulation and the ability to move quickly and partner with businesses and corporations in their growth versus having a lot of the red tape, if you will, get in their way.

- Yes.

Yeah.

Speaking of red tape, how much red tape is there in Cary in terms of, every city has a set of codes it must adhere to.

- Sure.

- Some I've learned are not locally-induced.

They are statewide-induced or federally-induced.

So if I wanna come down to Cary, North Carolina and build, let's say, I suspect you're gonna draw a really positive picture 'cause you are the boss.

- Sure.

- And they'll report to you.

- Sure.

- Do you have a good planning department, good in the sense that they'll be receptive, understanding, flexible, agile, or everything, no, the first answer is no, no, no.

Now work your way to yes.

- Well, I believe, I'm certain a lot of other managers would say the same, I believe we have the best planning department in the country.

And the reason why I say that is, and they've done a good job for decades.

And if they ever wonder why, I just ask them to look out the window.

- Yes.

Yes.

- And say... - There is a certain look to Cary that's- - There is a certain look to Cary.

- Very appealing.

- It is.

And what we know with people that are developing in Cary, it's not easy to develop in Cary, but it is predictable.

And so they know at the end, they know what our standards are, they're high, they know what the process is going to be.

And as long as we communicate that upfront, then there's not a lot of surprises along the way.

And so the last thing we want to be is a community that's easy to grow in because then we won't be able to maintain our high standards.

- [Nido] Yeah.

- But we also don't want it to be high standards and then difficult in areas where it doesn't need to be.

And so that's a constant balance between those different values and goals that the town has.

- Yes, yes, and America's filled with examples where you see cities that adhere to those standards and those who don't, and it becomes helter skelter.

You know, I think of things like signage as a simple example.

When you first come into a community.

in the first 30 seconds, maybe in the first three minutes, you make an opinion of 'em.

- Oh, sure.

- Based on the way the buildings look, whether the code is upheld or not, whether the signage looks attractive or not, and so on.

What is the budget of Cary, North Carolina?

- Approximately 300 million.

- [Nido] Okay, I would've thought it'd be more than that.

- Yeah, it fluctuates depending on how we budget for capital projects.

It does get as high as 400 million at times.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Every year is a little bit different, as far as the big ticket capital projects such as utility plan expansions or major road improvements.

- How many city employees?

- About 1200 full-time equivalent employees.

- Okay.

Yeah.

How does that compare on a relative term?

Is it such a thing as a ratio of population to employer, employee to population, and with Cary, what quadrant would Cary be in?

- We would be very low staffed as it is, a number of employees per capital.

- Efficient.

- Yeah.

Why?

- Well, I think- - What allowed you to do that?

- Well, I often would say to people, I would rather have one great cop than three average ones.

And so by trying to attract the best public servants, not only in North Carolina, but in the country, and you do that first and foremost, by paying well.

It solves a lot of problems and actually saves you a lot of money.

- [Nido] Which comes first?

I mean, you can pay more if you have one instead of three.

- Right?

Absolutely.

That's exactly the model.

- It takes courage to make those kind of decisions.

- Well, or just asking and appealing to people's common sense.

- [Nido] Hmm.

- Is that if the goal for Cary is to produce the best quality services at the lowest possible cost, the best way to do that is to have the best employees.

And the best employees can garner the highest salaries.

And so if a citizen or a council member, one of my bosses were to say, I want us to pay low and produce the best, well, that's not a reasonable request, I think, on anyone's part.

- Not doable, yeah.

- Right, it's not doable.

- Especially in a zone that you reside in where you have three other communities that perhaps have standards that you're trying to compete with.

So you have a city council.

- [Sean] Yes, we do.

- That's what you call a city council?

- Yeah, town council, city council.

- Town Council.

Okay, there I go again.

Town council.

And how many on?

- Seven?

A mayor, a major and six council members.

- I see.

And who gives you, Mr. Stegall, the most pain?

Who breathes down your neck all the time?

Driving home at night, who do you find yourself damning?

- Myself, usually.

Right?

It's the voice inside my head that is often the loudest.

I'm very fortunate that I have seven experienced, we might be, there's no way to know for sure, but we might have the most experienced group of elected officials.

- Are they elected at large or they're wards?

- Half and half.

Yeah, we have four.

- You have some wards- - Four districts and yeah, the rest are at large.

And so it's a good blend of the two.

And so it makes the job easy when it comes to not having to be held back by the things that don't matter the most.

- [Nido] Hmm hmm.

- And not to say that they're not human beings.

They have bad days just like you and I do.

But understanding that overall, their support for me and their support for the other employees of the town is a direct reflection of how the community feels about its government.

And one of the things that makes Cary unique is our citizens love their government.

And unfortunately, you don't find that a lot in America any longer.

- And your tax rate is what?

- We have the lowest tax rate in Wake County.

And whether we'll be able to have that again in the future remains to be seen depending upon the investment.

We want it to be low.

It doesn't necessarily need to be the lowest.

- [Nido] Yeah.

- Because if that is your goal, to have the lowest tax rate, well then you're automatically locking out other opportunities that may make for a good investment for the community.

- If city council and a planning and zoning commission or city council does all the work?

- Well, there is a planning and zoning commission, members that are appointed by the council.

- [Nido] Yes.

- That advise them along with staff on matters of land use policy.

- [Nido] Yes, but who has the ultimate decision?

- Ultimately, it resides with the council.

- I see.

- Yeah.

- [Nido] Hmm hmm.

- And that would be true for every community in North Carolina.

- So you have 190,000 people who live in Cary, North Carolina today.

You've depicted and drew for us a really nice picture of a microcosm that is working well in a system that seems to be appealing to residents.

Where do you see Cary five and 10 years from now, in terms of population, in terms of complexity and?

- Well, I think the most important thing for Cary, the biggest challenge is to not let some of the ills that have befallen other communities, and certainly the federal government of being in this kind of Democrat, Republican way of thinking.

It's often said, there's no Democrat or Republican way to build a road.

There's no Democrat or Republican way to build a utility system.

- Right.

- And so really- - Reelections are not partisan?

- They are not partisan.

- Yeah.

- Although it's become readily apparent over time who someone is, if they're a Democrat or are a Republican.

- Who supports whom and- - Whom supports whom.

- [Nido] Yeah.

Yeah.

- And, you know, allegiance to party over that of the community is a recipe for disaster.

- [Nido] Yeah.

- And we've been able to witness that in this country.

And so avoiding that is the purpose that drives me, certainly the purpose that drives the council and drives the mayor, something we talk about a lot and not going down that road.

But that doesn't mean that there is not a place for support for the parties.

It's just having the, what is the best decision for the largest number of our citizens, and that would always be the right decision.

- Crime in Cary, I would suspect, is lower than most cities?

- Very, very low.

Often cited, depended upon how it's being measured or what year it is, is the lowest for a community over a hundred thousand in the country.

- Hmm hmm, in terms of deaths, in terms of, what's the word I'm thinking of?

Not deaths, but someone killing somebody.

- Yeah, so the FBI puts them into two, or the Justice Department into two categories.

Part one, crimes and part two crimes.

- Yes.

- And so essentially felonies and misdemeanors.

- Yes.

- And so we have a low occurrence of both, but obviously the felonies are the ones that matter the most.

- Yeah.

- But yeah, it's been very, very low.

I think that's a reflection of the educational level and the income levels in the community.

- It's a remarkable story and you're a remarkable leader.

And I thank you for being with me today on "Side By Side".

- Thank you so much, Dr. Qubein.

[pensive music] [pensive music continues] - [Narrator] Funding for "Side By Side with Nido Qubein" is made possible by... - [Narrator] We started small, just 30 people in a small town in Wisconsin.

75 years later, we employ more Americans than any other furniture brand.

But none of that would've been possible without you.

Ashley, this is home.

- [Narrator] For 60 years, the Budd Group has been a company of excellence, providing facility services to customers, opportunities for employees, and support to our communities.

The Budd Group, great people, smart service.

- [Narrator] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors locally, thanks to our teammates.

[rock music] We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.

[rock music]