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Sandy Carmany, a longtime Greensboro City Council member, lost her re-election bid last week to former county Commissioner Trudy Wade. Carmany recently spoke with reporter Jason Hardin about the election and her plans.

Q.Why do you think you lost to Trudy Wade?

A. It's hard to know. I really tried to run a positive campaign and highlight my accomplishments and abilities ... and of course she ran some pretty negative ads that I felt were distortions of statements and my record. The other unknown of course is what effect if any the David Wray and the police issue and that sort of thing had; the Rhino and the Bledsoe articles.

I do know that she had a concentrated effort. ... Her party backed her, and with the Simkins PAC endorsement, so it's just a combination of factors. You win some; you lose some.

Q. Would you do anything differently if you could do it again, whether it was how you approached an issue or how you campaigned?

A. I was strapped somewhat for money, as far as getting the word out there, so that was an issue. There were some people who told me that I really should have come after her more as far as her past record as a county commissioner and the whole John Parks thing (Wade challenged the results of her 2004 loss to Parks for a commission seat, a process that took 18 months to resolve), but that really is not my style.

Q.Do you think your blogging helped or hurt your chances?

A. I know the hits on the blog went up significantly during the campaign. But then again ... some of the statements that I had made on the blog in the past ... my opponent turned around and used against me. As much as we like to think that everybody's on the Internet, I could tell from the hits that I was getting. I think I was getting about 150 a day, so you know you're not reaching all the constituents.

Q.Will you keep it up?

A. That will remain to be seen. Of course, the main focus of that blog was to try to explain what was going on with the City Council.

So if I'm not on the council, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to do that, and I certainly don't want to come across as critiquing or criticizing what the new council may be doing.

Q.Will you run for any office again?

A. I don't have any definite plans at this point. I've always found that when one door shuts, another opens somewhere else. I definitely want to stay involved in the community and feel like I've got a lot of experience that I would hate to just toss in the trash can.

Q.What advice do you have for new council members?

A. I would advise very much doing your homework, getting familiar with the issues. A lot of them are very complicated. Quite frankly, I heard a lot on the campaign trail from many of the candidates that told me that some of these folks really don't have a clue how things really operate.

Q. Who will you miss working with on council?

A. Everybody. I really, truly enjoyed working with everyone, so I don't think there's going to be any one in particular that I will miss more than the others. I think we worked well as a team. Despite what you might read in the media reports sometimes, for the most part we got along.

Q.What will you not miss about serving?

A. The stress. There's a tremendous amount of pressure. It's literally the old saying you can't please all the people all the time. No matter what stand you make, what choices you make, there's always going to be criticism on that. I don't think I'm going to miss that. It'll be nice to leave the paperwork behind, too.

Q.What are you going to do instead of go to all those meetings?

A. Like today, I've got a grandbaby here. I'm helping out with baby-sitting until they can get him into a day care facility. I'm still active in PTA and a number of other issues. Who knows, I may decide to go to work. At this time, I'm keeping my options open, not making any snap decisions, trying to do some resting up and catching up and see what opportunities might be out there.

Q. Are there issues on which you wish more had been done?

A. Not really. I think the public seemed to have the impression maybe that we were solely focused on the problems in the police department, and that was absolutely not correct. We have been working together and moving forward on a number of issues, addressing our needs as far as additional police officers. We've dealt with our air quality. I think we've been doing a good job, and I hope the new council will just keep moving forward on that same steady course.