news-record.com

GREENSBORO — A crush of candidates, campaigners and media representatives filled the Old Guilford County Courthouse chambers with a roar of election-night activity Tuesday.

Bill Knight stood at the center of the room greeting passers-by with a smile and a handshake. He wore a bronze-colored name tag on his chest — the only obvious sign of his candidacy.

At the end of the evening, the strategists and political junkies tipped him off that the seemingly unintelligible lists of precinct results spelled out his victory.

Some might have been surprised that Knight, who had little name recognition and about half the campaign budget, pulled off a defeat of incumbent Mayor Yvonne Johnson.

He wasn’t.

The first-time mayoral candidate, who has never before held office, already had ordered his “Mayor of Greensboro” stationery.

“I believed I was going to win. I knew what I had done. I had stayed on message. I had a good game plan. The execution was just flawless,” Knight said later.

Greensboro residents — and perhaps Knight himself — will have to wait to see what kind of leader he will be for the state’s third-largest city.

He doesn’t have a political record, but he has got a lifetime’s worth of experience, enthusiasm and a commitment to doing his homework that Knight supporters say will offer a much-needed change of pace for Greensboro.

l l l

Knight, 70 is not a natural politician, his friends and supporters said.

The retired grandfather is friendly and genuine, but he is also soft-spoken and can come off as reserved.

He’s a simple man, he says.

He wore the same $29.99 Kmart runner’s watch for more than 20 years. It broke election night, but on Friday, he shopped for a new one at Walmart.

He likes to lunch at Yum Yum, where hot dogs cost $1.

“Like I said, he’s not a big spender,” said Brook Harwood , a Knight campaign volunteer.

Friends and colleagues say Knight is as efficient and careful with his own time and money as he is with the time and money of others.

When his volunteers combed the city to hand out 10,000 leaflets, they targeted residents with a track record of voting.

“He was just as concerned about the time we were spending putting out door hangers and signs as he was about efficiency in business,” said Thurman Freeze , a campaign volunteer and a fellow Lions Club member. “No need to call on people who don’t vote or people who only vote once in a while.”

l l l

Knight ran on a platform of fiscal conservatism .

A retired CPA, he has promised to cut tens of millions from the city’s $421 million budget, although he has not yet laid out specific plans for doing it.

Some former and current council members have said that the task won’t be simple.

They said the city operates differently than a private business or a nonprofit, such as the organizations Knight has worked with in his career and his volunteer efforts.

He has served as treasurer for the board of directors for the Greensboro Opera Company for about a year.

Knight doesn’t know much about opera, said board President Phillip Long . But he was able to recommend ways to trim costs.

And board members who know more about the artistic side could confirm what could be cut without a negative affect on the audience’s experience, Long said.

In the end, it came down to a compromise.

“He’s willing to listen. He doesn’t have such a predetermined answer that he is going to stick with,” Long said.

Knight did the same thing while leading the private Cardinal Golf and Country Club, where he fended off creditors and helped members decide it was time to sell the course.

“He really presented the pros and cons and every side. He didn’t try to influence everybody,” said Bob Kennerly , co-founder of Sutton-Kennerly & Associates , for which Knight serves as a member of the board of directors.

“He gave everybody the facts.”

l l l

Becoming mayor — his first elected office — has not been a lifelong ambition for Knight.

“I’m not going to be in it long-term,” Knight said the day after the election. “I have no agenda. I have no empire to build. I have no special interests to serve. I want to go in and serve, and get out.”

Greensboro’s mayor, who receives an annual salary of about $15,000 , is one of nine City Council members. The mayor presides over the City Council meetings and has some ceremonial responsibilities, but otherwise has no more power than other council members.

Knight has plenty of connections in the city — from long-standing friendships through the Hamilton Lakes Lions Club, the Greensboro Jaycees and Christ United Methodist Church to business relationships from his years of work as a former partner and certified public accountant with Sharrard McGee & Co .

“Bill Knight will hit the ground running because even though he is a novice at being a public office holder, he has been very active in the community,” said U.S. Rep. Howard Coble . Coble and Knight were friends in the Coast Guard, and Knight serves as Coble’s campaign treasurer.

Despite those community ties, Knight has not yet developed political alliances with his fellow council members.

So although some in the community have made much of the fact that the council is now made up of a majority of conservative members, it remains to be seen whether they will vote as a group or how much sway Knight will have with other members.

For his part, Knight promised to look at issues objectively and to work with all council members.

“We’ve got to listen to each other and we’ve got to work together, but we’ve got to do it expeditiously,” Knight said Wednesday. “We have to build trust.”

l l l

Knight also may have to work on building trust with some of the city’s black leaders.

Knight has stressed that he does not want Greensboro to dwell on racial issues.

He also has expressed his support for former police chief David Wray , who resigned in 2006 after allegations of racial profiling in the department.

Long-standing friendships with several city police officers — including the late Assistant Chief David Williams , Knight’s running partner, best friend and the man who encouraged him to run for mayor — have shaped Knight’s ideas that the department needs better leadership. He has said there is an opportunity for the city to make positive changes when Police Chief Tim Bellamy retires.

And although Knight’s position on Wray and the police department reflects the opinions of some members of the community, it also bothers others.

“I don’t know Mr. Knight that well,” said the Rev. Cardes Brown , president of the Greensboro chapter of the NAACP . “I certainly think as a community, that person who is in the position of mayor should be concerned about all of us being one community rather than having a divided community.”

Knight said he has no biases and will be mayor to all members of the community.

l l l

On Wednesday morning, just hours after his election night victory, Knight was busy returning phone calls and prepping to write thank-you notes to supporters.

By Thursday, he had held his first meeting with City Manager Rashad Young and attended a meeting of the Greensboro Coliseum commission, where he learned more about a proposed amphitheater.

Knight said his calendar is filling up with people he needs to meet before he is sworn in on Dec. 1.

Former Mayor Keith Holliday said there is a learning curve for the job. Holliday advised Knight to “never overestimate your authority or power as the mayor.

“You truly only have one vote,” Holliday said. “Just when you think you are in charge, your council will remind you who is in charge.”

Contact Amanda Lehmert at 3737-7075 or amanda.lehmert@news-record.com