This is what I know about Bill Arrowood: Bill has actually been preparing to be mayor of Chestertown his entire life. Sounds crazy. Hyperbolic. But entirely true.
I’ve known Bill since we were kids. We go way back, to the days of running down the aisles of McCrory’s, having water gun fights at Tea Party (before it was banned) and playing wiffle ball on the Courthouse lawn after school. Chestertown was a great place to grow up. But this isn’t why I’m voting for Bill for mayor.
In high school, Bill was the guy you went to to get things done – bringing together kids from Butlertown to downtown—no small feat for a 16-year-old. He was the organizer, the connector, the one who took the ideas and made them happen. I voted for him for class president, but this isn’t why I’m voting for him for mayor.
Bill’s later career as a location manager put these skills to use: managing people (and, just as importantly, budgets) and keeping clients and producers on the same page (and, just as importantly, happy). But again, this isn’t why I’m voting for Bill for mayor.
These are all skills Bill has, an arsenal of experiences and ideas that would, without question, make him a great mayor. But I have to admit, his competition appears to have comparable skills—and are all good neighbors and involved community members.
What Bill has that no one else in the candidate pool can touch is a fierce, indomitable, unwavering love for this town. A love that defines him. A love that has inspired him not just to talk about visiting other towns like Chestertown to see what we can learn from them, but to actually visit them (from Media, PA to Haddonfield, NJ to Asheville, NC) and talk to town managers and the folks who live there. A love that has inspired him to actually be proactive about bringing this diverse community together—not just through talk, but through action. A love that is guided by the desire to turn Chestertown into a place that people of our generation can actually choose to live, a choice that is out of reach for a lot of our young people because of a lack of options here.
I know that if we are lucky enough to have Bill as our mayor, he will work with an unrelenting and fervent determination to better this town, to hear his constituents, and to represent Chestertown with passion, with grace, and with a profound love—as he has for his entire life.
Bill has actually already dedicated a lot of time and energy into bringing working ideas to Chestertown. Go to his website to see a list of his concrete goals for this town https://www.arrowoodformayor.com/p/blog-page.html. They are worth a look.
I also would encourage readers to look at my response to the Spy’s Mayoral Endorsement of Chris Cerino: https://chestertownspy.com/2013/10/30/editorial-endorsement-for-mayor/
And please, PLEASE don’t forget to vote on Tuesday at the Firehouse on Maple Avenue!
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