Mayoral candidate Coburn envisions a booming Glade
When Lee Coburn moved to Glade Spring, Va. in 2004, he wanted to get involved with the town council to help cultivate progress in the town. “People said it was crazy and stupid; I said let’s do it anyway,” he says when reflecting on his vision for downtown Glade Spring.
Since his time began on the Town Council four years ago, he has revitalized several buildings in the town square and has helped bring in five new businesses, which has helped in creating new jobs. He is the co-founder of Project Glade, a non-profit organization that is helping to restore the community.
He is now a candidate for mayor of Glade Spring in the upcoming May 4 election.
Coburn was born in 1970 in Mississippi. With a father in the Air Force, Coburn’s family moved around a lot. Before he was five years old, they lived everywhere from Virginia to Shreveport, Calif. His father is now settled in Abingdon, Va. His mother currently lives in Florida, and his sister lives in New Zealand, but both are planning on moving to this area soon. Coburn predicts a family reunion of sorts within the next six months.
Majoring in electronic imagery, Coburn graduated from the Atlanta College of Art in Atlanta, Ga. He remained there for 15 years before moving to Glade Spring six years ago. He owns and runs his own ad agency, Coburn Creative, which is based in Glade Spring. With his ad agency, he serves local clients such as the Barter Theatre, and wider spread clients such as Coca-Cola and Marvel Comics.
In addition to both serving on town council and running his ad agency, is an adjunct professor at Emory & Henry College, teaching a web design class. “He’s laid back but structured and he cares about the learning environment and staying on task, even though he likes to have fun and joke around,” said senior Jonathan Schmidt. Coburn has employed two Emory graduates at his ad agency.
In 2009, Coburn was honored with the Tri-Cities Business Journal 40 under Forty award for his contributions to both Glade Spring and the surrounding community.
“When I moved here in 2004, there wasn’t a strong civic organization,” Coburn said. He strived to change that when he began serving on the Town Council. “I decided to run for mayor because no one on the council wanted to run and I wanted continuity between this administration and the next.” Current mayor Steve Rowland has endorsed Coburn in the upcoming election.
Coburn’s platform of change for Glade Spring involves a business approach. He wants to continue to fight the blight that exists in town, continue to incubate an increase in economic development, and heighten community involvement.
“As a voter, what I’m interested in is the continued revitalization and growth of the down town square,” says Emory & Henry Vice President for Institutional Advancement Greg McMillan, who is an 11-year resident of Glade Spring.
In addition to the continuation of growth in the down town area, Coburn hopes to renovate things like a depleting church and school building, as well as give a tax break to people who are restoring older buildings. Currently, Glade Spring has the lowest property tax in the county, and Coburn wants to do all he can without raising that. He wants to work with county and federal governments to get grants for the town and help get the money back in the community.
Coburn also says if he becomes mayor, he will continue bringing in places of opportunity to Glade Spring. He also wants to add parks and trails and resolve maintenance issues like garbage pickup and maintaining foliage in the town. In addition to fixing these areas, he strives to add to the police force which currently consists of two officers. Coburn says these issues can and will be fixed with time and increased income to the town, which will come about with federal grants and growth in the economic development. “We need to work together to see how it can happen,” Coburn said.
Another significant part of Coburn’s plan for the town involves getting the citizens involved. He wants to utilize a web presence for the town government in order to put out announcements and project information about public forums that are available for the community members to attend.
“We don’t have all the answers here so it’s nice to hear different points of view,” said McMillan when the issue of Coburn’s time in the area arose. “I think he’s involved himself in the issues enough to know what is going on so I would hope that any concern that was expressed about his not being a native of Glade Spring could be addressed by the fact that he has assimilated into the community by his service in town government and investing in the community.”
Elections will be held Tuesday, May 4 for mayor and three town council positions.
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