Ledyard is a small town with 15,000 people. Besides owning a real estate business in town, I also serve on the Ledyard Town Council. When I am in the local grocery store and someone stops me with a question, it can be to ask about the price of a home in the MLS or whether their street will be repaved soon. Mixing politics and real estate is a delicate balance but I've managed to juggle both for a number of years. It was probably the hardest juggling act when I served as Chairman of the Ledyard Board of Education. In that position, you can easily make as many friends as enemies. Since then I moved on to the Ledyard Town Council where I serve as the chairman of Land Use and Planning. I'm a conservative and most people in town know my politics, but I have listed the homes of the most liberal among us. It is easy to make enemies in politics, but I find that disagreeing with someone shouldn't necessarily harbor bad feelings. There are very few people I wouldn't want to join for a morning cup of coffee. The biggest benefit of being involved in public office, is having current local knowledge that would be hard to obtain in other ways. There is, of course, the ugly side of politics. I see it first hand at times at our twice monthly council meetings. It is hard to make progress in a small town, where egos are large, and personal agendas include keeping the party in power from moving forward with their ideas. In addition, our meetings are televised and I find there is a certain amount of grandstanding for the camera. I don't play to the camera and at times need to remind myself not to get caught picking my nose or reading the email on my Blackberry. I prefer to speak when I actually have something to say, which is rare for a politician. But then I consider myself more of a real estate agent than a politician. | 
Email to a Friend
