Gibsonville mayor Leonard “Lenny” Williams announced at the end of Monday night’s board of aldermen meeting that he may step down from his post at the end of December – three years early.
Williams, who has served as mayor for 23 years, was just reelected to a sixth, four-year term in November 2023.
His first mayoral election, in 2001, was for two years to complete a partial mayoral term; he defeated fellow board member Sandy Moulton, who had been appointed the previous year on a 3-2 vote after long-time mayor Bill Moricle died in office. Williams has gone on to win six, four-year terms in 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019, and 2023.
Williams, 90, left open the possibility that he “could change my mind,” but told board members he will “probably resign” at the last meeting in December, three years before his term expires in 2027.
Williams, who missed the board’s August 5 meeting earlier this month, said he did not like missing meetings of the board and revealed that he has had some recent health issues. “It’s time for somebody else to take over, time for somebody younger to take over,” he said in a brief interview with The Alamance News after the meeting.
Williams has served as mayor since 2001 and served as a member of the board of aldermen for eight years (two terms) prior to that. He also served earlier as a member of the town’s planning board for five years.
He is the town’s longest-serving mayor, having now surpassed Dwight Davidson, Sr. who held the position from 1913-1933 (20 years) and William F. Moricle who was mayor from 1985-2000 (15 years).
Williams came to Gibsonville in 1984, he recalled in an interview, when the Internal Revenue Service transferred him to work in its Greensboro office.
“Gibsonville has been fair and good to me,” the mayor said. Williams, who is black, said he had found no racial issues or animosity.
Indeed, in his election campaigns, Williams has often won against white candidates in a town that is two-thirds white, according to the latest census data. In only two of his seven mayoral races (including 2023) has he run unopposed.
Williams has often been a budget hawk on the board, consistently urging that the tax rate be kept low or lowered further, and often working to rein in spending ideas of town staff and some of his colleagues. He noted that the tax rate, now 49 cents per $100 valuation, was 64 cents per $100 valuation when he was first elected.
Williams recalled that his father was a sharecropper near Enfield in eastern North Carolina. Williams attended North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, where, he said, Gibsonville did not have such a good reputation, according to his college friends.
He also interrupted his studies at A&T to attend Fairleigh Dickinson in New Jersey before graduation. He then served two years in the U.S. Army.
Williams began work with the Internal Revenue Service in 1961, which ultimately sent him to its Greensboro office in 1984.
By the first year after his arrival, neighbors recruited him to be on the town’s planning board.
In 1993, he ran for alderman. And, as he proudly notes, “I’ve never lost an election.” Williams has also received the state’s highest civilian honor, the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.
“I’ve had a good time working as mayor,” Williams said in a subsequent phone interview.
Williams also described having refined his intended effective resignation date as likely being January 1, 2025, rather than the second meeting of the board in December, as he originally announced Monday night.
