Susan Clinard Dickenson (Mayor of Jamestown, North Carolina, candidate 2025)
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Susan Clinard Dickenson ran for election for Mayor of Jamestown in North Carolina. She was on the ballot in the general election on November 4, 2025.[source]
Dickenson completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. Click here to read the survey answers.
[1]Biography
Susan Clinard Dickenson provided the following biographical information via Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey on September 7, 2025:
- Birth place: High Point, North Carolina
- High school: High Point Central High School
- Bachelor's: University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, 1982
- Gender: Female
- Religion: Presbyterian
- Profession: Community Advocate
- Incumbent officeholder: No
- Campaign slogan: Citizens First.
- Campaign Facebook
Elections
General election
General election for Mayor of Jamestown
Susan Clinard Dickenson and Rebecca Mann Rayborn ran in the general election for Mayor of Jamestown on November 4, 2025.
Candidate | ||
 | Susan Clinard Dickenson (Nonpartisan)  | |
 | Rebecca Mann Rayborn (Nonpartisan) | |
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| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Election results
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Dickenson in this election.
Campaign themes
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Susan Clinard Dickenson completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Dickenson's responses.
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I'm a 7th generation Guilford County native; retired magazine editor; lifelong writer, researcher and communicator. I was born and raised in High Point and never missed a day of school from first through twelfth grade. I graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a degree in business, found my way to Washington, DC, and worked for the Dept of Commerce and a lobbying firm before landing at Perot Systems, a Northern Virginia tech company started by former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot. My years there coincided with the dawn of the internet and gave me early exposure to emerging digital tools, "information highway" demos, and an opportunity to test a first-of-its-kind data publishing system with Palo Alto search engine pioneers. Following the birth of my third child, I became a stay-at-home mom to three very active girls, and spent many hours volunteering, substitute teaching, serving on community boards and as an ordained elder on the session of Trinity Presbyterian in Arlington, Va. In 2003 we relocated to High Point and I resumed my career, joining Home Accents Today in 2006 as Retail Editor, and promoted to Editor in Chief in 2016. Since my covid-era retirement, I've spent thousands of hours as founder/editor of The Jamestowner, a nonprofit, all-volunteer, citizens' information, testing and advocacy initiative focused on local water quality and environmental contamination, and calling for more transparency and fiscal discipline from our town.
- If anyone had told me five years ago that I would be running for local office, I would have laughed and said "NO WAY." But back during the public deliberations over the 1,500-home D.R. Horton development, I took a deep dive into the Randleman Watershed Rules - learned how to navigate the state digital records, county property records, EPA databases and USGS mapping system. I was literally shocked at the lack of attention our town leaders were giving to local and state water, health, environmental and building regulations and ordinances that had been put in place by decades of citizens and leaders before us - ordinances meant to protect Jamestown and its citizens prior to ever allowing such a transformational development.
- The oversight and procedural safeguards put into place by mayors, town councils and planning boards of years past aren't working for us anymore. Two centuries of Jamestown residents have sacrificed and strategized to maintain the town's unique character, natural beauty and historic relevance. Thanks to digital access, we now have concrete, black-and-white compliance data, groundwater reports, water and air quality test data, tax valuation property records, details of long-expired permits and failed renewal applications. Despite the messaging coming out of town hall, there ARE many things we can do to clean up the contaminants, make better use of our tax dollars, and turn Jamestown into a vibrant, healthy community.
- Over the past few years I've watched and listened to Jamestown's citizenry become increasingly dismissed, frustrated and disenfranchised by the town's elected and employed leaders. Residents' email and phone inquiries to town hall go unanswered OR require a one-hour conference with the town manager before an answer is given. Citizens' concerns are reframed as attacks. Critical issues like stormwater flooding and budgets that don't add up are ignored. Unwanted cosmetic improvements, expensive studies and sidewalks are falsely legitimized by the town as checking off a "strategic plan goal." The bottom line is, our taxes are through the roof and we're getting nothing for it.
Constituent and regulatory policies. Our organizational structure is out of whack, with too much unchecked power concentrated with too few hired staff. There is so much self-congratulatory speak that a compliment now sounds like a defensive play. Regulatory enforcement of industrial discharge, stormwater management, code violations, hazardous properties, groundwater contamination, air emissions, equitable tax assessment and general maintenance are failing and/or nonexistent.
The ability to be honest and speak truthfully, no matter how bad it hurts. It is easier to work with negative truths than rosy lies.
Listening. Talking, engaging with, and getting citizens involved in decisions, solutions and governance. Communicating decisions made, the reason for those decisions, and the potential outcomes. Perpetuating a culture in which the citizens are recognized as the stakeholders and the town's greatest assets.
Chief communicator, administrator, ambassador, protector of the town, defender of the people
Chief communicator, administrator, ambassador, protector of the town, defender of the people
Chief communicator, administrator, ambassador, protector of the town, defender of the people
The PEOPLE, locally-owned businesses and restaurants, trees, wildlife, forested areas, intimate character, small-town vibe, quaintness, historic relevance, geology, streams
Increasing industrial contamination: water, air, groundwater, soil and surface water. Unplanned, dense, fast-tracked, shoddy residential and retail development. Lax permitting of industrial facilities and discharge permits. Aging infrastructure. Not enough "basic services" to support new D.R. Development (public safety, fire, schools, utilities, maintenance, etc)
Jamestown United
Bringing The Jamestowner to life, and watching it grow beyond our small group of neighborhood advocates into an actively engaged organization with a statewide audience. We've provided research help and advice to citizens from all over the state who are dealing with health and environmental threats, and don't know where to turn for data, water quality reports, public comment notices and contact information. We are in the final quarter of a year-long citizen's air monitoring project with equipment and guidance provided by the EPA Southeast Region. Jamestown's citizenry is well informed about, and knows how to discuss, PFAS, 1,4-Dioxane, reverse osmosis, particulate matter, industrial discharge, tax valuation, brownfields and much more. Information is power, and I feel like I've helped empower our beautiful neck of the woods.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2025 Elections
External links
Footnotes
