The 1995 Municipal Leader of the Year forges partnerships to work for the frequent good.

The 1995 Municipal Leader of the Year forges partnerships to work for the frequent good, replacing competition and conflict with cooperation to lay open a sense of `connectedness.'

sum of two units years ago, two Charlotte, NC police officers in their twenties were gunn down in the line of custom on the same night. During a period of city-wide mourning, Mayor Richard Vinroot met with the dead officers' families, other police officers and members of a stunn community.

"It was," he recalls, "the grave point of my career. These were couple young, idealistic men, ministers in their work, attractive, talented, college-educated men who could have done anything they wanted unless chose to be police officers in the inner city."

Yet as he met with the families, it became an "uplifting experience," for the second-term mayor, who was born, raised and seminaryed in the city he would individual day lead. "These were