BY MIKE FUHRMAN

Statesville Mayor Costi Kutteh is not planning to seek re-election in 2025, bringing to an end his tenure as the city’s longest serving mayor.

A Statesville native and prominent attorney, Kutteh is serving his 20th year as mayor. Unbeaten in nine elections, he also served on the City Council for 16 years prior to being elected mayor.

“I’m going to miss the heck out of it,” he said. “But it’s time.”

In an interview with Iredell Free News where he made his decision public, Kutteh was quick to point out that he will miss the individual and organizational partnerships that he has forged and fostered over the years.

Kutteh decided to announce his intentions early in the year to give potential candidates time to prepare for the campaign.

Filing for the November 3 municipal elections is in early July. Statesville elections are nonpartisan so there is no primary election.

The city has enjoyed unprecedented industrial and residential growth in the last two years — and more development is in the pipeline. Led by City Manager Ron Smith and several experienced council members, the city is prepared for what’s coming, he said.

“That makes now the right time to step aside for new leadership,” Kutteh explained. “The city is poised for exponential growth moving forward!”

During Kutteh’s tenure as leader, officials have worked to build the city’s water and sewer capacity, making it the envy of other localities and attractive to developers. The Statesville Regional Airport has undergone numerous expansions and construction of a new terminal is underway. The city celebrated the opening of the new Woody T. Woodard Fire Station in 2024, and construction has begun on a new multi-phased Municipal Operations Center. The city-funded streetscape project shepherded a revitalization of the downtown district. Crews continue to upgrade electric lines in the city, and work will begin this spring on a $20 million water line replacement project.

Kutteh has been reluctant to take any credit for the fruits of small-town governance, which he likens to a team sport.

“I’ve got people thanking me all the time for things that have been a combined effort of staff, the larger community as well as our elected officials,” he said.

But it hasn’t always been a walk in the park. Kutteh and council members were roundly criticized — and their patriotism questioned — during a dispute with Camping World over the size of its American flag along Interstate 77. Other residents pushed back when the council voted to rename Lakewood Park after civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.

Along the way, Kutteh has cast tie-breaking votes on controversial issues, and he also presided over a meeting where two council members nearly came to blows.

More recently, city and county residents who live near the sites of proposed residential developments have begun pushing back at city council meetings, decrying what they see as too much growth, too fast and too close to their backyards. Traffic congestion, crime and school overcrowding are chief among their concerns.

Those growing pains are to be expected, the mayor said, and it’s a good problem to be in a desired location with good roads and plenty of water and sewer capacity.

Kutteh might not miss the long council meetings and the public scrutiny that comes with being mayor, but he will miss other parts of the job.

For starters, he will miss attending the community events, ground-breaking and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, Friday After Five concerts and the daily interactions he has with his constituents throughout the city.

While some of his successors might not be interested in that aspect of the job, he has enjoyed being the people’s mayor. It has been extremely rewarding to also have a front row seat in Statesville’s significant residential and industrial growth, he added.

“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve as the mayor of Statesville for the past two decades,” Kutteh said. “I am immensely proud of what we have achieved together as a community and will be anxious to watch Statesville and the Statesville spirit continue to grow.”