New year, new mayor for Town of Prosperity

PROSPERITY —When Robert Martin was first elected to Prosperity Town Council in 2012, he didn’t know that one day it would lead him to now be filling the position of Mayor of Prosperity. Last year, conversations began about who would fill the role when former mayor Derek Underwood began to consider not running for re-election.

“Derek told us (Council) that he didn’t think he was going to run in 2026. My name kept coming up in conversations. I had a lengthy conversation with my wife and decided I was going to run for mayor. It was not on my radar at all and my wife said she thought I should do it,” Martin said. “Derek put his faith in me running for mayor.”

After officially being sworn in as mayor on Jan. 2 alongside Councilman Mike Hawkins and newly elected Councilwoman McKeva Kinard-Shelton, Martin said not much will change, however, there is plenty to look forward to, including making progress on the One Cent Sales Tax money that has been going on the last couple of years and renovations to the Town Square, to name a few.

Aside from serving as councilman for a number of years, Martin is well-known in the community as a real estate agent and is already present in the community something he’s looking to do as he takes on the role of mayor.

“Since I’m in town, I’ll be able to be in the office more,” he said. “We’ve got an extremely good group of people here, but what can we do to make ourselves better? That’s why it’s important to have conversations with people because we can always get better at what we’re doing. Listening is one of the easiest things to do.”

Martin reiterated the good group of people working within the Town of Prosperity, from town administration and public works to the police department.

“I’m proud to sit here and be called mayor and working with them,” he said.

The next scheduled Prosperity Town Council meeting, slated for Jan. 20 at 7 p.m. will be the first official meeting with Martin at the forefront. He said the meeting will likely last longer than usual as Council discusses goals for the year and appointments are made.

“We want to work to make sure we’re doing the best job we can,” he said.