Ten years ago, looking for a place to live, I drove into Shepherdstown. Virtually everyone I met used the same words, “Shepherdstown is a special place.”

One of the people I ran into was Jim Auxer, the mayor. We chatted for a long time. Back in the northern Virginia suburbs, I hardly knew the people on my block, let alone the mayor. Did we even have a mayor? Who could say?

But this little town, I came to learn, was a community — a place where neighbors are there to help one another; where we have parades and backyard gardens and book clubs and volunteer food pantries and restaurants where the owner and staff know our names; and where there’s a shared belief in decency and fairness, a respect for one another’s differences and a gentleness of spirit.

It’s these very qualities, I also came to learn, that Jim Auxer brings to the job of mayor. I still run into him regularly — I’ll see him stooping sometimes to pick up litter — eager to ask me about my family, and how I think things are going. He’s interested in the wellbeing of others. Shepherdstown voters elected Jim Auxer, and keep re-electing him, because he fits the way we are.

Another reason he has been so often reelected, is that he’s good at his job. Visitors still want to move here. We’ve got a thriving real estate market and amicable relations with our neighboring university. Our streets are safe and well-lit. Town employees still work till all hours to keep our aged infrastructure in order. Our parks are gorgeous. We’ve got modern water and wastewater treatment facilities and drinkable (if not necessarily tasty) water. We’ve got twice-a-week trash pick-up and weekly recycling. We hardly notice how well our town is run, because it’s run so well.

None of this happens on its own. The mayor supervises a top-notch municipal workforce, which includes Stephanie Grove, the new town manager who stewards the town’s day-to-day operations. Jim chairs the Town Council — a formidable, engaged and forward-looking group — and also chairs many of its committees.

If there’s unease over this election, it stems largely from something that’s happening outside of Shepherdstown’s corporate limits, and therefore outside any mayor’s authority — a burst of high-density development and a Jefferson County political establishment bent on approving every proposal for more. If we’re to influence the county, it will take all our voices. The mayor’s tightest focus, though, has always been right here, on the shared project of tending to this special place. He’s been at it for 20 years. He deserves two more.

Stephen Altman, of Shepherdstown