I can’t predict whether the Office of Community Engagement will live up to its name or not. To support or oppose something that I haven’t seen implemented would be shortsighted. I’d like to have an outcome of how the Office of Community Engagement affects Raleigh residents, and whether community leaders and neighborhoods feel represented by the new system before making any conclusions.
For the second part of your question- I think there needs to be restructuring on how the city council acknowledges and is reached by its residents. It’s clear that folks want to be involved in issues that affect their lives on a daily basis, and that input is valuable. The demands of daily life are less structured in our WFH era, and it leads to hours conflicting with evening Council meetings often too. In a decentralized approach where community is engaged within their area, we relieve the full-time job that staying informed and active has become. My Town Halls and Meet & Greets have been centered around coming to a group, as opposed to asking them for one more scheduling and travel commitment. I did notice that we as a city may now be moving in that direction when receiving a mailer recently. So I am optimistic of the approach if it is executed as expressed.
As for BRT and commuter rail- I’ve paid close attention to the research that the city (and GoRaleigh in particular) have done into the correlation between affordable housing, public transportation, and economic development. There was a paper distributed a few years back by GoTriangle that goes over the intersection of housing and transit, and one thing in particular stuck out to me- affordable housing is more than just the housing itself - and it’s why policies like these are so important. I would find ways to involve more community input, to ensure that any logistical oversights from lack of proximity to use case are avoided or offset. Without that, the potential risk is we will be left with an upgrade concentrated in only areas fully explored and considered, as opposed to a solution for a set of problems often overlooked or unheard by leadership.