Did you know we have local elections this year in Raleigh? With the primary election coming up soon on Tuesday, March 3, 2026, we all should be looking at the candidates that will be on our ballots, even sooner when you consider early voting is February 12-28.
At-Large Candidate Cameron Zamot (@cameron.zamot) reached out and wanted to offer some time for you all to ask questions. Cameron will be available at 12pm on Tuesday Jan 27th so get your questions in now.
Cameron is 28 years old and radically optimistic about Raleigh. Since moving here half a decade ago, he has worked constantly to make the city move better. In the public sector, he has worked on City Staff as a Senior Transit Planner with the BRT program. More recently, started his own bike shop + coffee shop to encourage curiosity towards bicycles and their transformative power in cities. His knowledge of the municipal government system plus his bona fide interest in getting more people on bikes, buses, and on foot makes him a compelling candidate in this yearâs At-Large race.
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Post questions ahead of time and Cameron will answer them during the timeframe above.
What made you want to run for council? Are there 1 or 2 top priorities you have that you want to focus on during your first term?
Any thoughts on the current state of community engagement? I was critical of the CAC system before but didnât agree with disbanding it. Thoughts on that?
Even if they are pie in the sky, what specific actions would you like to see council take that will improve the quality of life and experiences in downtown?
As an at-Large candidate, what optimistic goals do you have for better connections across the city on the whole via multi-modality - specifically around transit and its trickle down to biking and walkability and, adjacent to that, what ideas do you have for how we might âshake loose some of the backlogâ of projects pertaining to connectivity that we simply seem unable to stay apace of the growth in the regionâŚ.?
I think Downtown Raleigh should be a neighborhood corporate central business district. Do you think we should upzone all of downtown Ralrigh to 40 stories? Iâm also for upgrading Raleigh fire equipment so we can allow 60 story buildings. So my question is what your vision for the most important part of the city downtown?
Hey Cameron! Your work on The Bike Library is already a huge recommendation for me, Iâm glad to see you running.
Iâm curious if you can elaborate on what particular things make you âradically optimisticâ about Raleigh. I think on this forum we can get a little stuck on underwhelming and disappointing outcomes. What do you see that makes you hopeful for the cityâs future? What do you hope to do in the council to keep those things moving?
Big picture: Weâre experiencing a strange time in our nationâs lifecycle right now. I look around and wonder âWhat can I do?â My answer to that is to get into politics. I believe that the country at large, and the city as a specific example, both need young, courageous leaders. Thatâs the most basic reason I am stepping up.
On a more focused level, I am running because we need a better transportation system in Raleigh and I would have the most leverage to make change as a member of Council. Our current transportation system is dangerous, expensive, and inefficient. We have collectively discounted the transformative power of alternative transit, so Iâm running with that as my primary issue. This trickles down into other issues like first responder resources, stormwater, and affordability. But it all ties back to transportation.
The second big issue is how we develop. From what Iâve seen, this is most peopleâs ânumber oneâ issue; sustainable development and similar issues. By allowing smaller developers to build gentle density into existing neighborhoods (through specific UDO text changes; setbacks, lot size requirements, etc.) we can make quadplexes, triplexes, duplexes, accessory commercial units, and walk-up apartments easier to build. This directly translates to a more affordable Raleigh. Itâs worth noting that some of these building types will require changes at the State level â part of my approach to Council will be to partner with the state in an amicable way. During my time on Staff, I noticed that friendliness isnât always the standard with the City/State working relationship. Weâll need to partner to get anything done.
As for community engagement, I think itâs a virtuous cycle that needs to be jump-started by some simple promises that the City can keep. Not a 10-year, $100M BRT, but rather some $5,000 improvements to bike and ped infrastructure that makes residents really see that the City has their best interests in mind. Small jumps, easy to complete, which will stack and build trust + buy-in from the public.
Moving street parking to decks and use the freed-up street space for protected bike lanes.
Close a lane of MLK, throw up flowerboxes, planters, maybe even some trees, and use that as the Chavis-Dix strollway thatâs been talked about forever.
Alter the transit configuration so that not every route originates from GoRaleigh station, opting instead for zonal service based on various pockets of density around town. (This serves two purposes: it dilutes undesirable activity thatâs currently focused at GRS and serves transit users better.)
Remove the requirement that posters and flyers on light poles/boxes be removed immediately. An overly sanitized downtown isnât welcoming or desirable, so we need to allow a little of that ârough around the edgesâ back in. Another big complaint I frequently hear is that Downtown is becoming soulless. This is one of several similar changes that will result in a less sanitized-feeling downtown.
I will be a courageous voice on council that can look at the truth and speak it â the truth that we have devoted so much precious space to cars â and say âWhy? Let us take some of that back for people.â
Once I noticed that all the flat, wide roadways are high-speed vehicular corridors, I started to realize why everyone said Raleigh was so hilly on a bike.
Hargett Street is a great E-W connection. So is Peace, but it needs a full-length protected lane. Person and Blount are good starts, but they also need protection. All of these projects could happen quickly and cheaply with OTS solutions like armadillos. Better greenway connections, like this connection I pitched on Linkedin, are good candidates here.
Political will is what makes all of this happen. Right now, the status quo seems to be that of ânot making waves, not making anyone upset.â The reality is that that kind of decision making really serves no one, and makes everyone upset.
In order to push the needle, there needs to be a voice that says âenough,â and takes actions that, although they may not be universally appeasing, are made in the interest of all residents.
As for those big projects that stagnate, we need to fix some issues with the City Managerâs office. Since our city government is a mayor-manager system, any real change will also have to come with change on the Manager side of things. Specifically, we need to 1) make it the standard to provide Council at least two weeksâ time to review any budget that comes through and 2) remove the requirement that Department Directors are included on all communication between Staff and Councillors. Council can only make decisions based on the info they receive; the information bottleneck at the Dept Head level doesnât help that process.
Large scale transportation planning takes years, yet downtown parcels continue to develop today. How do we set policy and vision to guide that development, and what should it look like? What is the North Star for what we want downtown to become as we make it âbecomeâ today?
MLB would be great here. But Iâll echo one of the common objections to the recent North Hills rezoning: âThink of the traffic!!!â
This time, I actually agree that the traffic potential in a future where we have a MLB stadium downtown is⌠kind of a nightmare.
Thatâs why I am focused on transportation. Although giving up some parking spaces now seems hard and shifting to a transit-forward downtown seems like a distant future⌠these are the groundwork-level steps needed to set us up to be ready for MLB here in Downtown.
So, to answer your question: Yes to MLB! Yes also to robust transit service, park-and-ride options, and limited on-site parking.
The most important part of the city downtown is all of the surface parking lots â specifically, how we need to get rid of them. Those are the weak links in our downtown, the remnants of when Raleigh was a sleepy small town. As long as they remain, the whole chain remains weak.
We can replace those lots with housing, corner stores, and coffee shops that serve more than those who need quick, convenient car storage. Letâs do that first and see if it adds vibrancy to downtown. If it doesnât, then we can look at more 40-story zonings.
