I would want to know Ruth’s takes on housing and how to help the situation in Raleigh with direct examples and realistic improvements that can be done in a 2-year term.
MAB seems (from my POV) to be hitting the housing issue head on, which is great, while Ruth seems soft on it and seems to be saying public engagement needs to be improved as a top priority. Now that’s great and all but reads like a deflection from real priorities in Raleigh, IMO.
I’d actually like to know his perspective on community engagement. The only way I could support bringing the CACs back is if they’re augmented with options for people that can’t physically be at meetings (schedules, health, etc).
Also, I hope no developers donate to his campaign because wouldn’t that put him in the pocket of the developers? (btw, I’m rolling my eyes typing this. I really don’t understand that criticism.)
Exactly, wile the idea of CAC’s sound great, in reality they represent a very narrow slice of the community, made up mostly of retired folks (not that there is anything wrong with that, just that they have way more time for these type of things) meeting on a random Tuesday night for 1+ hours. The bulk of the community residents, with jobs, kids, and life in general, does either do not have the time, or even know about these CAC meetings, Or maybe they feel generally neutral about such things (and don’t bother showing up)
So the CAC’s end up being a megaphone for the NIMBY crowd. And that’s why they started the entire “Recall Baldwin” nonsense.That plus the ‘extending the term for an extra year’, even though that was because Covid delayed the census numbers. MAB still gets blamed for it.
There’s also the disinformation. In some of the meetings I went to the ‘leadership’ figures would spout clearly wrong and misleading information to their unwitting members. Just as social media companies are criticized for disinformation on their platforms, I imagine the city didn’t want to be associated, let alone sponsor and organize, these any longer. There are other channels where this kind of behavior can be countered with facts more easily.
I was able to meet Terrance Ruth tonight - some thoughts for those interested.
He’s a really nice guy, very charismatic and very smart. He talked about how we have so many universities in the area and yet the city barely uses data or technology in their decisions. He’s a big proponent of “smart governance”. Some of what he said sounded to me like Strong Towns, such as their site’s description of local government:
We work to elevate local government to be the highest level of collaboration for people working together in a place.
He brought up both the CAC disbandment and the delayed election, but when I pushed a bit on the CACs, he admitted their faults. He explicitly said that the model of community engagement Raleigh had with the CACs and continues to have with city council, rezonings, etc. is too meeting-centric. He doesn’t think there should be a centralized “department of community engagement”, but rather that every part of the city, from planning to housing and so on, should put community engagement first. If he were to win, though, he wouldn’t just disband the department, he would use it. He wants to take the weight off the citizens to show up and make their voice heard, and put it to the city to go and find out what people think, which is a model he’s been trying to emulate with his campaign.
However, he seems a bit idealistic. While he fully admits the CAC’s problems, he thinks they could have been reformed. Everything I’ve read about the CACs seems pretty clear that it was either the status quo or completely start over. “Smart governance” sounds good but doesn’t seem fool-proof - I think most people prefer face to face engagement. Above all, though, he wants to restore the residents’ trust in the city by being a mayor who is both known by the city and who knows the city. And I just don’t know if this city’s animosity and apathy can be cured by one man.
Some practical things: he’ll be updating his website in September or so from a focus on “who he is” to the issues he’s been hearing about while meeting residents. I assume that will include the answers to the ADU/missing middle question, as well as the others on that site, though he’s trying to run a very unifying campaign. It’s going to be pretty hard to give specific answers without angering someone. Based on his focus on engagement, I also think he would consider a “dtraleigh community” meeting, if that was something people were interested in - tonight’s meeting was very small.
We should definitely try to set up something like that if he’s willing.
Hey there!
I’m working on a list of questions to ask Raleigh Mayor and City Council candidates in our candidate questionnaire.
What are the issues you’d like Raleigh leaders to focus on? What do you want to know about the people looking to lead the city?
Questions can be open-ended but I’m specifically looking for yes/no questions. And bonus points for district-specific questions.
Please feel free to email me at ajohnson@newsobserver.com or reply to this post.
FWIW, I did something similar in 2019 and got over 150 questions. I’d love to beat that this year.
could local news perhaps boradcast when specific cac meetings would occur?
As a non-Raleigh resident, I only have citywide questions. But I hope these are useful in that they’re wonky enough to weed out the unprepared candidates while they differentiate the good ones.
How will you work to gain the trust of your constituents and involve them in decision-making? Now that boards and commissions convened by the Office of Community Engagement, will replace the CAC system, do you support this approach? - Test candidates’ sincerity about engaging the public, understanding of new systems, and their philosophies on how they should work with their constituents to make meaningful decisions.
Should Raleigh work together with neighboring cities like Cary, Durham, and Chapel Hill more closely to tackle regional issues like housing and transportation? How will you do that? - Assess candidates’ views on regionalism (or identify their outdated biases towards viewing the Triangle’s cities as individual parts), and gauge whether they understand that the Triangle’s economic and basic needs-related challenges are actually interconnected and complex.
Do you support Raleigh’s efforts in BRT and commuter rail? What are your thoughts on their studies’ details on housing affordability and business cases? What would you do differently? - Discern if candidates truly care about mass transit in Raleigh and whether they’ve paid attention to their equity analyses. Candidates and readers alike may not recognize that GoRaleigh, GoTriangle etc. have worked hard to address obvious questions about impacts on gentrification, displacement, racial disparity, and housing market impacts; I think it’s important to really test the candidates’ knowledge on that and to test whether they can truly defend their platforms in the face of published data.
What is Raleigh doing that other cities could learn from? What specific things are other cities doing that Raleigh could do? - Discern if candidates just like to preach about hand-wavy idealism, or whether they have specific ideas, policies, projects etc. that truly inspire them. For example, I personally hope they’d think about UDO amendments to allow for building under rail bridges (more retail or restaurant space!) like they do in places like Tokyo and London.
My questions may seem simple to regular users of this forum but I think it’ll be relevant to the broader population:
I think, similar to @keita’s questions above, this will weed out those who have thought holistically about the city’s growth and support ways to make it more sustainable, equitable, etc., from those who have a reactionary mindset regarding our growth. Because remember, if Raleigh stops growing, it’ll just go to Wake Forest, JoCo, etc. and our problems with sprawl, housing affordability, transit, etc. will continue and be exacerbated.
Here are a few thoughts, all housing/development related.
What do you think is the main cause of homelessness in Raleigh? What do you personally believe is the best solution to the homelessness problem, and what do you believe you can realistically accomplish as mayor/city councilor?
(I want an open-ended question on what a person actually believes. If somebody goes back to “Well, when Reagan closed the asylums…” that’s more informative than anything they say afterwards.)
What do you think about rising housing prices in Raleigh? Is it a good thing, a bad thing, or a mixed bag?
What is the best way to make housing affordable for lower-income residents?
(Again, I want some philosophical answers because I want to know what a person actually believes, not just what they plan to do.)
Do you believe it is necessary for every new development proposal to include a certain number of “affordable” or below-market-rate units to earn approval, or is there a way to incentivize the development of affordable housing that doesn’t require every project to include such specific set-asides? What benefit do you think such set-asides actually provide to overall housing affordability?
Raleigh is the center of one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the country, and it seems to be a given that people want to move here. How do you personally feel about that?
(Again I really want the person’s underlying philosophy. It will inform everything they do whether explicitly or not.)
If we accept that people will continue to want to move to Raleigh because of its economic strength, do you think it is preferable to encourage the city to densify in order to accomodate growth, or to encourage new residents to settle in outlying areas and limit additional density in the city limits? Should Raleigh as the central city of an important metropolitan region be ready to grow vertically across more of the city, or should the region as a whole maintain a low-density, suburban feel with additional wild and agricultural land brought under development so that existing developed parts of the city don’t have to change?
(This was my attempt to be diplomatic in my wording here, but really, I just want to know, do you think it’s time we upzone a lot more of the city to permit denser development here, or do you actually believe continued outward sprawl is the best way to go forward? Are you willing to tell the NIMBYs to move out to Zebulon if they want that suburban lifestyle so we can create a deliberate urban future here in the central city, or are you gonna cry yourself to bed at night because there aren’t enough 6/4 mansions on a quarter acre left inside the beltway? But I don’t want to bias the question.)
In reality, Raleigh proper’s growth has slowed to a trickle in comparison to the past and to our burbs in Wake Co. today. Anyone who would say that the city is growing too fast would be making that statement without the actual data.
That said, I think that the NIMBYism we see is less about growth and more about change.
I’d like to know if the candidates actually support Livable Raleigh and their anti-developer theme.
I’d also like to know if the candidate has any ideas on how to encourage/incentivize/whatever organizations like Highwoods to develop their parking lots and on the flip side, ideas on how to discourage development of some of Raleigh’s character like the Goodnights building, The Depot, Seaboard Station and Berkeley Cafe to name a few. Obv if they’re building by right, not much can be done.
Just got this email from WakeUP Wake County for a planned candidate forum series. See below the locations and dates!
Not familiar with WakeUP. I see their Mission Statement and their Vision, but, how have they put those into practice the last few years? Do they support things that actually advance the cause of sustainable living or are they just basically anti-development?
Sounds like someone found out he’s being excluded because everyone hates his ass, and is salty about it 
I think they’re pretty on board with dense(r) development and walkable/bikeable/transit-rich cities. Check out the blog link on their page if you care to see what they’ve posted. I don’t follow them closely so I really don’t know that much about them, but regardless, candidate forums are one of our best tools to help us vote 
