Carnival barkers have always existed on both sides of any given fray, I would agree, regardless of the labels we put on them. My intent was to frame the paradox of this council’s desire to increase engagement while going (back) away from digital attendance of council meetings to come and to call out (my perception of ) their struggle to get their message out amidst the reality of the ‘barkers’ at times during this cycle. I’m also in the middle ground wanting Raleigh to realize its promise, not one barking at the edges of the fray. I hope there’s more of us out there when the next election rolls around.
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As far as development goes, the anti-developer left and NIMBY right are certainly getting along right now. However, there’s gonna be a breaking point. We just have to sit and wait.
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How much clout do we really think the anti- current council people have these days? Livable Raleigh was very well organized against the affordable housing bond but that passed no problem.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article246753011.html
The only huge controversial thing could have been Downtown South but while it was a bit dramatic, everyone except Cox approved it, IIRC.
The TIG topic doesn’t sound sexy enough to get enough people riled up in my opinion.
It seems we have a reverse where the council is pro-dev and the planning commission is development skeptical. It felt like the exact opposite 2-3 years ago.
A council that doesn’t listen to it’s planning commission? That’s been the same for this council and the last council as far as I’m concerned.
My bet is this council has a good chance at re-election. It’ll probably be close. That’s my bet anyway.
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Livable Raleigh is in an alternate reality for a group that doesn’t like Trump yet knows he responsible for doing this, they should know that.
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I’m not exactly understanding what Trump has to do with livable Raleigh (or not).
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A group called Livable Raleigh was against affordable housing?
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Well the majority of the city is progressive by a slim margin than Nimby. Mary-Ann Baldwin won by a slim number against Charles Francis that led to a runoff that ofc, Francis decided to drop out before that happened keep having tng scenario of possible run-offs until the pro-devlopemt population grows a little bit more.
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Because there complaining abut pushed back election but the reason for that is because the Census numbers haven’t come back yet and we’ve got to re-draw the districts. Most Livable Raleigh members are conservative libs.
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Some of you good folks need to actually research what MAB has done during a unparalleled time in the city, and Country for that matter, she has pushed for and set up alot of policies that will bold well for this city in the future, she has helped put alot of pro housing policies in place, first black female city manager, a police review board, jump starting transit pushing for pro density policies, now it’s true she is not a great public speaker so this translates sometime as coming across as cold, but the Mayor has done alot in the face of great challenges that quiet frankly have never been faced by this city, all I’m saying is people need to research and look at the factual stuff she has actually done and, I can tell you it’s alot. I strongly support MAB, because her policies will take Raleigh to the next level.
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You make a good point. I’ve been fortunate enough to be happy with her performance for the certain bit I’m engaged in. She’s definitely done a lot that I barely even know about (but do remember hearing about). And as someone else said, there’s a certain progressive conservative group that’s vocal. But I think we forget how diverse Raleigh and the viewpoints of its residents are. And I’m happy it doesn’t have to be a political party partisan divide.
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Yeah same here. I really hope she accomplishes everything that she promised during the election. She’s done great so far and I really hope that her affordable housing plan is successful.
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It looks like the City Council election being pushed back till next year (and the elimination of runoffs) is actually happening. Passed the House unanimously and passed the Senate with more than 2/3 support last night. I’m happy we get another year of this Council to essentially make up for the year of development that got wasted due to the pandemic.
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Something else mentioned in the article is that Raleigh local elections would be permanently moved to even-numbered years. This, and the proposed elimination of runoffs, is what led to all 5 NC senators from Wake County to oppose the legislation.
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Which is weird, because both of those things should drastically improve turnout and thus make the council more representative of the actual public. I’m a Wake County Democrat, so I must’ve voted for one of those people, and I will again, but completely disagree with their position on this.
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Would it be more representative, though? I agree that those would make it more convenient for voters, but you’d also bring party politics into these nonpartisan elections. I think that would bring out certain types of voters like activists and the politically literate, but I don’t think that makes the council any more accurately representative of voters’ ideas than it is now.
Also, I lean towards liking MAB, too, but the optics definitely don’t play to her favor… Like what @Kanatenah said about power grabs, City Council had a closed-door vote about this topic that’s being portrayed as a backdoor, authoritarian power grab. If this narrative keeps going, wouldn’t that be bad for her (to flip what @daviddonovan brought up, especially because of her name recognition)?
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I have zero context into what this person is saying, but the thumbnail of the current city council session on YouTube was just too good of a meme about city council politics.
Caption contest: what is the phrase that is getting the air quotes? ← I have not watched the video and kind of love the idea that it could be anything.
I’m not saying it was aliens, but it was “Aliens”.
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I come from Atlanta, y’all have the nerve to complain about “traffic” around here?!
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Then we required the new building downtown to have “Parking Minimums” and the developer blew right over it.
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“Highwoods” should rename their company to “gravel lot”.
They call it “liveable” Raleigh. Such high standards. 
Why am I using “air quotes” for things that don’t need “air quotes”? I’m not quite “sure”.
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