Some of his positions include being in favor of removing bicycle lanes and the R-Line from downtown, replacing the roundabouts on Hillsborough St. with intersections, and creating a tree preservation tax credit.
@Jake is right though, he positions himself as very anti-growth, so I’m not sure that his positions would appeal to anyone here. He even states that he would hate to be mayor, but would do the job if elected. His campaign message is pretty blunt:
He’s not the only mayoral candidate that doesn’t care about you
But he’s the only one who will come out and say it.
I do largely agree with you on each candidate. George Knott seemed very reactionary, and I strongly disagreed with him. He didn’t seem to offer genuine solutions to the problems Raleigh is facing, and his lack of seriousness in running for mayor showed through.
Caroline Sullivan did come across to me as rather vague in her answers, and I feel like I still don’t know much about her. She didn’t give many specifics about her positions, and I just don’t feel comfortable supporting her at this point.
Zainab Baloch also struck me as a bit vague, and some of her positions weren’t very concrete. I do, however, appreciate her support of scooters.
Charles Francis was a bit more clear, and while I’m still not a big fan of some of his positions, my opinion of him did improve slightly. He has a bit more experience working in the community, and that could be an asset as mayor.
Mary Ann Baldwin gave me the most positive impression, and she also was very clear in articulating her positions (though she seemed a bit nervous on camera). Her support of density, transit, and scooters in downtown is pretty clear, and I think she would be a great person to lead Raleigh forward, especially since she has past experience on Council.
It will be exciting to watch this election unfold as October nears!
Something else about George Knott that I neglected to mention — he contradicted himself by initially stating that “it’s hard to argue that Raleigh is a small town” while discussing one point, then later claimed Raleigh is a “big city.”
Regardless of which it actually is, he seems to think we need to stop growing, which isn’t a practical or sustainable solution.
I’d like to see the size of the council increased and the at-large seats eliminated so that all of the seats are district-based.
I think the biggest problem with the city council is that District C is a racial gerrymander. All of the city’s most heavily African-American neighborhoods were packed into a single district, and it strains belief to think that this was just a funny coincidence. So traditionally Raleigh, which is a very diverse city, has always had exactly one non-white city councilperson, always from District C.
Increasing the number of seats, getting rid of at-large seats, and re-drawing District C would likely yield a city council that is more diverse and representative of Raleigh, in more ways than one.
@daviddonovan
redraw District C and you’ll end up with an all white council. District C is far from ‘gerrymandered’ at least if you compare them to say, our congressional seats in NC. District C is relatively uniform and historically, it has guaranteed African-american representation on the council. Breaking this up will just create minority representation in the larger districts where their opportunity to have say an african american on the council will be diminished even further.
Per the 2010 Census, Raleigh was 57.5% white, and I doubt the numbers have changed drastically since then. Even accounting for the fact that the electorate is going to be somewhat whiter than the population at large, I am skeptical that a city that is almost half non-white would elect an all-white city council (much less routinely so) from a slate of single-district seats in the absence of a racial gerrymander.
Also, pretty much as a rule, the smaller the districts are, the tougher it is to gerrymander a city or a state or whatever. If you made the districts smaller (by making more of them), it would be pretty much impossible to avoid drawing at least a few that had large minority populations. And if we had, let’s say, ten single-district seats instead of the current 5+2, you’d likely have more than one non-white council member. And even two out of ten, while still not really representative of Raleigh, would still be more representative then basically any city council Raleigh has ever had, save one term in the 1970s when Clarence Lightner was mayor.
After watching that candidates’ forum, I get a strong sense that George is playing the angry populist card as a Trump-like candidate. He’s worrisome. He can easily make it to a runoff in a field of 5.
What types of questions do people want to hear answers from in our upcoming elections? What are your burning issues that you want to hear real answers on from candidates which would help you decide who to vote for? Kind of with that, which questions would you like to compare candidates answers to their actions on as they go about the next term.
I want to know if a candidate has statewide or national intentions for their political future. If so, then I want to know a whole lot more about them, because I don’t want to further the career of someone locally that is way out of line with me politically on statewide and national issues. Perfect example of this is Mc Crory. He was really good for Charlotte, but I didn’t like the turn he made as governor.
Residents can no longer address individual City Council members during public comment periods, thanks to a rule change passed yesterday (unanimously, with McFarlane and Stewart absent). Some think it’s unconstitutional:
So they spend their time making new rules to keep people from making them uncomfortable instead of approving new growth. Thank goodness for this forum! Now we need to let the other xxx,xxx votes know their priorities!
you guys need to be willing to contribute financially to their opponents campaigns if you want to really make a difference to our council. Even if you don’t live in their district. The municipal elections come down to visibility and visibility is tied directly to the ability to get your message out to a large audience, which isn’t free. There is currently a small but vocal minority to showed up and voted the likes of Cox and Mendell onto the Council. We have to show up and vote and help their opponents…and donating even if it’s $5 or $10 to the campaigns helps. I know David Knight who is running against Mendell. He is exponentially more reasonable and level headed than she appears to be.
