Remember that Raleigh once elected its biggest developer at the time (Smedes York) as mayor. Not just MAB, but also mayors of other cities that passed pro-housing reforms (and saw much greater civil unrest over the past few years) like Minneapolis and Portland have won re-election.
Minneapolis also has ranked-choice voting, so you can’t blame FPTP.
Clearly the voters in Raleigh are more intelligent than those in Portland and Minneapolis. 
Anyone want to chat with Jonathan Melton? He’s started becoming active on Reddit and I just saw this post from him:
Getting a pattern here, the next city council wants to stall, stall, and more stall. Pushing very case to wait months before a new hearing date. I don’t think any rezoning case was approved in the afternoon city council session. I guess this is going to be the next two years.
It’s a good thing that developers are set up pretty well for construction for the remainder of the decade. Let’s get some of the rezoned projects out of the ground now before we get to worried about future rezonings! There’s more than plenty of opportunity out there right now.
Watched the 2/28 GNR committee meeting around Dix Edge…Definitely LOTS of learning and (attempted) understanding going on within the Council of Wait, Wait, Slow…Good times when you realize the answers don’t come easily…
City Council Member Mary Black has a really good time in Austin during SXSW and seems to be growing LESS antagonistic about density and transit oriented development and potentials rezonings.
Hoping this isn’t a joke. If so, that’s fantastic. I’ve had some good conversations with a lot of people on the topic lately. Asking people why they feel like x or y usually leads them to the same answers we have.
Also seems like she and Melton get on pretty well. I bet they’ve had some pretty meaningful conversations.
Cannot overemphasize the importance of keeping that guy on the council.
…or perhaps as the next Mayor? 
MAB will not be running again, FYI.
A good and interesting read! Thank You Ellie for sharing this with all our group. I do know that Mayor Baldwin is working hard on a positive plan for a multi-sports stadium financing project.
I passed by MAB grocery shopping at the Wake Forest Rd Wegmans this Saturday afternoon. Was gonna say hello then said F it and kept walking. Made prolonged eye contact while I was considering it, though, and she looked worried like I was about to bust out some NIMBY shit on her. Probably should’ve just said hello after all.
I always thought this election was more about public engagement rather than development. It’s just silly how the news seems to headline everything with the new councilors supposedly being anti-growth and there’s going to be this crazy 4 on 4 debate about every new rezoning request.
The council would be good to make these things as boring as possible so that the news doesn’t have anything to dramatize all the time.
Walked past MAB a few months ago near Davie/Blount Street. I just said, “Hello Mayor!”. I also let her know I appreciate what she’s working towards. She was all smiles. 90-95% of her interactions are likely negative, so I’m sure she’d appreciate appreciation.
Yeah, I am a big fan of trying to say something positive to people in power who usually gets nothing but complaints. Just one “your a doing a good job,” or “I don’t always agree with you, but I appreciate your hard work.” can go a long way for someone shouldering a lot of responsibility.
do you detect an increase in public engagement since? leaning one way or the other if it has increased? more or less nimby, iow?
Funny enough, I also saw her while shopping at Fresh Market in CV a couple weeks ago! I passed by her and tried saying hi but she kinda pretended not to hear me and kept walking towards the check out lane (I picked up on the same “nervous-youre-a-NIMBY” look too lol). After hesitating, I did decide to back track down the aisle and thanked her for her service, to which she responded warmly.
I wasn’t offended she tried to keep walking, as she’s probably recognized and approached by people all the time while doing mundane activities/errands, which is probably really annoying. Hell if I were mayor, I’d wish for an invisibility cloak anytime I had to be in public off-duty.
I just can’t believe that was the first time I’ve seen her around town in person.
She’s way shorter than I imagined she’d be
She was giving me the as I walked by staring at her (first because I couldn’t figure out why this woman looked so familiar, then because I had realized and was contemplating saying hello). In her mind, she was probably thinking “if this is one of those Livable Raleigh freaks, I better keep it moving.”
I should’ve offered her a hit of Delta8 pen to calm her down 
People don’t know why they don’t like her. My mom, who voted for her, said she is strident, which she said about Hillary. We want strong women leaders, or do we? I know she is a huge LGBTQ advocate. And she doesn’t mind shadows. Enough for me.
