What's at Stake in Chapel Hill Local Elections

The eight embers of the Chapel Hill Town Council serve staggered, four-year terms (Image)

Local elections are coming to Chapel Hill. Polling day is Nov. 5, but early voting starts on Oct. 16. The mayorship, town council, and board of education will all be up for grabs. Young people may not usually pay attention to local politics, but any UNC student registered to vote in Chapel Hill will be eligible to cast his or her ballot in this election. Here is the basic information necessary to be an informed voter.

Incumbent Mayor Pam Hemminger is running for her third two-year term, having first been elected in 2015. She formerly worked in the private sector, primarily in real estate, and has an array of experience in local government and nonprofits. As mayor, she has championed the Food for the Summer program to ensure low-income families have access to free meals during the summer, along with more technical policies like conditional zoning, which gives the Town Council greater control over development projects.

Her opponent is Joshua James Levenson, who, in an NAACP questionnaire, identifies himself as a teacher and canvasser. Levenson is substantially more progressive than Hemminger, including a heavy emphasis on sustainability. This notably includes a focus on high-density, green housing and “tiny homes” to achieve affordable housing. However, Levenson faces an uphill battle as Hemminger is a popular incumbent who won reelection in 2017 with 92.51 percent of the vote against write-in opposition.

Meanwhile, the eight members of the Chapel Hill Town Council serve staggered four-year terms, so half of them will be up for reelection next month. On the ballot, voters will be able to choose any four of the seven candidates in the running. Three incumbents will be running for reelection – Council members Jessica Anderson, Nancy Oates, and Michael Parker. Also running are Sue Hunter, a research compliance manager at Duke Nursing who has volunteered extensively with local organizations; Tai Huynh, a current Morehead-Cain Scholar at UNC; Amy Ryan, a writer and editor with nearly two decades of experience on various town boards and commissions; and Renuka Soll, who has professional experience in marketing but is running on her volunteer work, notably serving on the board of North Carolinians against Gun Violence.

As a side effect of Chapel Hill’s homogenous politics, the candidates have adopted similar stances and rhetoric — including support for affordable housing, public transportation, commercial development, environmental sustainability, and the preservation of greenspaces. Some differences did emerge between the candidates, however, when they answered questions from The News & Observer. Notably, Huynh is the only candidate open to extending urban services to the area south of U.S. 15-501, currently part of a low-density “rural buffer” around Chapel Hill and Carrboro; Oates is the only candidate skeptical of constructing multifamily housing in single-family neighborhoods; and Anderson, Oates and Ryan are all strongly opposed to new property tax increases, while others are open to the prospect under the right circumstances.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board oversees the towns’ public schools. Institutions of higher education, such as the university, do not fall under its jurisdiction. Its elections work similar to that of the City Council, and voters will be able to select four of the board’s seven members this November. The sole incumbent running for reelection is Rani Dasi, who has served since 2015 and boasts her commitment to “transparency and fiscal responsibility.” According to The News & Observer, the other candidates are Andrew Davidson, a data architect at IBM who previously served as chair of the board from 2013-2017; Jillian Joy La Serna, former principal of Carrboro Elementary School; Ashton Powell, a biology teacher at the NC School of Science and Mathematics; and Deon Temne, who works in cybersecurity but has experience in several education-related committees and organizations. In addition, Carmen Huerta-Bapat and Louis Tortora dropped out of the race earlier this year, but they will still appear on the ballot.

The Chapel Hill Alliance for a Livable Town, which seeks to “preserve Chapel Hill’s vibrant college-town character,” has endorsed Hemminger for mayor and Anderson, Oates, Ryan, and Soll for Town Council. Meanwhile, the environmentalist Sierra Club has endorsed Hemminger for mayor and Parker, Hunter, Ryan and Huynh for Town Council. To see detailed answers from each of the candidates on the major issues, read at the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP’s Candidate Questionnaires. Briefer comparisons of the mayoral and town council candidates can be found in the pro-business Chamber for a Greater Chapel Hill-Carrboro’s survey and the progressive website OrangePolitics’s scorecard for mayoral and council candidates.