A Look Ahead: Five Questions for Durham’s New City Council

December 4 marked the end of a tumultuous era for Durham City Council. 

Elaine O’Neal, who served just a single two-year term, officially retired as mayor of Durham. Her council colleagues Jillian Johnson and Monique Holsey-Hyman also had their last evening on the dais. Each of them gave final remarks before walking out of city hall to raucous applause and back into life as private citizens. Moments later, hundreds of people watched as mayor-elect Leonardo Williams and three of his future city council colleagues—Nate Baker, Javiera Caballero, and Carl Rist—were sworn into public office, ushering in the next chapter in Durham politics.

“We are officially writing our new story together because we are greater together,” Williams said during opening remarks after taking the city’s top seat.

The winning slate of candidates shared overlapping endorsements, including from the INDY, but their policy priorities are considerably varied, says former council member Johnson.

“Endorsements play an important role in cutting through some of the noise,” Johnson says. “What was tricky about this election was that two of the major endorsement processes, both the INDY and the Durham Committee [on the Affairs of Black People], endorsed people with highly opposing political ideologies.”

Williams ran on a platform of “peacemaking” and pragmatic governance. As one of the four council members who often votes yes on new development projects, he is seen as more friendly to the industry by his constituents. Williams is also a restaurant owner along with his wife, Zweli, giving him unique insight into the business community in Durham.

Baker is now the youngest member of the city council, at the age of 35. He was able to unify a large coalition of voters around a platform focused on labor rights, affordable housing, and environmental justice. Progressive organizations like the Triangle Democratic Socialists of America and the Sunrise Movement rewarded Baker with their endorsements, but he says the major political institutions like the People’s Alliance and the Durham Committee still wield outsized influence during elections.

“PACs are still really important endorsements in this city,” Baker says. “Whether you like that or not, this election showed that those endorsements hold true in their value.”

The new-look city council may have different groups of supporters, and varying political ideologies, but they will have to find common ground to address key issues that will impact the city in this upcoming term. Here are five questions for the council as we look ahead to 2024.

Will the city council raise taxes during the next budget cycle?

Salary raises for city employees including firefighters and sanitation workers became a hot-button issue during campaign season, pitting council members who voted to pass the 2023-24 fiscal budget back in June against others who wanted more money allocated to employee pay. City workers did receive onetime bonuses in October but are still holding out for permanent raises in next
year’s budget.

Other city departments have echoed the need for more resources. Sean Egan, the director of the City of Durham’s transportation department, told the INDY in October that “funding has not kept up with the level of need from the city’s public works department.” Public works is in charge of implementing infrastructure improvements such as sidewalks and bike lanes, features that community members have been clamoring for.

Meeting these needs requires the city council to raise more revenue. Rist says the jury is still out on whether a property tax increase is necessary to meet demand.

“There’s critical needs coming up,” Rist says. “The [planned city employee] pay study is one. We already have things on the books like the fare-free buses. But I don’t know if we can assume we need a tax increase.”

North Carolina state statute prohibits flexible property tax rates. So whether you just bought a new million-dollar McMansion or have lived in your modest home for years, you pay the same rate in Durham: roughly 55¢ per $100 of assessed value. Raising taxes would be a hard sell to a community already struggling with affordability. To mitigate the burden on lower-income households, the city offers property tax assistance, a program Rist says he’s proud to have worked on.

“By creating the property tax assistance, we actually have a safety belt,” Rist says. “So we can raise taxes without harming lower-income folks the worst.”

How will the city council address development and housing?

The battle over housing has made some council members the targets of ire from residents who have repeatedly aired their grievances at council meetings. Folks who live in the outskirts of Durham are concerned that large housing developments are causing irreparable damage to the environment by clear-cutting trees and allowing sediment to run off into some of the area’s main water sources. Urban residents worry about ongoing gentrification and rising housing costs across Durham neighborhoods.

No one seems satisfied with the current state of housing, and the city council has limited options to fix the problems.

“There’s literally nothing that we can do to mitigate the burden,” Johnson says. “Building is going to happen. What we can do is change what kind of building happens.”

City council took steps this fall toward bolstering the tools it has to solve these issues. The council passed a new Comprehensive Plan in October, which includes the Urban Growth Boundary, a marker that signals to residents and developers where the city plans to limit future projects in an effort to protect the environment and create more incentives for building density in the urban core.

But the Comprehensive Plan is not a legally binding document. It’s a framework through which the city says it intends to approach growth based on feedback from residents. To enforce its vision, the city will have to revise its Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), the rules for building in Durham.

“There was a lot of conversation on the campaign trail about development. The truth is, our UDO allows it,” Rist says. “So, if we really don’t want certain types of development, we need to change it altogether to not allow it.”

After months of meetings, op-eds, and task forces, the city council voted in November to adopt a number of changes to the UDO proposed in SCAD (Simplifying Codes for Affordable Development), a series of privately initiated text amendments. The reforms that council chose to approve, such as eliminating parking mandates, had wide consensus. Other proposals were sent back to the city planning department for further review as it prepares for a full examination and rewrite of the entire UDO, which is already under way.

Durham is not alone in facing these housing and development challenges. Cities across the United States are struggling to meet housing demand. Rist points to places like Minneapolis, which recently eliminated single-family zoning in an attempt to increase housing stock, as a model for Durham. He says we should learn from other communities whenever possible instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.

“Durham is special but not that different,” Rist says. “Every community is wrestling with these same issues.”

How will the city council address public safety?

In 2021, Durham voted overwhelmingly to elect former judge Elaine O’Neal as its next mayor largely on the belief that she was the right person to address the issues of crime and public safety. During her tenure, city staff introduced the HEART (Holistic Empathetic Assistance Response Teams) program, a new unit within community safety that supports residents dealing with nonviolent quality-of-life issues. The city council also included a Vision Zero coordinator in this year’s budget, aimed at reducing traffic violence.

Unfortunately, public safety remains a serious concern, particularly in Durham’s most vulnerable communities, where young people are repeatedly the victims of gun violence. The city council needs to continue exploring proactive alternatives to direct police enforcement that help them limit pathways to crime before they become the last resort. One method is to connect residents to education resources and meaningful employment opportunities.

Rist has spent much of his career educating residents on the importance of financial literacy and working with community organizations to support working-class families through programs like the Durham Living Wage Project. He says Durham has some of the best jobs in growing, dynamic sectors such as life sciences and that all residents should have access to Durham’s economy to discourage folks from turning to crime to meet basic needs.

“We need job training to make sure kids in Durham schools, no matter what high school you go to or zip code you grew up in, are connected with opportunities to actually get training beyond high school,” Rist says. “Whether it’s a two-year degree at a community college or a certificate, we need to help students develop skills beyond high school education to be able to compete for these good jobs that are here.”

Youth opportunities have been a consistent call to action from Williams. He is a vocal advocate for mentorship programs and recreational activities, especially for young Black men. Those opportunities took a hit during the COVID-19 lockdown when gathering in person was dangerous. Time spent at home on screens went up, and so did teen mental health challenges.

On the campaign trail, Baker says a recurring issue for residents is reinvesting in Durham’s parks and recreational activities, and providing outdoor and community spaces is another way to reduce crime.

“It’s a unifying topic that cities are particularly well positioned to be great at,” Baker says.

The city plans to make significant improvements to park facilities in 2024, highlighted by the redevelopment of Wheels Fun Park, which the city bought two years ago. Accessible, equitable recreation is emphasized throughout Durham’s new Comprehensive Plan as part of the vision for “complete” neighborhoods, a design approach that brings essential amenities like health care, schools, and parks within close proximity to residents regardless of where they live. Baker says he plans to make youth recreation a priority.

“We need to make sure that young people never have a moment where they don’t have any options for things to do,” Baker says. “They need real, legitimate choices for fun and stimulating activities that are close to where they live all year long. We can make sure that’s a goal.”

Will the new council members get along?

The last year for Durham City Council left more than a few scars. 

“The road to where we are tonight was not easy at all,” Williams said at the December 4 council meeting. “It was physically taxing, psychologically taxing, emotionally taxing, and yet, here we are.”

During a campaign speech back in November, Williams told the crowd that his car windows had been smashed multiple times, a problem he attributed to the escalating rhetoric and personalized verbal attacks that became customary during city council meetings and
candidate forums.

An alleged physical altercation back in March put council members DeDreana Freeman and Mark-Anthony Middleton at odds on more than just policy. When Williams made a motion to retain Middleton as his mayor pro tem earlier this month, Freeman was the sole dissenting vote.

Baker, one of two newcomers, believes introducing a handful of new members could be a fresh start and an opportunity to rebuild trust among his colleagues.

“I’m willing to sit down at the table with every single one of the council members,” Baker says. “My hope is that we can find common ground and work in good faith. I’m going to remain optimistic until proven otherwise.”

How will city council fill the vacant Ward 3 seat?

The six current city council members still have to fill the Ward 3 seat that Williams left vacant. Policy expertise will be important for candidates interested in the position, but temperament and the ability to work with a team, Johnson says, are characteristics she thinks the council will give serious attention to when voting.

“There’s not really any sort of ideological majority on the council anymore. It’s more about attitudes toward governance than politics,” Johnson says. “I feel like someone who’s got a collaborative approach and a strong work ethic who wants the government to function regardless of their ideology is going to be attractive to the majority of the council members.”

The rules set forth by the City of Durham’s charter gives the council 60 days from the time the seat was officially vacated, December 4, to vote on a replacement. If the council cannot come to an agreement within that time frame, the city will hold a special election on March 5, and Durham voters will decide who fills the final council seat.

Possible candidates include Shelia Ann Huggins, who ran for city council in 2017 and 2023. Huggins finished fifth in this year’s primary and suspended her campaign soon after, though she said at the time that she would be interested in applying for the Ward 3 seat should Williams become mayor.

Applications for the position are open until December 21. Candidates are verified by the city clerk’s office to ensure their eligibility before having to complete a questionnaire and in-person interview with the other six city council members. The council plans to vote on the position at the January 16 council meeting.

Follow Reporter Justin Laidlaw on Twitter or send an email to [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected]. 

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