Full name: Samaria McKenzie
Party affiliation: Unaffiliated
Campaign website: https://samariamckenzieforbullcity.org/
1) In 300 words or less, please give our readers your elevator pitch: Why are you running? Why should voters entrust you with this position? What prior experience will make you an effective member of the Durham City Council?
I am running to represent Ward 1 on the Durham City Council, to advocate for community over corporations, ensure Durham’s systems and representatives truly reflect and serve its people, and bring over a decade of experience managing multi-million-dollar budgets and directing successful high-impact initiatives.
My experience has placed me directly in charge of managing major budgets that impact employment and sustainability for thousands of employees and millions of consumers. That matters because City Council is not just about ideas; it’s about execution, budgeting, and accountability for outcomes. I’ve mastered making more and spending less on a grand scale without sacrificing quality: a skill set that I do not believe any other candidate or sitting City Council member has.
Durham deserves leadership that is solutions-driven and committed to real accountability. Over 90% of residents did not vote in our last municipal election. That disconnect highlights how deeply people feel left out of the decisions that shape our neighborhoods. As a mother, director, and non-profit community advocate, I aim to change that.
I also understand the framework that governs our Council: from Durham’s Unified Development Ordinance and Comprehensive Plan, to budget ordinances, zoning cases, and land use hearings. I know the role Council plays in shaping housing policy, public safety, and infrastructure, giving me the knowledge to lead effectively from day one.
I am running to ensure that when decisions are made about housing, public safety, and economic development, Durham residents’ voices are at the center. I strive to be a beacon of integrity in government, and I will bring honesty, financial expertise, and independence to the City Council table
2) What would your priorities be as a member of the city council? Please identify three of the most pressing issues Durham currently faces and how you believe the city should address them.
My priorities on City Council are progress through sustainability — by reducing corporate influence, strengthening public safety through health-based solutions, restoring Durham land, and providing equity for residents.
First, I will minimize corporate government subsidies and rezoning that fuel the rise of unaffordable condos and corporate development, which displace many and lock Bull City residents out of building equity through homeownership. Durham must put buying power back into the hands of its people. Alongside this, I will fight to protect and strengthen tenant rights. Too many slumlords profit off low-income families while neglecting repairs and safe living conditions, and too many absentee investors allow houses to sit abandoned and uninhabited. Those properties should be restored to benefit our communities, not sit empty for profit.
Second, I will address the intersection of public safety and public health by tackling crime-bred addiction in unhoused communities. Predatory drug dealers target and exploit vulnerable neighbors, creating cycles of harm that spill into the broader community. This cannot be solved by policing alone. Durham must invest in prevention, treatment access, the HEART program, and other health-based solutions that prioritize stability and safety for all.
Third, I will ensure equity in city investment by repairing sidewalks, roads, and public parks in neighborhoods neglected for decades, while also expanding the benefits of our transit system and making rides safer for the young people and working residents who depend on it daily.
Together, these priorities represent a plan that puts Durham residents first. We already have the systems in place to address these issues. What we need is experienced leadership to allocate resources appropriately. My background in macro-budget allocation gives me the expertise to target and fund solutions effectively, and I will also center Durham’s most vulnerable: our seniors, youth, and neighbors with disabilities. If those residents remain at risk of being unhoused, then the city is not performing at its best. Not anywhere close.
3) What’s the best or most important thing the Durham City Council has done in the past year? Additionally, name a decision you believe the city should have handled differently. Please explain your answers.
The most impactful move has been the expansion of the HEART program. In the FY 2025–26 budget, the City Council funded 17 new full‑time positions, including crisis responders, clinicians, outreach workers, and support staff, to boost unarmed, health-based crisis response. This expansion allows HEART to cover far more mental health and nonviolent calls, pushing toward 24/7 availability rather than leaving many residents without meaningful support.
This year, the Council has approved more than 10 rezonings, including three on August 18th alone. Many of these approvals transformed land zoned for traditional, lower-density residential use (like Residential Urban-5 or Office & Institutional) into high-density Planned Development Residential (PDR) or even Industrial Light (IL) categories, revoking any chance residents may have had to gain equity through homeownership. These often unanimous rezoning approvals are creating forever renters out of Bull City residents, forcing us to foot the bill while funneling our earnings straight to the already wealthy. And these developments don’t just affect housing; they also drive up property taxes, costs that are passed down to Durham homeowners, renters, and small business owners who risk being priced out of their storefronts.
4) President Trump is working to ramp up deportations and curtail visas. At the same time, the state legislature has passed laws requiring cooperation with ICE. What do you think Durham officials can or should do to ensure safe, welcoming communities for immigrants in light of these policies?
Durham must remain a safe and welcoming community for immigrants, even in the face of aggressive federal deportations. We cannot allow ICE raids, mass deportations, or anti-immigrant laws to tear apart our communities or make our neighbors live in fear. That means Durham officials should limit cooperation with ICE to only what state law explicitly requires, refuse all voluntary collaboration, and strengthen protections and resources for our immigrant communities.
To do this, we need to expand language access, legal support, and outreach programs so immigrant families can safely navigate housing, healthcare, school, and public resources. As someone with a background in macro-budget allocation and policy management, I know the city already has the tools and systems to prioritize immigrant access if we allocate resources appropriately.
Just as important, as a visible member of the community and an experienced marketer, I can bring awareness to these programs so that immigrant residents actually know what resources exist for them.
5) Federal funding cuts this year have hit the Triangle particularly hard, from canceled grants to layoffs, and local government officials are having to make difficult decisions about what to fund and how. What are your ideas for how the city can prioritize competing funding needs, close funding gaps, and balance the financial burden on residents?
The 40% reduction to NIH’s cost reimbursements is projected to cost North Carolina $668 million, with Duke University alone losing over $220 million. That has already triggered layoffs, hiring freezes, and canceled grants, extending beyond universities into local schools and healthcare providers.
This is why my experience makes me especially qualified for City Council. When goals are not met and your budget is drained, you must get creative. When you’re overspending, you have to get innovative based only on provable data. That is how you close funding gaps, prioritize competing needs, and ensure every dollar delivers measurable impact for residents. Durham doesn’t need empty promises and platitudes; it needs a fixer. Other candidates can talk about caring for people, but none of them have managed a $50 million budget spent in a single day — I have. That experience matters when tough budget choices have to be made.
I get hired as a fixer; it’s what I do best. Enterprises bring me in when they are bottoming out, spending too much money, and not meeting projected outcomes. At one national company, I was onboarded as Digital Media Manager after they had blown through their off-season budget and entered peak season already behind on leads and revenue. They were stuck in a cycle of overspending and underperforming.
After auditing their entire process and creating reports dating back years, I formulated a spreadsheet that automatically allocated budget based only on measurable outcomes: net revenue, net return on ad spend, booked orders, conversions, etc. That system revealed the company was wasting millions a month on underperforming initiatives, while newer campaigns that were delivering results were starved of funding. Once I redirected resources, performance turned around within the season.
This is the expertise I will bring to the City Council. Bull City deserves nothing less.
6) As climate change leads to more intense rainfall, communities are at greater risk of inland flooding, such as the historic floods in parts of the Triangle caused by Tropical Storm Chantal in July. How would you like Durham to address climate resilience, particularly flooding?
The city’s immediate response, emergency alerts, cleanup operations, and the Severe Weather Updates resource page played an important role in responding to July’s Tropical Storm Chantal, which dumped several inches of rain across central North Carolina and flooded parts of Durham. This highlighted how vulnerable we remain in the face of increasing environmental degradation.
We need to reinforce green infrastructure by expanding rain gardens, bioswales, permeable pavement, and tree canopies, especially around neighborhoods prone to flooding.
The city should also upgrade planning and building standards. That means requiring flood-resistant construction, mandating green infrastructure in new developments, and auditing critical drainage corridors, especially in neighborhoods most at risk.
Durham should improve rapid alerts and neighborhood support networks. Let’s build on the city’s Severe Weather Updates platform by creating localized flood alert zones and training neighborhood teams in emergency response, sandbagging, safe transport, and evacuation.
Finally, we must actively pursue state and federal recovery funds. Relief programs made available after the storm should be leveraged for recovery, retrofitting public facilities, reclaiming natural floodplains, and strengthening long-term resilience. This also means we need to bring more awareness to our existing systems, something I am prepared to do.
7) Describe what sustainable growth and development mean to you. Additionally, what is another municipality you believe has made smart decisions related to growth and development that could be similarly implemented in Durham?
This is why my campaign messaging is ‘Progress through Sustainability. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: true progress is impossible without sustainability. This is why minimizing corporate government subsidies and rezoning is one of my top priorities for Bull City. We are only as sustainable as the earth on which we reside.
Durham has these grand visions of being one of the greatest cities in the country, and we can be by leading the way, proving what real progress looks like.
Real progress is sustainability. Real progress is equity. Real progress requires leadership with integrity, a leader who is willing to lead the charge so that other cities look to Durham. I am that leader.
Instead of urban concrete jungles to suffice growing populations, we should be supporting and investing in nonprofits like mine, Eco Land Community Institute, that seeks to provide agricultural training, knowledge, and living space and other organizations like Eco-Institute at Pickards Mountain and other efforts here in Durham.
There are no municipalities I’ve seen doing it like that. I haven’t seen any major cities prioritizing people and land over profit. Durham can be the first. So let’s remember who the heck we are, Bull City. This was Black Wall Street for a reason. They weren’t scared to do things differently. So let’s do it differently. For radical change, we must pick radically different candidates.
I intend to hand our youth a baton, not a trash bag.
8) Downtown Durham continues to see growth, with large commercial developments and hundreds of new housing units, yet businesses say they’re still suffering. How would you reinvigorate this major business district?
The reason why small business owners are hurting is that we are allowing major corporate developers to come in and drive up property values and property taxes, making it impossible for them to compete with incoming businesses. These are businesses that want to prey on Durham because our land is currently cheaper than where they’re coming from.
The rezonings that the City Council keeps approving unanimously have proven time and time again that they are hurting us. It’s what they call ‘trickle-down housing’. And the same way trickle-down economics does not work, neither does trickle-down housing, because it isn’t just residential tenants who get affected by this.
And guess what happens when small business owners can no longer afford to rent downtown? That’s right. Just like all those apartment units — the more than 10,000 vacant residential units in Durham County — they will sit there empty until another big corporation comes along to buy them up. That’s something the majority of Durham residents would never be able to afford to do in their lifetime.
We can sit here and act as though we can’t help the growth, but we can. And this is another essential part of my campaign messaging: we need to slow down development until wages catch up. Wages are not meeting the cost of living, and Durham’s current City Council is not doing anything to combat the wage and wealth gap. We need to audit our processes, stop subsidizing millionaires and billionaires, and invest in our small business owners instead.
That’s how we reinvigorate downtown: by putting Durham’s people and small businesses first, not developers.
9) The City of Durham is realigning its homelessness services. What can or should the city be doing to support this growing population, especially in light of recent changes to state law governing encampments and financial pressures on service providers?
So far, I’m interested in, but haven’t given full support to, Durham’s new chapter in addressing homelessness through the Built for Zero initiative. While this effort aims to make housing rare, brief, and one-time by teaming up with service providers, residents, and community leaders, we need to ensure that this initiative comes with enforcement and accountability.
At the same time, state legislators are advancing damaging laws like House Bill 437, which threatens felony charges if drug activity occurs within 100 feet of homelessness service providers. This is incredibly unfortunate because, as we know, a good majority of the unhoused population in downtown Durham is struggling with addiction. We need to humanize homelessness, not criminalize it. It’s important that the City Council team up with other leaders and constituents to push back against legislation like HB 437.
Durham also needs to approve and fund permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing, putting needs first and preventing reliance on encampment sites. And we must reject mandates like HB 781, which would push the cost of encampment sites onto the City of Durham. If North Carolina wants encampments, the state must foot the bill, not our residents.
This is where I will use my multi-million dollar budgeting experience to make sure we have the appropriate budget allocated to the Built for Zero initiative, with true accountability and reporting built in. I create reports all the time in my work. It’s an essential part of what I do, and I know how to let data drive the action.
10) According to the Triangle Community Foundation, there’s a mismatch between the price point of housing units available in Durham and what Durham renters can afford, amounting to a nearly 25,000-unit deficit for low-income renters. What can the city do to ensure Durham housing is affordable for current and future residents?
With over 10,000 vacant units and a 25,000-unit deficit for low-income renters, Durham’s housing crisis is not about availability; it’s about affordability. Yet, City Council keeps approving rezoning for high-end condos and apartments. This is called ‘trickle-down housing’, and just like ‘trickle-down economics’, it doesn’t work. Luxury developments don’t magically create affordability. They drive up property values and taxes while working families eat the cost and are priced out of their own homes.
To ensure housing is truly affordable, the city must stop subsidizing developers and slow down new corporate-driven projects. Instead, we should be contributing funding to homeownership grants and programs that help Durham residents become homeowners. That’s how families gain equity, build generational wealth, and have something to pass on to their children. Right now, too many of our residents have nothing to give the next generation.
Let’s talk about homeowners. Rising property values might look like a good thing at first glance, but the reality is that increased property taxes are forcing even current homeowners out. People can’t even afford to keep the houses they’re already paying mortgages on. I’ve spoken to hundreds of Durham homeowners this month alone who are ready to sell because they cannot keep up with the skyrocketing taxes.
The Durham County Board of Commissioners, including Chair Nida Allam, chose in 2022 to switch from every 8 years to every 4 years reappraisals. They sold it as “equitable and predictable,” but the truth is obvious: property values are not going down every four years; they’re going up. Which means taxes go up and homeowners pay more every 4 years now instead of 8.
This is why we need real integrity, accountability, and representation in City Council and in our local government in general. I am prepared to be that uncompromising voice of integrity and representation for Ward 1.
11) For some residents, gun violence remains a persistent issue even though shootings and other violent crimes are currently down from last year. How would you rate the progress the city has made and what are your ideas for improving public safety?
I have personally experienced gun violence in Durham. I moved to my current house in Hayti Village because I saw the beauty underneath the dust of poverty left behind by the Urban Renewal Projects, and the neighborhood was at risk of being gentrified by the wrong people. There were multiple shootouts every week, right out front. One of my next-door neighbors was dealing drugs.
Trust me, I know this issue inside and out. I’ve had to block my daughter from opening the door because a suspicious car came by, waving a gun around. I’ve had to quickly scurry from my car to the inside of my home to avoid being shot in a turf war. It’s unacceptable and the City of Durham, while trying, needs to amp up the efforts.
I demanded action from the city and utilized its embedded services and systems to put in disrepair requests that forced the out-of-town landlord to come back and address the problems at that house. Now the children are outside again. The elderly sit on their porches because they’re no longer afraid of being shot. That is a direct result of my action to insight.
Shootings in Durham are down around 11.6%, and the number of people shot has dropped around 22.5% in just the first quarter of 2025. That is tremendous progress, and we need to keep it up in every neighborhood, not just the ones that are gentrified.
City Council invested in ShotSpotter, but that technology doesn’t matter when you don’t have enough cops to show up. Durham is losing officers to neighboring counties because our wages aren’t competitive. That’s on the city, not the cops. City Council doesn’t set pay, but we can audit the police budget and demand that if funds aren’t being used to hire and retain, we pull it.
I know how to deliver results. I did it in my neighborhood and I’ll bring that same ‘action to insight’ to City Council.
12) If there are other issues you want to discuss, please do so here.
I ask that every Durham resident of voting age please take themselves out of the nearly 95% of us not voting in municipal elections. I know we’ve had representatives who promised one thing while campaigning and then did the opposite once given power.
I will never turn my back on my ward or on Bull City. I will be a pillar for us in a storm of money-centered and power-hungry politicians and candidates.
That is why you can schedule a ‘Drinks and Dialogue’ meeting with me anywhere in Durham or virtually for accessibility; because City Council doesn’t just start and stop with campaigns and elections. I always want to know what matters most to you because I cannot represent you without it.
So please reach out. I’m available, I’m listening, and I can’t wait to meet you, neighbor.
Comment on this story at [email protected].