On September 10, the Chapel Hill town council took a unanimous vote to forever change the character of the idyllic collegiate village.
“[This] is a travesty, a cop-out and a dereliction of duty,” one resident wrote to the council’s email after the vote. “The ‘Southern Part of Heaven’ is no more—and hasn’t been for a long time.”
“What are you using my tax dollars for?” wrote a resident. “I am mad, so mad.”
“It feels like I am paying more and getting less,” wrote another.
And that’s true—taxes have increased in Chapel Hill, but the town will no longer vacuum up the piles of leaves that residents rake to the curbside, instead requiring those residents to buy a special town bin ($75). That means the leaves can be collected by regular garbage trucks, instead of requiring an entirely separate service.
The dozens of emails to the council about cutting back on the leaf pickup service may feel a bit dramatic (“An unkempt yard invites thieves,” wrote a concerned resident. “There are studies on this.”) but the collection kerfuffle is representative of the squeeze that the local government is facing—how can the town maintain a high level of service in an era of inflation, stalled sales tax revenues, and decreased support from the state and federal government?
In this year’s election for four town council seats, all five candidates are emphasizing exactly the struggle outlined by Leafgate. The council needs to make some tough financial choices and figure out how to communicate that to the people who will be affected.
Because, as all five candidates will tell you, Chapel Hill needs more affordable housing. Chapel Hill needs to strengthen its infrastructure to be more resilient to worsening climate disasters. Chapel Hill needs fiscal responsibility because everything is getting more expensive and property tax hikes can only go so far.
And, of course, Chapel Hill needs strong leadership because the state government just passed a law to take some zoning authority over UNC Chapel Hill away from the town and because the state hasn’t even passed a budget yet and because the federal government, well, you know, and Chapel Hill needs council members who can help townspeople feel connected to their government because authoritarianism flourishes when people feel disconnected from their communities.
For incumbents Camille Berry and Paris Miller-Foushee, both of whom are seeking second terms, a lot of this election is about defending the work they’ve already done. Both voted in favor of the town’s budget, which narrowly squeaked by the council in a 5–4 vote. That budget, which prompted a look at the hot-topic leaf collection service, raised taxes for the fifth time in as many years and gave town staff a five percent pay increase that council members say was long overdue.
“People were not happy when they learned, even though we discussed it, that we were removing the service of the leaf collection,” Berry, who has a slew of experience ranging from little league umpire to resource development to consultant, tells INDY. “And they said, ‘How did you spring this on us?’ And that shows us that they’re not watching the [council] meetings. And I have to say I wasn’t watching the meetings before I ran [for council].”
Berry (who so frequently meets with constituents at Joe Van Gogh in Timberlyne that the matcha-toting manager endorsed her as “dutiful, hardworking, and bright”) pitches herself to voters as a listener. That’s something she thinks is especially relevant with the rapid rate of development in the growing town.
“I believe the number one fear is—when people say that we’re going to lose the village charm, what I believe they’re talking about is being recognized. Being seen and being recognized.”
It would be a mistake to engage in punditry based on fundraising totals, but Berry is leading the financial pack, with her reelection campaign raking in over $16,000.
That includes donations from county commissioners Phyllis Portie-Ascott and Marilyn Carter, as well as council colleague Melissa McCullough and former council member Michael Parker. She also received several donations from those affiliated with organizations like PORCH, Carolina Friends School, and The Casual Pint, the local bar that Berry says she frequents.
Miller-Foushee, who recently started as the assistant director of the Center for Muslim Life at Duke University, is running with a focus on continuing to build affordable housing in Chapel Hill. At local forums, she has delivered a stump speech pledging to “marshal the political will to end homelessness by treating it as a systemic failure that it is.”
Miller-Foushee, part of the Orange County Foushee political dynasty (see: social worker Vivian Foushee, former Carrboro mayor Braxton Foushee, current Carrboro mayor Barbara Foushee, U.S. Representative Valerie Foushee), frequently references figures like Frederick Douglass and the recently-deceased Assata Shakur in interviews. She says that, since starting her first term, she has become more aware of the frustrating slowness of government.
“It takes time, and that’s the frustrating part for our community,” she says. “But we’re planting seeds, and I am able to see the seeds planted by previous councils before me.”
On Leafgate and other debates, Miller-Foushee says that the backlash is a crucial part of the process.
“We can’t wring our hands over and keep saying we have tough decisions to make without providing what that tough decision is,” she tells INDY. “Nobody wants to increase taxes. I know we can’t do the level that we did again this coming year, but we have a very demanding community, we provide a lot of amenities to our community, and so as we continue to have these conversations, I hope our community will continue to pay attention, continue to provide their input on what those compromises will be.”
Miller-Foushee has received about $6,000 in donations, including from former council member Karen Stegman, McCullough, Barbara Foushee, Portie-Ascott, and N.C. state representative Allen Buansi.
All three challengers—Wes McMahon, Louie Rivers III, and Erik Valera—say they would not have voted for the budget as it stands. They each agreed with some of the arguments made by the current council members who voted against the budget, mainly that the town should have waited to give staff raises until a permanent manager was in place, that the increases could have been put off until a year without a county-wide tax revaluation, and that the increase could have been split over several years.
Beyond the budget vote, though, there aren’t a lot of stark differences between any of the candidates’ platforms.
“I think a lot of our values are very similar,” says Miller-Foushee, adding that the “priorities” are what voters will need to distinguish between.
And with only five candidates for four seats, the race feels very different from the town council’s 2023 election, which was about as hot as a municipal election in a town of 60,000 could get.
That election involved record-high fundraising, dueling slates of candidates for mayor and council, and accusations of doxxing and misinformation in the discussion over a smoothie shop that seemed to be caught between two visions of the town’s future. One slate, backed by Chapel Hill Alliance for a Livable Town (CHALT), sought to capture the type of discontent typified by the Leafgate backlash.
This is the first election year since 2015 that CHALT hasn’t backed any candidates. The election is also suffering from the relative quiet of Triangle Blog Blog, which drove the local conversation last cycle by loudly opposing CHALT and memeifying municipal issues.
This year’s candidates have declined to deploy any incendiary rhetoric, and it seems that all five of them have instead learned the same vocabulary of buzzwords that focuses on the “smart and sustainable growth” of the town.
The three challengers all have experience on the planning commission, a council-appointed body that is often a proving ground for those with electoral ambitions. While they, like the incumbents, are focused on the same “sustainable growth” agenda, they have each carved out a more specific niche that relates to ongoing town issues.
Erik Valera, who ran for council two years ago, is back with a class-conscious focus on public health, arts, and immigration policy.
“I’ve dedicated my life to public service,” Valera tells INDY. A consultant for nonprofits with an extensive record of community service, he says that he’s especially interested in helping to give a voice to workers, like those who commute into Chapel Hill to work at the university, the hospital, or in other service roles.
“Making sure that they have homes—the people who will serve us coffee, the folks who have to drive in here every day, they’re not necessarily voters right now, but they contribute to our economy. They contribute to our way of life. They serve us, and that’s really who I’m doing it for.”
Compared to the current council, he says he may be more likely to approve rezonings for large residential projects. In 2023, for instance, the council voted down a 12-story residential tower in part due to the concerns of the sisters of Phi Mu sorority, whose next door house would be overshadowed by the new building. Valera questions whether residents in the historically Black Northside neighborhood have been afforded those same considerations
Like all the candidates, Valera is worried about the threat that the federal government poses to immigrants right now.
“If [immigrants] can’t trust any other government, they need to be able to trust their local government and their local police. And the state government is making that much harder to do,” he says, suggesting that the town could assist with a toolkit to help at-risk people plan for the worst case-scenario.
Valera’s campaign raised about $3,000 including contributions from Buansi and Nidhi Sachdeva, the director of strategic health and opioid initiatives at the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners.
Rivers is pitching himself as the best person to help the town deal with the ongoing climate crisis. That’s a particularly timely pitch, given the estimated $110 million in damages across the town from Tropical Storm Chantal this summer (much of that damage was to commercial and residential properties, or covered by insurance, so the town is not responsible for that full amount).
“I see almost everything through the lens of climate,” Rivers—repping a pair of sneakers decorated with Tokyo’s subway map—tells INDY. “And it’s not like I have all the answers, but I do have some experience.”
That experience includes work as a professor in the department of forestry and environmental resources at N.C. State University and as a social science advisor for the EPA.
In speaking against new developments, residents at town hall meetings will often cite concerns about stormwater management—namely that any new development will worsen the potential for flooding. Rivers says that’s not necessarily accurate.
“We’re having weather events that we haven’t had before,” he says. “Even if we didn’t have these buildings, there’s a chance our infrastructure would not be able to address the storms that we’re having and how quickly they’re happening.” He says that he wants to try to work out ways for people to engage with the town more frequently, and not just when they’re upset about a new development in their neighborhood. “People are kind of burnt out,” Rivers says. “But I think we really do need to have seriously engaged community in these discussions.”
Rivers has raised an impressive $13,000 from notables including Stegman, McCullough, county commissioner Sally Greene, and former mayor Mark Kleinschmidt.
Wes McMahon, an adjunct English instructor at Durham Technical Community College and a former resource coordinator for a local refugee resettlement office, is focused on fiscal stability and community engagement. He also has a decade of experience on town boards and commissions, including the parks and planning commissions.
“People are looking for that energy that says ‘Let’s get together and let’s be a community.’ And those are the people I want in leadership. And I looked in the mirror, and I think I’m one of those guys,” he tells INDY.
He adds that community engagement isn’t just something you can check off a list when there’s a development proposed for a neighborhood.
“I am a connector. And there’s a democracy component to this, authoritarianism wants us to stay home and not connect with our neighbors. There’s a mental health thing with this, particularly coming out of COVID, where people get more isolated. There’s a physical health component to this,” he says.
Rivers and McMahon each separately share an anecdote from July, when they first met for coffee to talk about the election, and McMahon ended up inviting Rivers along to a Triangle Mutual Aid effort to help victims of Chantal clean out their homes.
“We’re really realizing that, whether it’s housing, homelessness, managing climate change, resilience from that, it’s going to take the whole community,” says McMahon. “These are community issues.”
McMahon has raised nearly $10,000 including contributions from council member Amy Ryan, Kleinschmidt, and Orange County district attorney Jeff Nieman.
With only four seats up for grabs, Chapel Hill voters will have to decide which of the five candidates to leave off their ballot. Voters will also rubber stamp candidates in the uncontested mayoral and Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools board of education elections.
But turnout does not seem likely to be high this year.
“I think people are exhausted, I think they’re overwhelmed,” Chapel Hill mayor Jess Anderson, who is set to win a second term, said in response to a question about community engagement at a modestly attended forum in September. “So there are some things that we’re doing about that … But at the end of the day, I honestly can’t really blame people for not being engaged in local government. I think people find it inaccessible, and I think they’re just worried about other stuff. And I get it.”
Early voting in Orange County runs from October 16 through November 1, and Election Day is November 4. For more information on the candidates, check out INDY’s questionnaire collection.
Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].