Last month, reporter Chloe Courtney Bohl covered a contentious Cary Town Council meeting in which the council ultimately voted against a proposal that would maintain Amberwood at Lochmere as an affordable housing community. The meeting was fiery, Courtney Bohl wrote, with some residents in attendance living up to “the worst stereotypes of Cary as a wealthy, insular community suspicious of outsiders who are less well off than they are.” Ultimately, town council members seemed to feel that the proposal from the Raleigh Housing Authority to purchase Amberwood at Lochmere, and keep the 340 housing units affordable, felt too rushed. Readers had thoughts.

From reader Mark Shelburne: 

We need to appreciate the true cause of the Cary Town Council’s failure: allowing angry homeowners to effectively veto housing. The solution is not education or persuasion, but using a fundamentally different system. Achieving it will require broad-scale state preemption of local control over residential land use.

From Cary residents Brian and Helen Cain, via email:

Some of [the] comments quoted in the … article disparaging low/middle income homeowners are extremely offensive and should in no way be viewed as representative of all Lochmere and Lochmere Village homeowners.

My wife and I are not in favor of RHA acquiring Amberwood, primarily due to our belief that Cary alone should hold sole authority over properties within the Cary town boundary.

From Cary resident Martha Glass, via email:

… Cary Town Council’s 5 – 2 vote to deny Raleigh’s attempt to purchase the Amberwood apartment complex for use by the Cary-area workforce slaps us in the face—we residents who want to diversify our town into an “All Are Welcome” neighborhood. What an awful mistake for those who wouldn’t listen to their consciences. 

From Joan Lacey, a Lochmere resident, via email:

I believe that if Cary town council and the residents of Cary had more time to investigate the RHA proposal instead of having a two week window to decide something that would [affect] our town for 30 years or more then maybe it would have passed. I could not help but feel I was at a car dealership and HAD to make a decision or I would lose the deal. That is no way to go into an agreement of this type. IT MUST BE VETTED FROM ALL SIDES. I am all for affordable housing and I am sure there is a viable solution with a win win. In this situation where RHA did not have the appropriate answers to the town council’s questions tells me they are not prepared for this merger either. Especially since it would be the FIRST time RHA goes out of the city limits of Raleigh. 

And in June, freelancer Jasmine Gallup reported that traditional public schools in Wake County had lost more than $500 million in funding in the past 15 years as families move to charter schools. The executive director of the N.C. Association for Public Charter Schools wrote a response to the piece.

From reader Rhonda Dillingham, via email: 

In 1996, North Carolina made a bold decision that strengthened public education: it authorized public charter schools to foster innovation, expand opportunity, and give families more options.

Thirty years later, the question is no longer whether charter schools belong in North Carolina’s public education system. Families answered that long ago. The question now is how we continue expanding opportunity for every student.

Recently, the North Carolina Association for Public Charter Schools announced the first recipients of our NC GROW grant. Two schools will receive funding to expand career and technical education, STEM and entrepreneurship while increasing access for educationally disadvantaged students. These investments build a talent pipeline for North Carolina’s economic success and help families find public schools that meet their children’s needs.

The announcement followed INDY Week’s examination of charter school growth in Wake County, which raised important questions about funding, transportation and accountability. Those conversations are worth having, but they should begin with one fundamental truth: more than 160,000 North Carolina students attend a public charter school.

When a student enrolls in a charter school, funding follows that student because the student, not the system, is the purpose of public education. Charter school families are not abandoning public education; they are simply choosing another public school option.

Families choose charter schools for many reasons: STEM, arts integration, and preparation for careers in advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship. These opportunities complement, not compete with, the excellent work happening in traditional public schools.

Like district schools, charter schools vary. Transparency requires that every public school be held accountable for academic performance, financial stewardship and responsible governance. For charters, that accountability exists. They are authorized by the North Carolina Charter Schools Review Board and monitored by the Office of Charter Schools. Schools that fail to meet expectations risk corrective action, nonrenewal or closure. Different oversight does not mean absent oversight.

Transportation is another legitimate challenge. If families cannot reliably get children to school, choice exists only on paper. That is why removing transportation barriers is one of our highest legislative priorities. No child’s education should depend on a ZIP code.

The same commitment is built into NC GROW, which helps schools strengthen governance, improve financial oversight, expand community engagement and increase access for underserved students. Access matters as much as innovation.

The financial pressures facing Wake County Public Schools are real; every citizen should want strong district schools. This should never be framed as a choice between one public school model and another. North Carolina needs excellent public schools as well as a continued commitment to innovation.

Thirty years ago, lawmakers recognized that one public school model could not meet every child’s needs. Families continue to prove why that decision was right. Our responsibility now is not to limit opportunity, but to expand it by ensuring every public school has the tools, accountability and support to help every child thrive.