Full name: Diana Medoff
Party affiliation: Democrat
Campaign website: https://www.dianafordurham.com/
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?
As a camp counselor, then teacher, now mom of three, I know a little something about bringing people together. Durham doesn’t need idealists who make perfect the enemy of good. We need people who can find real solutions for real, everyday people.
I’m running to be a relentless problem-solver. I’m running for real results. I’m running because Durham is too expensive. I’m running because we have too many people who are struggling with the basics, and it doesn’t have to be this way. I’m running because I believe Durham deserves more.
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.
More housing, more jobs, more safety. Housing is scarce and prices have gone up accordingly. Jobs are scarce and wages have stagnated accordingly. Worst of all, youth crime has increased. This is what I’m fighting to change.
Without a doubt, the biggest challenge facing Durham is housing. There are a variety of challenges stemming from that: crimes of poverty, a large unhoused population that stifles entrepreneurs, and youth who are struggling to succeed in school due to unstable housing. Housing would be my top priority on City Council. Not every development is a good one, but I am committed to working with stakeholders to initiate developments we can all say “yes” to – developments that invest in Durham, are sustainably built, and prioritize housing for folks with low and middle incomes.
I believe a large part of the role of City Council is to be an ambassador. As such, I would be one of Durham’s biggest cheerleaders, working my relationships in the business world to bring jobs here to Durham, support businesses already here, and prioritize economic mobility for Durham residents.
To increase our safety here in Durham, I will fight for investments in youth programming and opportunities to prevent violent crime before it happens. I also want to see our first responders fully staffed by prioritizing competitive wages to allow them to live where they work.
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.
One Council decision I fully supported was the approval of the $115 million Connect Durham bond. This investment prioritizes improvements in street paving, sidewalk repairs, safer school zones, better trail crossings, and expanded bike routes. It reflects the kind of forward looking leadership our city needs—investing in infrastructure that enhances connectivity, safety, and accessibility for everyone.
A decision that I would have handled differently is that of the police headquarters. While I understand the desire to preserve the architectural history of this building, prioritizing this has made redevelopment so expensive that we have not been able to develop this land. We do not have more housing, and a chance to meet a critical community need has slipped away repeatedly. I think we need to be honest about what our options are, and, as a community, decide whether historic preservation or affordability is our top priority for this project and move forward accordingly. Perfection has often become the enemy of good, and I am disheartened to watch a historic building deteriorate and not serve the community.
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 be a city where every resident, regardless of immigration status, should feel like they fully belong and be able to live without fear. I will work to protect immigrant communities by ensuring that our local policies and practices do not aid or empower ICE to separate families or intimidate our neighbors. That means maintaining Durham’s stance as a welcoming city and ensuring our police department does not collaborate with federal immigration enforcement.
I recognize that immigrants, especially mixed status families and undocumented workers, may feel even less safe accessing city resources. That is why I am deeply committed to making those resources as accessible and welcoming as possible to everyone in Durham, regardless of their status. I will also push for stronger language access, legal support, and city services so immigrant residents can participate fully in civic life, whether that’s being able to understand a city notice, attend a public meeting, or get help during an emergency. We must prioritize education so that community members know their rights and understand how to safely access housing, healthcare, education, and employment support.
Beyond policies, we need to measure success by looking at real equity outcomes. This means tracking metrics like access to affordable housing, healthcare, quality education, and meaningful employment opportunities for all Durham residents. It also means monitoring disparities in public safety and community engagement to ensure no group is left behind or marginalized. When we fight for justice in housing, work, and healthcare, we are also protecting our immigrant neighbors.
Most importantly, I believe in governing with, not just for, immigrant communities. Building a coalition means uplifting grassroots immigrant-led organizations in Durham to ensure their priorities guide our policies. Protecting vulnerable residents is not only about resisting harmful state and federal policies, but also building a city where all people are treated with dignity and respect. By embedding equity into every aspect of our governance, we can build a Durham that is vibrant, resilient, and inclusive. A city where all residents feel safe, valued, and empowered to thrive.
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?
Federal funding cuts this year have hit Durham and the Triangle especially hard, and I believe our city has to respond with creativity, equity, and long-term thinking. We must prioritize the essentials: housing, public transit, worker protections, and climate resilience; because those are the foundations of community well-being. When every dollar counts, I believe our spending must focus on projects that not only meet immediate needs but also reduce long-term costs, such as investing in renewable energy for city buildings, tree planting that lowers cooling costs, and energy efficiency upgrades in affordable housing. These are smart local investments that both save taxpayer money and protect residents from future crises.
I would work to close funding gaps by creating local tools like an Equitable Green Infrastructure bond and broadening our tax base through job growth. Durham has strong nonprofits, universities, and neighborhood organizations already leading in climate resilience, housing, and community development. By offering matching funds or in-kind support, the city can stretch limited dollars further and ensure continuity of critical work, even when state and federal funding is cut.
If the city must make hard trade-offs, residents deserve a clear, public process for understanding what is being prioritized and why. When resources are limited, they must be directed first to the neighborhoods most impacted by pollution, flooding, and displacement. By investing wisely and centering equity in every funding decision, we can protect our residents while building a more sustainable and affordable city for the future.
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?
Protecting residents in the wake of climate disasters starts with making sure the most vulnerable—seniors, children, outdoor workers, and those without stable housing—have access to immediate relief. That means expanding cooling centers in libraries, recreation facilities, and schools, ensuring they are open after hours and accessible by transit. It also means partnering with neighborhood groups to check in on residents during dangerous heat waves or storms.
Resilience is about long-term planning as much as emergency response. I will support tree canopy restoration, green infrastructure, and urban greening projects to lower temperatures in heat-impacted neighborhoods, while also investing in stormwater system upgrades to reduce flooding. We should prioritize these projects in historically marginalized neighborhoods that are already hit hardest by extreme weather.
Durham can also build resilience by strengthening housing. Weatherization, energy efficiency upgrades, and backup power for affordable housing complexes will help residents stay safe during heat waves, cold snaps, or power outages. And by tying these efforts to workforce development, we can create green jobs while protecting our communities.
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?
Sustainable growth is about planning for and welcoming new residents while simultaneously ensuring that growth lifts up existing long-time residents. A city is always growing or shrinking, it can never stay exactly the same. While growth can bring problems of affordability, displacement, and traffic to name a few, it is a lot better than the alternative. Just ask Detroit, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis.
No one development is going to provide Durham with a perfect balance of affordability, walkability, green space, access to jobs, and beautiful aesthetics. Instead, we need to look at our community as a whole system, ensuring that our developments in the aggregate do significantly more benefit than harm. First, supply matters. This is basic economics. If demand outstrips supply, which it has in Durham for the past decade, prices go up. Since 2016, housing prices have gone up by more than 6% in 7 of these past 9 years. The only ways for this situation to change are for Durham to become a less desirable place to live, which no one should want, or to build more housing.
It is easy, but intellectually lazy and wrong, to cast developers as the villain. Developers’ are driven by the same spectrum of motives as any business. All want to turn a profit. All want to be sustainable and stay in business. Some have more grounding in a social mission. As such, we can create systems that allow developers to meet their needs while prioritizing Durham’s needs. For example, providing flexibility on parking requirements has allowed Durham to hold developers’ accountable for meeting environmental regulations. In essence, if affordability is the priority, we need to figure out what sacrifices we are willing to make (I often recommend increased density) in order to allow developers to achieve that while still making money. Revisiting our zoning regulations is not about letting big business run amok. It’s about looking at what regulations are actually helping people, and which ones are creating unnecessary obstacles. Making our planning department more efficient allows good projects to move more quickly, thereby reducing the cost to build and allowing those cost savings to benefit home owners and renters alike.
Municipalities that have addressed growth sustainably within North Carolina’s legal backdrop are limited, especially since few are facing growth at the same speed that Durham is currently. Fayetteville, Greensboro, and Winston-Salem have had some success, and the path is clear: ensure sufficient housing supply in order to maintain affordability. The specific zoning regulation changes necessary to make that happen in Durham’s unique position are less clear, but it’s hard to imagine a way to do this without encouraging more density.
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?
Downtown Durham is one of our city’s greatest assets, and while some businesses have thrived there, we need to be honest about the challenges businesses are facing. Specifically, parking presents a unique challenge, not just for patrons of downtown businesses, but especially for workers. While a living wage might be $25/hour, if you’re paying $2/hour in parking, it eats into wages in a significant way. I would like to look at ways to offset this burden, whether it’s through alternative parking permits, a park and ride option, or similar.
Likewise, I also recognize that our current housing crisis has resulted in an increase in the unhoused population in our downtown. Long term, we obviously want to address the need for housing because even one person not having a place to stay is a problem. In the meantime, we also need to ensure everyone has dignity, access to shelter and cooling/heating, and wraparound services to get them the help they need. A day center could provide these services and help people build stability while maintaining their dignity.
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?
While I understand the harm created by recent state law changes regarding encampments, I also recognize that encampments are not a real solution to our housing crisis and the resulting unhoused population. As such, I want to see Durham prioritize deeply affordable housing, investing in shelters and existing services for the unhoused population, and prioritize eviction diversion programs that keep people in their homes.
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?
I support a multi-layered approach to Durham’s housing crisis in order to address both immediate needs and long term solutions.
I fully support continuing and expanding the Forever Home affordable housing initiative. This investment has already helped hundreds of individuals and families access permanent housing, and it remains one of Durham’s most powerful tools for supporting low income renters and preventing displacement. Additionally, I support expanding down payment assistance for first time, low income buyers, with a focus on essential service workers like teachers, nurses, and first responders. Homeownership offers stability, builds generational wealth, and reduces vulnerability to rising rents.
We also need to modernize our zoning regulations to reduce barriers to building diverse housing types. By allowing more density within the Urban Growth Boundary, including small homes, duplexes, and accessory dwelling units, we can increase housing supply and affordability. This directly reduces the pressure that allows landlords to raise rents unfairly and helps prevent poor living conditions driven by a lack of options.
We didn’t get here overnight, and we won’t get out of this crisis overnight, but coupling these approaches with meaningful tenant protections and eviction-diversion programs will allow us to address our housing crisis in both a short-term and long-term way.
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?
While I understand the objective metrics that show public safety has improved in Durham, I also know that it doesn’t matter to the folks whose families have been impacted by any violent crime. The fact that youth crime is up significantly is also an indicator that we still have much work to do.
As such, I want to see investments in prevention and not reaction. I want to see deep investments in the programs we know work to prevent youth crime – programs like Philadelphia’s late night recreation centers – proven ways to engage youth in productive ways and prevent justice involvement. Expanding accessible youth programming to include various activities such as sports, cooking, video gaming opportunities, and job-readiness training would directly address public safety concerns by providing an alternative to unsupervised time for young people. If kids and young adults in Durham have more opportunities for community and belonging, they will stay engaged and safe.
I am proud of Durham for launching two new early colleges through NCCU and Duke.. These programs offer exciting pathways for economic mobility, especially for students who may not otherwise see higher education as an option. But access only matters if young people know these opportunities exist and are able to access them. We must do a better job of connecting students and families with information about programs that can change the trajectory of their lives.
Disrupting cycles of poverty and creating a stronger future for Durham demands that we invest in the full potential of our youth, and that means reaching them where they are, removing barriers, and giving them every chance to succeed.
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