Longtime town council member Barbara Foushee will lead Carrboro from the top seat next year, winning her uncontested mayoral race with around 4,200 total votes.
Eliazar Posada won a town council special election in May of last year to fill Mayor Damon Seils’s open council seat (Seils was elected mayor in 2021). Last night, Posada was elected to his first full term on the council, winning just under 27 percent of the vote. And newcomers Catherine Fray and Jason Merrill will fill two additional seats on the Carrboro Town Council, winning 27 percent and 26 percent of the vote respectively.
Foushee has served on the town council for nearly six years and, during her tenure, has pushed for race equity initiatives, a community action plan on climate change, and zoning amendments related to housing and infrastructure as well as improved connectivity for cyclists and pedestrians.
Posada, the first openly gay Latino to serve in public office in North Carolina, is the son of migrant farmworkers and one of the council’s youngest members.
And two young newcomers, Fray and Merrill, will join Posada. Fray is a member of Carroboro’s Planning Board since 2012 and co-chaired the Carrboro Connects task force that was created to implement the town’s Comprehensive Plan from 2020 to 2022. Merrill is a former small business owner and served six years on Chapel Hill’s Transportation and Connectivity Advisory Board.
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