Name as it appears on the ballot: Daniel Meier
Age: 46
Party affiliation: Democrat
Campaign website: www.meierfordurham.com
Occupation & employer: Attorney, Meier Law Group PLLC
Years lived in Durham: 17
1) Given the direction of Durham government, would you say things are on the right course? If not, for what specific changes will you advocate if elected?
I think we are on a good course, but we are at risk of veering off course. I believe that we are turning a blind eye to the increasing violent crime and letting ideological opposition to “over-policing” keep us from considering Police to be a viable, short-term, option for addressing crime, while the longer-term solutions are supported and given time to take root, as well as giving the perception that the current City Council, or at least some members are anti-police. I would focus on increasing funding/staffing levels for the Police, as requested by our Chief, in the short-term, while growing and expanding the programs we are implementing to help reduce crime in the long-term. We need to partner with the police to achieve our goals, and rebuild trust.
I think we are also not serving our low-income communities as well as we could by focusing only on affordable housing, and not job creation and economic growth as a way out of poverty. We need to support the business community and work with them to find/fund solutions. I would work with them to create and fund job training, new businesses, daycare, education, and other resources needed to fuel job growth and higher wages.
2) Please identify the three most pressing issues you believe the city faces and how you believe the city should address them.
1. Crime.
To address crime, we need to focus on the causes of crime, and address those causes. In looking at crime, there are 3 things needed for criminal activity (the Crime Triangle): ability, opportunity, and desire.
There is little, to nothing, that can be done about ability – we all have the ability to commit crime.
We can focus on opportunity to commit crime, especially in the short term, through increased police presence/staffing. We need to expand the Community Engagement Units and increase police presence in the city. People are unlikely to commit crimes when there are police nearby.
However, increased police presence is only part of the solution, and a short-term fix. You will not police your way out of crime. We need to focus on reducing the desire to commit crime. We do this through economic development, education, mental health and substance abuse treatment, childcare, affordable housing, and other plans to allow people to have stability in their lives and jobs. Economic growth is a major factor in crime reduction. People with good jobs (and the ability to keep them with housing, adequate healthcare, education, housing, and the rest). We also need to rebuild trust with the police so that the communities are willing to cooperate in prosecutions and don’t feel victimized by law enforcement.
2. Housing
We need to make sure that people have stable housing. If they don’t have stable housing, they have a difficult time keeping jobs, pursuing education, maintaining their health, and generally feeling safe in their community. We have to explore ways to combat gentrification, such as the Enhanced Housing Choices, as well as adequately maintaining our existing public housing inventory. We need to not just focus on expanding affordable housing, but in also maintaining the affordable housing we have.
3. Education/Job Creation
We need to make sure that we focus on job creation through education. We need to make sure that we continue to attract new businesses and good jobs to Durham. We need to partner with our existing businesses and local schools and universities to make sure that we are able to offer new (and expanding) businesses a population base that is ready for the jobs they want to bring in. We need to incentivize businesses that locate near depressed areas of town and hire employees from those areas. This helps solve transportation issues, and helps lift communities out of poverty.
3) What in your record as a public official or other experience demonstrates your ability to be effective as a member of the city council and as an advocate for the issues that you believe are important?
Prior to law school, I obtained a BBA in Finance, a MBA, and a MSHA. I worked in healthcare administration and finance, and so I have an understanding of numbers and economic forecasts and projections. As a lawyer, I am trained to look at an issue from all sides and look to find solutions that are the best outcome. Unlike some members of the current city council who vote in lockstep and never let the public in on their deliberations, I will reach out to all sides, and listen to all sides, when making decisions. Once I have the information to make a decision, my background as a trial attorney has prepared me to advocate for my position.
4) In your view, what’s the best or most important thing the city council has done in the past year? Alternatively, name a decision you believe the council got wrong or an issue you believe the city should have handled differently. Please explain your answer.
I think the city council got the decision on adding additional officers wrong. The Chief originally wanted 72 new officers, but that was cut to 18 to be voted on, when that was defeated a compromise of 9 was offered, which was also defeated. We hire professionals for their expertise, and we need to trust those experts, or at least be willing to listen to them. We have a nationally recognized Chief of Police in CJ Davis, yet when she tells us what she needs in order to do the job properly, she is told no. Crime is spiking in Durham and while the current city council claims that they are at least holding staffing levels constant, that ignore the tremendous growth in Durham. Over the last 4 years, Durham has added an average of approximate 13 residents per day. If we kept staffing levels constant, we would have to add a new officer every 38 days, which would have us having added around 80 new officers in those 4 years.
Too many members of the city council appear tone deaf to the issue of crime. They are beholden to an ideological view that says police are bad, and they won’t listen to anything contrary to that. They keep repeating the same “solutions” that they have said for the last 4 years, but don’t seem to be doing the funding for those solutions either. The city council needs to recognize the current crime spike in Durham, as well as the public outrage/panic, and propose solutions to fix it – both the short term (if not more police, what?), and the long term (the community investment in housing, education, daycare, mental and substance abuse, transportation, reintegration, diversion programs, criminal justice reform, etc.).
5) This year, the city has since an uptick in gun homicides compared to 2018, recently including the tragic death of a nine-year-old boy. Gun violence is obviously a multifaceted problem with no simple solutions. But, in your view, what can or should the city be doing to stem the tide of violence that it isn’t doing now?
See my response to question 4. Too many members of the city council are tone deaf and largely denying the increase in violent crime. They will say it is down from 4 years ago (which ignores that a significant part of that decrease was a change in how the statistics are kept), and not offering solutions to the problem. We need to look to the police as partners in the short-term, and work to rebuild community trust. The police and the communities need to work together to make sure the perpetrators of these violent acts are brought to justice. Instead, we have members of the city council condemning the police and advising people to not work with them. Yes, we need to make sure we are diligent in overseeing the police and making sure that we don’t have over-policing, but we need to recognize the police as our partners in reducing crime and making Durham a better, and safer, place for all. We can also use supplemental patrols and overtime to increase police presence in the hot zones.
6) In recent elections, residents have supported leaders who have embraced criminal justice reforms, including reducing or eliminating cash bail and court fines and fees. Advocacy groups have argued—in our view, rightly—for more systemic solutions to violent crime than incarceration. But some of these solutions, which aim to reshape disadvantages communities, will take time to bear fruit, whereas gun violence is causing harm right now. What do you say to residents who want more immediate answers to crime problems in their neighborhoods? In what ways can the city help them?
Again, this ties to my earlier answers – in the short term, we need to increase the presence of law enforcement. We absolutely need the systemic solutions, and community investment to decrease crime, but as noted, that is a longer-term solution. In the short term, we need to expand the DPD Community Engagement Units. If you talk to residents where the CEUs operate, they welcome the police. When the CEU is working, kids can use the parks, people can walk the streets, and they feel safe. As soon as the CEU leaves, the drug dealers and criminals reclaim the neighborhoods. We need to make sure that we address violent crime/criminals who are victimizing and threatening the safety of the communities differently from other crimes. Incarceration is not a long-term solution, but sometimes people need to be held for a period of time (not nearly the lengths that we used to) so that they can get the help they need to address what is causing them to engage in violence, and the community can heal and make sure there are adequate resources in place when these individuals reintegrate. We also need to make sure that people have access to jobs, sports leagues, reopen rec centers, and otherwise engage people and get them off the streets.
Systemic solutions take time, we absolutely need to pursue them, but we need to work with the police in the short term to provide security while the long term solutions are allowed to work.
7) Earlier this year, the council declined the police chief’s request for additional officers. Do you believe this was a wise decision? Why or why not?
No, I do not believe this was a wise decision. I will try to avoid repeating my prior answers too much, but ultimately the Chief is a professional who has been hired to do a job, and we need to support her in that job. As noted, just to maintain staffing levels compared to population, we should have added approximately 80 officers over the last 4 years. We’ve also seen success with the CEU, and as Dayton, OH, showed, having a police presence can provide security. The current council will claim that the increased officers were only for staffing adjustments, etc., but that is disingenuous, because that was only after it was cut down from 72 to 18, and as you adjust staffing, that frees up resources for other purposes. Again, Durham is on a good path with criminal justice reform, but we need to work with the police in the short-term until the long-term solutions have time to work. The police are our partners in crime reduction/safety, not our opposition.
8) This year, the Durham-Orange Light Rail project collapsed over a route dispute with Duke University and other complications. Tell us how you envision what Durham’s approach to public transportation and mass transit should look like going forward. Where should the city focus its resources?
We need to focus our resources on making sure that all parts of Durham have access to public transportation. Right now we have far flung neighborhoods and parts of the city that have little to no access to busses. We need to make sure that we are providing services to all areas of the city, as well as controlling the costs so not only do people have access to public transportation, they can afford that access. A regional rail is still a potential, but it’s a long way off, and it needs to be done in conjunction with all of the cities in the Triangle. A light rail that doesn’t address the I-40 congestion, or connect Chapel Hill, Durham, RTP, the airport, Raleigh, Cary, and others, is always going to be limited. Unless/until there is an ability for regional solutions, we need to focus on expanded bus service in Durham.
9) Much of the city’s affordable housing strategy has been planned in conjunction with light rail, and as recently as last year, Durham Housing Authority CEO Anthony Scott called light rail “critical” to his agency’s goals for low-income housing. In what ways does light rail’s demise affect the city’s strategy? How should the city alter its approach, if at all?
Well, I think the reason a lot of it was “critical” to the agency’s goals was that they wanted light rail to connect affordable housing to 3 of the largest employers in the area: Duke, UNC, and NCCU, as well as the education and resources those Universities (and the two major medical centers) can provide. I think rather than concentrating affordable housing in a narrow area of downtown that would have been serviced by rail, the city should look to expand affordable housing more broadly and work on providing the transportation infrastructure to those more spread out areas. In addition, we need to make sure that we don’t only focus on new housing and make sure we adequately maintain the housing we have, much of which is suffering from years of deferred maintenance.
10) In November, Durham will ask residents to vote on a $95 million bond to support affordable housing, a key part of a larger strategy to build or preserve more than twenty-five hundred affordable units and move at least seventeen hundred homeless households into housing, as well as create new homeownership opportunities and help those facing eviction. We’d like to ask a few questions about the bond:
- Do you support the bond, including the property tax hike that will be required to implement it?
I still have a lot of questions about the bond and would like to have more information, and see more specifics. We seem to be rushing into this, and when specifics are asked for, the response is generally “trust us.” I support the idea of a bond, and am not opposed to tax hikes, if needed, but I do feel that this bond is being rushed, and there are a lot of unanswered questions. I don’t understand why we can’t take a more deliberate approach and study the issue, and let the new city council look into what they think is best.
- If you support the bond, what would be your argument to homeowners who have seen their property taxes rise over the last several years for why they should support the bond? How will it benefit them? Why is this bond so vital?
I don’t support the bond in its current form, but if a bond is required in the future, I would tell homeowners that they will benefit as Durham continues to grow and develop economically through job creation and business development. There are a lot of good things for Durham to invest in, but we need revenue, and ultimately helping people find and keep stable and affordable housing will allow us to expand our economy and tax base.
- About $60 million of the bond would go to the DHA to redevelop its downtown properties, a project that is already in motion. Tell us how you’d like to see the city spend the rest? In what ways can the city promote affordable housing most effectively?
Again, I’m not sold on the current bond, but we need to make sure we don’t ignore our existing properties. We need to make sure they are adequately maintained and have access to transportation and the infrastructure needed for residents to thrive and succeed.
11) Given the influx of people and money Durham has seen in recent years, gentrification has become a major concern, in East Durham but also in other neighborhoods close to downtown. In what ways can or should the city intervene?
We need to make sure that we invest in/incentivize affordable housing in these same neighborhoods where gentrification is occurring. This will help get people out of below-standard housing, and if we encourage ownership, rather than affordable rent, they will have a say in their neighborhoods. We also need to make sure that we make zoning more friendly for the goods and services people in affordable housing with limited transportation need, like grocery stores and shopping centers. Right now, if you are poor or have limited transportation, downtown is a very difficult place to live. We need to spread out affordable housing, encourage ownership, and make sure that outside of just housing people of limited means can afford to live downtown or in the affordable housing we are encouraging.
12) Durham’s downtown is ringed by low-density neighborhoods, which has contributed to rising home values in the urban core. Earlier this year, the city proposed a plan called Expanded Housing Choices, which would allow for more—and more kinds—of housing near downtown. It met with pushback and has been delayed for months. (EHC is scheduled to come back before the council on September 3.) Disputes that seem to turn on the question of density vs. neighborhood protection seem to be emerging all over the country, including in Raleigh. What are your thoughts on the city’s approach to EHC? Is it adequately considering the desires of neighborhoods? Is it being aggressive enough in adding density in the urban core? Is it handling the situation just right?
I think increased density can help protect the environment, as well as help combat gentrification. Right now, developers are still putting expensive houses on large lots because that is what sells. We need to give them other options so that they can increase density, rather than simply build larger single-family homes on the lots. I do think the neighborhoods will need to work together on standards for their communities, and if they want to form HOAs or other protections against expanded density, there are mechanisms to do that, which also have their pros and cons. But, increased density helps the environment and also helps combat gentrification and is a good thing.
13) As of 2017, nearly half of Durham residents living in poverty were black. The city’s overall economy has improved markedly over the last two decades. What are your ideas for making its renaissance more equitable?
We need to support job-based education and work with businesses to get rid of barriers to employment for people with criminal records. We need to continue the reintegration programs we have in Durham, and make sure that we have adequate childcare, substance abuse, mental health treatment, housing, transportation, and other required resources so that disadvantaged residents have not only access to jobs, but the ability to keep them. We can also use land around the public housing areas, and other disadvantaged neighborhoods, to create new businesses and new job opportunities which will allow local residents greater access. But, a major factor is to continue the criminal justice reforms and reintegration to make sure that people with criminal records can get jobs. Their lack of access is a major contributor to long term poverty.
14) Because of state law, municipalities have a number of restrictions placed on them by the legislature: they can’t, for instance, be a sanctuary city, impose a citywide minimum wage, enact an antidiscrimination ordinance that includes LGBTQ residents, or enforce inclusionary zoning. Under what circumstances should elected officials push back against the legislature?
In every way they can, legally, without harming their City. We need to continue to support fair elections, and candidates for state office who will restore local control.
15) If there are other issues you want to discuss, please do so here.
We need to recognize that ideology is great, but we need to be realistic about getting there. We need to stop dividing the city and creating an us v them mentality, and work with all the various groups in Durham to make this a better, and safer, city. We need to make sure that we support our businesses and employers in Durham. We need them to help us accomplish the goals that we want for Durham. Progress and economic growth is a good thing, if properly managed, and use the business community to help us accomplish (and finance) what we want Durham to become.
