Full name: Mark Bell
Party affiliation: Democrat
Campaign website: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellForHillsborough/
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 mayor?
It has been an honor to serve as mayor of Hillsborough, and I believe my professional and civic experience provide me with the right tools and perspectives to serve as mayor and help our town continue to thrive.
In addition to my service as town commissioner, mayor pro tempore, and as mayor, I’ve had the privilege to represent Hillsborough and serve on numerous boards and commissions for 20 years that help me better serve my community. My work includes service to organizations that support access to food, housing, and transportation; health equity; tourism; climate change; economic development; NAACP Branch 5427; parks and recreation; veterans; solid waste and recycling, and water and sewer, to name a few.
I strongly believe Hillsborough a dynamic town with a lot to offer residents, businesses, and visitors. I’m proud of my work to elevate and promote Hillsborough’s strong sense of place and commitment to responsive local government for everyone.
And I’m also proud to continue my work on critical issues in Hillsborough, such as environmental sustainability, transit-oriented growth, and increasing permanently affordable housing. As mayor, I’ve helped to promote policy development, dedication of town-owned land, and increased financial resources for projects such as Habitat for Humanity of Orange County’s Auman Village that recently ground after years of planning. A strong local economy relies on robust housing options, and increasing workforce housing is an area that is critical to Hillsborough.
The office of the mayor, commissioners, town manager, and staff all work to serve Hillsborough with respect and efficiency and I’m proud to be a part of the town government that was recently recognized with the ETC Institute’s Leading the Way Award for community satisfaction of town services. I would appreciate your support, and your vote on November 4, and continue serving as mayor of Hillsborough.
2) What would your priorities be as mayor? Please identify three of the most pressing issues Hillsborough currently faces and how you believe the town should address them.
If reelected, my priority as mayor will continue to be outstanding governance and municipal services to our residents, businesses, and visitors, guided by our Comprehensive Sustainability Plan (CSP). The most pressing issues for Hillsborough are managing growth pressure, the high cost of municipal infrastructure, and the need for more permanently affordable housing.
First, Hillsborough continues to experience high growth pressure, so it is essential that all growth be managed according to the sustainability principles of the CSP, including transit oriented development, appropriate density, and connectivity with other neighborhoods and access to amenities, for example. We are currently updating our Unified Development Ordinance, which is primarily concerned with land use and which will be important to better managing growth in the future as well. Hillsborough is geographically constrained in terms of future growth potential so we must be very intentional regarding how and where we grow, and the CSP and updated UDO are critical to guide our growth.
Second, Hillsborough has a lot of 40- to 100-year-old infrastructure that is costly to maintain and presents challenges when expanding for future growth. Our water and sewer infrastructure facilities are facing huge costs to maintain, upgrade, or relocate, and like most utilities in the state they are operated through an enterprise fund with usage fees instead of taxes. Grants for water and sewer are few and far between, so the sudden loss of FEMA BRIC grant funding in April 2025 to relocate the River Pump Station is a significant problem for Hillsborough.
Finally, increasing affordable housing is one of the most pressing challenges for Hillsborough as redevelopment and new development pressures dilute the percentage of naturally affordable housing (NOAH) and permanently affordable housing in Hillsborough. The CSP guides our strategy to increase affordable housing in Hillsborough, and we work with or fund numerous organizations and programs to help overcome housing barriers, including the Orange County Housing Department’s Home Preservation Coalition, Home Repair & Renovation Pilot, Housing Choice Voucher Program, Emergency Housing Assistance Program, and the Partnership to End Homelessness. We also negotiate with developers to include permanently affordable housing and NOAH in new projects, and we work with Habitat for Humanity of Orange County, Community Home Trust, and CASA to create new permanently affordable housing units for various ranges of Area Median Income (AMI).
3) What’s the best or most important thing the board of commissioners has done in the past year? Additionally, name a decision you believe the town should have handled differently. Please explain your answers.
I feel the best thing the Hillsborough Town Board of Commissioners has done in the past year is to commit a record amount of funds to affordable housing in the FY26 budget, including emergency housing, home repair, and construction of new permanently affordable housing. Although the mayor isn’t a member of the board and only votes to break a tie, I’m pleased to have facilitated development of Hillsborough’s affordable housing guiding principles that were concorporated into the CSP and the funding opportunity for Habitat’s Auman Village in Hillsborough. This is a mixed income project consisting of 15 market rate homes and 60 homes for first-time homebuyers earning 30-80% AMI.
In terms of a decision I feel the town should have handled differently, I feel it would have been more helpful to residents if the board had passed an ordinance before February 2025 prohibiting the feeding of wildlife such as vultures and deer. It could take a few years for the problem to abate once residents are 100% compliant with the ordinance, but we’re still seeing violations that lead to unnatural conflict between residents and wildlife and it will take more time to resolve than I think is necessary.
4) President Trump is working to ramp up deportations and curtail visas. At the same time, the state legislature has passed laws requiring agencies to cooperate with ICE. What do you think Hillsborough can or should do to ensure safe, welcoming communities for immigrants in light of these policies?
We are proud to welcome everyone to live, work and play in Hillsborough whatever their immigration status, and we recognize the many contributions immigrants play in the vitality of our town. The board confirmed the town’s position in May 2025, supporting a pathway to citizenship for undocumented residents, including DREAMERs; access to town services; requiring the Hillsborough Police Department to continue engagement with immigrants regardless of their immigration status and advise victims of crimes to apply for Form I-918 to remain in the United States during investigations. I have conveyed to concerned immigrants that they are our neighbors, business owners, teachers, essential workers, and students who contribute daily to the strength and beauty of this town. Hillsborough is committed to ensuring that every resident feels engaged, respected, and supported.
5) 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 the board of commissioners to address climate resilience, particularly in light of changes to the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program that would have made needed improvements to Hillsborough’s water and sewer infrastructure?
Hillsborough has taken numerous steps to address the impact of climate change on town infrastructure and to our residents and businesses, including a commitment in 2017 to work towards 100% clean energy for town operations by 2050. This and other efforts town and community efforts were incorporated into Chapter 10 of the CSP as the guide to how we will address climate throughout the work of the town. For example, we knew that increased rainfall would lead to more flooding of our 1970s River Pump Station and we had secured funding from FEMA to relocate the station to higher ground outside the floodplain. This federal source was an appropriate choice to fund the new pump station because the risk to downstream water supplies far beyond Hillsborough and Orange County. The BRIC funding also supported a regional interconnection between Hillsborough and Orange Water and Sewer Authority to provide redundancy and resiliency during droughts and emergencies.
Unfortunately, Tropical Storm Chantal hit shortly after FEMA funding was taken away and just before we were scheduled to put the pump station work out for bid. The station was submerged and knocked offline, spilling about 8 million gallons of raw sewage into the Eno River. The loss of BRIC funding in is a textbook case study of the importance of increasing infrastructure resilience and the regional interconnection of water and sewer utilities. NC Attorney General Jeff Jackson filed suit on behalf of all BRIC grantees in our state and it is essential that we identify new funding to complete Hillsborough’s two projects that were originally funded through BRIC.
6) Federal funding cuts this year have hit the Triangle particularly hard, from cancelled 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 board can prioritize competing funding needs, close funding gaps, and balance the financial burden on residents?
Hillsborough has tough financial decisions to make regarding funding of town services and requests from community based organizations (CBOs). State revenue projections are flat or decreased, and the attack on federal programs by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 and via administrative whim is likely to increase, leaving it to states, counties, and municipalities to fund services and programs. Hillsborough is experiencing this dynamic right now regarding loss of two BRIC grants, loss of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to CBOs providing food assistance, and loss of SNAP-Ed funding of four programs in the Fairview community. Strategies to address this dynamic include the following.
First, we’ve had to become very intentional about spending our limited funds and recently began restructuring our process for making grants to CBOs through our Community Reinvestment Fund as part of our annual budget process. We frequently get requests from CBOs serving all of Orange County seeking funding, but we prioritize organizations in the Hillsborough town limits or that can document the number of actual Hillsborough residents served, which is difficult for many CBOs to do accurately. We cannot fund CBO work for non-Hillsborough residents.
Second, we realize that, in general, municipalities don’t provide social services, yet we frequently receive funding requests from CBOs that are outside of Hillsborough or for social-related services that are provided at the county level. These CBOs look for Hillsborough to contribute a sum proportionate to the percentage of Hillsborough’s population compared to the county as a whole which isn’t supported by our Community Reinvestment Fund guidelines. Either the county will be under pressure to provide more services or funding to CBOs to provide these services, or municipalities will be expected to fund the programs.
Third, Hillsborough is asked to fill funding gaps where federal programs are cut or the county doesn’t fund as part of their DSS services budget. This is the case at the moment for Hillsborough, and we definitely see the need and value of these programs, but there isn’t any new revenue to cover the expenses; we’d have to pay for them from our fund balance (reserve account), which isn’t sustainable over the long term without raising new revenue through additional taxes and fees. Hillsborough is fortunate to have a multi-year budget strategy and maintain a healthy fund balance that may be able to accommodate small requests for temporary CBO funding, but long-term deficit funding or tax increases would be very difficult for Hillsborough.
7) Hillsborough is in the process of rewriting its Unified Development Ordinance, which will guide future development and land use. 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 Hillsborough?
Aligning Hillsborough’s UDO with the CSP is one of the last steps in documenting the town’s vision for long-term sustainability and help ensure town’s investments in infrastructure are made strategically and support our smart growth goals. For example, the CSP envisions smart growth strategies to promote diversity in housing options among all income levels, including multi-tenancy options such as “missing middle” and mid-rise apartments. Housing density is most appropriate when sited near transit hubs, greenways, sidewalks, shopping and entertainment opportunities to ensure our connectivity goals are achieved. For example, Hillsborough currently has approximately 10,000 residents and has approved over 2,000 new dwelling units in recent years that are in keeping with our smart growth development strategy to promote economic, environmental, and social sustainability. The UDO revision to better align it with CSP goals and land use with future development is critical, in my opinion, because the current rate of development is not sustainable over the long term due to land and infrastructure capacity scarcity. Carrboro is an example of a municipality that faces some of the constraints as Hillsborough and has also successfully implemented a comprehensive plan to guide smart growth.
8) If there are other issues you want to discuss, please do so here.
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