Trials and tribulations at Durham Public Schools
The year 2024 was an eventful one for Durham Public Schools (DPS), and the INDY and our partners at the 9th Street Journal were here to chronicle it all. The year started off with a payroll crisis wherein hundreds of school system workers learned that promised salary increases, which had already been paid out to them for several months, were given as the result of a budgeting error. In mid-January, many transportation workers didn’t show up for work, and on the last day of the month, DPS closed 12 schools as teachers and staff held a sickout organized by the Durham Association of Educators (DAE). The next week, the DAE held a second day of protests, and superintendent Pascal Mubenga announced he was stepping down from his position. While the salary scandal was eventually resolved with a $27.5 million local supplement to the schools’ budget in June, a year of DAE organizing was already well under way. The group, Durham’s de facto teacher’s union, brought its fight for a meet-and-confer policy to the school board this summer, and scored a long-sought, if partial, win in the fall. The school year opened with a bus driver shortage, which is just now inching toward resolution. That’s not even to mention redistricting growing pains, needed building repairs, and the fight over the new Durham School of the Arts; the school board approved DSA’s relocation in August and broke ground on the new building last month. In spite of the tumult, there were some wins along the way. DPS selected a new superintendent, Dr. Anthony Lewis, in July, and Lewis spent his first three months on the job on a series of listening tours and plans to bring his strategic plan before the school board early next year. He also announced DPS’s plan to bring nutritious free lunches to all of its students. And students are as curious and persistent as ever: they proposed their own solutions to the world’s most pressing problems and continued to hold the local powers-that-be accountable with their actions on climate justice.
Housing hardships
The dearth of affordable housing and the problems associated with that shortage have become well-documented features of life in the Triangle, and 2024 gave us no exception. In January, freelance writer Cy Neff reported on safety, management, and upkeep complaints at North Durham’s elderly, low-income apartment facility JFK Towers and restrictions that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development placed on the complex’s owner, Millennia Properties. A few weeks later, 14 residents of the complex filed a class-action lawsuit against the company. Across town, staff writer Lena Geller investigated derelict properties owned by the family of former U.S. attorney general Loretta Lynch. In the May report, tenants, mired in a legal dispute with the Lynches, told the INDY that they lived in homes that had been in disrepair for years. The eviction lawsuits were resolved in September with an undisclosed settlement.
The housing crisis touches every group of people in the Triangle, college students included, and in August, the INDY’s Report for America corps member Chloe Courtney-Bohl wrote about a new short-term homestay program a Raleigh nonprofit is testing to help combat student homelessness. On the bright side, our local governments, along with private and nonprofit partners, are investing millions of dollars to bring more affordable units to Triangle cities and counties. In April, staff writer Chase Pellegrini de Paur wrote about Chapel Hill’s plans to bring affordable housing for seniors to the town’s American Legion Property. In September, staff writer Justin Laidlaw covered Durham Community Land Trustees plans to preserve affordable apartments at 1600 Anderson Street and build more affordable units nearby. There’s also the new affordable cottage court development coming to Southeast Raleigh’s Idlewild neighborhood and the Raleigh/Wake commitment to invest $30 million in 454 affordable units to look forward to.
Bull City Summit
Financial disputes, THC beverages, buzzy gurus, a local children’s nonprofit, an NFT of a key to the city: the rabbit hole this investigative piece on Bull City Summit (BCS), a science and technology festival, took the INDY down was quite deep. Durham has, for some time, needed its own Dreamville or Hopscotch to draw foot traffic, and as various festivals have come and gone in the Bull City, local businesses were initially excited about BCS when festival owner Parag Bhandari launched it a few years ago. But between contractors reporting unpaid invoices and venues reporting zero-person turnouts and declining to work with Bhandari again, it appeared that this may not be the event to fill that gap. Although the BCS slated for 2024 did not happen, Bhandari has been working on other ventures: recent emails from the Bull City Summit Account have advertised a “VIP MEET & GREET WITH ANDRE3000” and Iceland Airwaves Exchange, “a new cross-cultural music, arts, and industry initiative.” Meanwhile, other events—like Rhiannon Giddens’s Biscuits & Banjos, slated for downtown Durham in April 2025—have emerged to fill the gaps.
The conflict in Gaza
Although separated by a distance of 6,000 miles, the devastating specter of the war in Gaza loomed large over the Triangle and its residents in 2024. In February, we compiled a timeline of local activism around calls for a ceasefire. Carrboro was the first Triangle municipality to adopt a ceasefire resolution last year, followed by Durham in February; Raleigh and Chapel Hill didn’t follow suit. In April, we broke the news that Triangle congresswoman Valerie Foushee traveled to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu without disclosing the trip to constituents beforehand. And when UNC-Chapel Hill campus police removed a pro-Palestinian encampment in a dawn sweep and arrested and detained dozens of students and protesters, we were there to document the fallout.
We stayed in touch with student protesters through the year, some of whom were suspended and saw their lives upended by the university’s disciplinary process. We’ll be following these students’ stories, as well as Triangle activism around Gaza, as long as the conflict continues.
Mourning beloved local musicians
The INDY doesn’t have an obituary section, but some tributes are essential to document. This year, the local music community lost three beloved scene mainstays: in February, Dexter Romweber of the Flat Duo Jets passed, followed by the sudden death of rapper Kevin Joshua Rowsey II (better known as Rowdy) in April and the passing of musician Reese McHenry in November. There’s no grand throughline to draw between these tragedies—these three were different people making different music—except to say that they all leave behind big holes. Their deep community impact shines through clearly in tributes written by Pierce Freelon and David Menconi.
Growing Pains
Stop us if you’ve heard this before: as the Triangle grows, residents are vexed over some new development projects and proposals. April’s virtual meeting on the future of Durham’s Lakewood Shopping Center is a glaring example. Developer BrodyCo proposed redeveloping the eight-acre, Food Lion–anchored site to include revitalized storefronts for small local businesses on one part of the property and adding climate-controlled self-storage to another portion. Durham residents did not take kindly to the plan, to put it mildly.
Downtown Durham businesses also had a rough go of 2024. In May, staff writer Justin Laidlaw reported on bar owners’ frustrations with ongoing construction they say is hurting their businesses. It’s not just that: rising rents, declining post-pandemic foot traffic, and a feeling that downtown is disconnected and hostile to pedestrians and cyclists have local business owners feeling like they’re struggling to survive (and a few businesses, like restaurants COPA and the flagship location of Beyu Caffe, did indeed shutter). To its credit, the City of Durham has been making strides to make its streets safer. City leaders moved forward with a plan to redesign state-owned Roxboro and Mangum Streets, despite NC Department of Transportation delays. The city brought in $12 million in federal grant money to make much-needed improvements to Holloway Street, Durham’s busiest transit corridor. And voters overwhelmingly approved a $115 million bond for street and sidewalk upgrades that city leaders placed on the ballot this fall. Still, the pace of development in Durham, and the types of projects city leaders are approving, continues to draw ire; in June, a planning commissioner resigned over the way some council members have “dismissed, at times ignored,” and “even denigrated” the planning commission’s work and expertise, staff writer Lena Geller reported. Over in Raleigh, a 2021 missing-middle housing policy has seen success in creating new types of housing and bringing down rents, but disgruntlement over the policy persists. In July, Chloe Courtney-Bohl reported on a judge’s decision to block construction of townhomes in the City of Oaks’ wealthy Hayes Barton neighborhood (Hayes Barton residents sued the city, and the developer, over the townhome plans and the missing-middle policy in 2023). As growth transcends Raleigh and spreads in all directions across Wake County, residents are airing their grievances. This summer, a proposed mixed-use housing development to be located across the street from E. Carroll Joyner Park drew ire from neighbors who were concerned about ecological threats and, frankly, the prospect of having more future neighbors. The developer, property owner, and town leaders are seeking a compromise.
Problems at Plum
Early this summer, upscale Durham restaurant Plum Southern Kitchen & Bar closed for a hiatus—a standard break, purportedly. Former restaurant employees told the INDY a markedly different story: They say things unraveled when restaurant owner Lisa Callaghan, who is white, repeatedly used the N-word while complaining about a Kendrick Lamar song that employees were playing before a shift. The situation devolved when Callaghan fired a Black bartender who had confronted her about the slur usage—and the majority of the restaurant’s employees quit in protest. This deeply reported piece by Lena Geller was our most-read story of the year and, in a reflection of the times, briefly served as a viral hot rod for discussions about racism, restaurant culture, and what constitutes an apology. But—in a continued reflection of the time—Plum survived the mass quitting and social media storm. It remains open; loyal customers regularly turn out.
Election year highlights
It was, of course, an election year, and we covered both the primary and the general election that saw numerous local races on voters’ ballots. In Durham’s only contested school board race, a candidate was accused of sexually harassing a young woman a decade ago; the woman’s father brought the allegations to light during the endorsement meeting for one of the city’s prominent PACs. We also saw newcomer Sophia Chitlik oust Mike Woodard in the primary after out-fundraising the longtime state senator despite his support from various special interest groups. And we profiled Durham district attorney Satana Deberry, who ran against congressman and NC attorney general–elect Jeff Jackson for the Democratic nomination. This fall saw races for a new Raleigh mayor and seats on the city council. Freelance writer Jasmine Gallup teed up the Raleigh election with a four-part series looking back on former mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin’s tenure, the state of housing and development, the future of downtown, and how voters’ choices will shape the city. We looked at an effort to stop the Wake County Democratic Party from making endorsements in the city council races, and we took some deep dives into those races, and into the candidates themselves, including in District A, District C, and the at-large race. We wrote about the nonpartisan-in-name-only Wake County school board election and Moms for Liberty’s tactics to get their candidates elected, and we covered a special election in Carrboro. We broke news about a state representative and her husband accused of harassing poll greeters and joined Mark Robinson on his last day on the campaign trail. And we wrote about bonds: infrastructure bonds, library bonds, and more. Next year will see yet another municipal election in Durham, and Mayor Leo Williams could be in a fight to hold on to his seat. Revisit Justin Laidlaw’s in-depth, insightful profile of the mayor from this summer.
Keeping Duke accountable
The INDY wouldn’t be doing its job as Durham’s community newspaper if we didn’t keep our eyes on Duke University, the Bull City’s largest employer and property owner. Duke’s been busy this year; accordingly, so have we. In April, staff writer and Duke alum Chase Pellegrini de Paur wrote about the climate commitment Duke made two years ago to its students, staff, and alumni and to the residents of Durham. It was an ambitious promise, launched with an initial $36 million fund “framed as an unprecedented attempt to consolidate and leverage the university’s capabilities to address the climate crisis under one coordinating office,” he wrote. But, without clear goals and authority, some are worried that the climate commitment will end up a well-intentioned failure. This summer, Pellegrini de Paur also wrote about rezoning requests Duke has been bringing before the Durham City Council, asking city leaders for permission to rezone property without detailed development plans. Despite concerns from some council members, this fall Duke was ultimately granted rezonings for 10 university-owned parcels, giving the university broad freedom for future construction. Also this fall, staff writer Lena Geller wrote about a pressure campaign from the Duke Graduate Students Union on university admin to pay graduate and professional students a living wage. And we capped off the year with a deep look at a local group’s efforts to try to get Duke to pay $50 million to the City of Durham annually in lieu of taxes on much of the property it owns across the Bull City. The piece, a collaboration between staff writer Justin Laidlaw and our newsroom partners at The Assembly, puts a fine point on a question many in the Durham community have been asking for years: “Does Duke respect Durham?”
Out-of-the-box new arts spaces
Last month, we published a piece on Shadowbox Studio—a space that actually is in a box (it’s run out of a Durham storage unit) but offers out-of-the-box film and arts programming and has, miraculously, made it to a decade. Offbeat arts spaces are spoken of as something strictly of the past, when things were more affordable, but Shadowbox gives us a glimmer of hope for the new spots we’ve reported on. In 2022, coffeeshop-meets-everything spot Perfect Lovers opened, as did Night School Bar, a cocktails-meets-classes neighborhood dive. This year, Durham artist Catherine Edgerton turned their home into Queen Street Magic Boat, an anti-algorithmic space, if there ever was one, for community organizing and exhibitions. In Chapel Hill, photographer Phyllis Dooney opened the beautifully designed PHOTO Farm, a space with a darkroom and plenty of light-filled room for classes and experiments. We’re excited about these new creative beginnings and will be holding a candle in 2025 for all local arts spaces that go against the grain.
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