Local government in Chapel Hill and Carrboro in recent months has been dominated by two seemingly existential challenges: climate change and the economy.
The already climate-conscious towns were confronted with a harsh reality on July 6, that even with sustainability managers, green facilities, and emission reduction plans, both were still highly vulnerable to the record rainfall dropped by Tropical Storm Chantal. Chapel Hill’s Eastgate shopping center was inundated. Floodwaters inched toward the mound of coal ash still sitting on Martin Luther King Boulevard. Carrboro’s Public Works facility was destroyed along with police cars, garbage trucks, and other town vehicles.
At the same time, town council and school board members alike were faced with a tougher-than-usual budget season, trying to balance precarious federal funding (and in the case of schools, dwindling state funding), rising costs of doing business, and pressure to limit tax hikes following a property revaluation that was brutal for some.
Heading into elections these issues continue to dominate, demanding officials who can meet the moment with relevant experience in things like affordable housing, planning, and climate resilience. In reviewing candidates for these endorsements—talking with candidates and others knowledgeable about local politics, attending forums, and reporting on Orange County—we looked for these qualities, along with community support, proactive energy, and specific ideas for addressing local issues.
That said, Orange County voters don’t have many tough choices to make when they head to the polls. The race for Chapel Hill Town Council, with five candidates vying for four seats (including open seats being vacated by Adam Searing and Karen Stegman), is the only truly competitive race on the ballot. Three school board candidates are guaranteed seats; the same goes for the three candidates running for Carrboro Town Council. Chapel Hill’s mayor is unopposed in her reelection bid, and in deep-blue Orange County, Carrboro’s mayor might as well be too.
Among a slew of candidates with relevant (and in some cases pretty similar) experience, here are our picks for Orange County’s municipal elections.
Chapel Hill Mayor
Jess Anderson
Incumbent mayor Jess Anderson won her first term two years ago on a pro-growth platform that touted the town’s Complete Communities Strategy as a guide for the ongoing population influx, and she is running unopposed on largely the same platform this year. We have found Anderson to be open and accessible, and we especially appreciate her policy chops and her clear vision for the council.
The mayor is just one vote on a council of nine but has the daunting task of trying to moderate the debates between the voices and factions on that rather large council (Durham and Cary have councils of seven; Raleigh has eight). Anderson still has work to do on that front; many residents were disappointed to see Chris Blue leave the town manager role after only two years, and the lack of a permanent manager threw this year’s budget process into a disarray that left Anderson voting against a majority of her council.
That said, the town’s new manager seems to be a strong consensus pick who has promised to make next year’s budget process smoother, and we hope that the appointment bodes well for Anderson’s continued work at building collaboration across her council.
We endorse Jess Anderson for a second term.
Chapel Hill Town Council (4 seats)
Camille Berry, Paris Miller-Foushee, Louie Rivers, Wes McMahon
All the candidates vying for seats on the Chapel Hill Town Council generally agree on the issues—though they may differ in approach or effectiveness—and they all bring relevant experience.
Incumbent Camille Berry has both worked in the affordable housing space and experienced housing insecurity herself. She has served Chapel Hill and the Triangle more broadly for more than 20 years, with extensive experience in financial operations and strategic planning that help make her a well-rounded council member. In addition to her experience, we appreciate Berry’s genuine attention to community engagement through her seemingly infinite hours spent meeting community members for coffee chats. She understands the needs of low- and moderate-income residents and brings specific ideas to the table. We endorse her for a second term.
Incumbent Paris Miller-Foushee also touts firsthand experience with issues relevant to the council’s work—housing affordability, public safety, and economic development. The assistant director for the Center for Muslim Life at Duke University, Miller-Foushee has local politics and government experience, including with Chapel Hill’s Police Advisory Committee and the Re-Imagining Community Safety Task Force.
On and off council, Miller-Foushee has been an advocate for enabling affordable housing, supporting unhoused people, providing alternative responses for mental health crises, and enhancing early warnings in flood-prone neighborhoods. This campaign cycle, Miller-Foushee pledged to “marshal the political will to end homelessness” in Chapel Hill. That’s an ambitious goal that will require coalition building—and we hope that Miller-Foushee is able to clear that strikingly high bar that she’s set for herself. We endorse her for a second term.
Among the challengers, we were particularly impressed by Louie Rivers III and Wes McMahon and endorse them both.
Rivers is a professor and former social scientist with the Environmental Protection Agency who holds degrees in natural resource management. He would bring valuable expertise in environmental policy to the council as Chapel Hill continues to deal with the dual challenges of growth and climate change. Rivers has demonstrated as much during his time on the town’s Planning Commission, where he has been an advocate for both increased housing supply and environmental protections.
Especially in the wake of Chantal and as the town continues working to rewrite its land use policies, his experience seems exactly right for a council that puts climate resilience among its top priorities. What’s more, Rivers has considerable community support, including from folks who don’t always agree on Chapel Hill politics, which points to his genuine character and ability to be an effective council member.
McMahon, a former refugee resettlement professional and current ESL instructor with a decade of experience on town commissions, is running with a focus on community engagement. We were healthily skeptical of McMahon’s claims about being a “connector” and a “communicator.” But everything we’ve seen from him indicates an earnestness and optimism that, matched with his experience, would make him an excellent choice for town council in a rather difficult time for Chapel Hill. McMahon has emphasized that the town needs to do more work to tell residents how they can actually have effective input, rather than giving them unrealistic expectations for changes that the town can’t actually make.
Let’s be clear—there is no reason not to vote for Erik Valera. We appreciate his nonprofit experience, his community leadership, and his focus on the social determinants of health. We endorsed Valera two years ago, and we still believe he would make an excellent council member. But, like voters next month, we have a difficult decision about whom to leave off our list. To us, the experience of the incumbents, and the climate and community focuses, respectively, of the other two challengers, help push them to our top four spots.
Carrboro Mayor
Barbara Foushee
Carrboro mayor Barbara Foushee is running all but unopposed for her second term as mayor. In her first term, Foushee led the council to make a major statement of Carrboro’s values in filing a lawsuit against Duke Energy for climate damages.
Foushee has made storm recovery a cornerstone of her campaign, given that Carrboro has residents who are still dealing with the aftermath of Chantal and the town’s own public works fleet was wiped out. Foushee also clearly enjoys the parts of the job that take her outside of city hall and embodies the role of ever-present small-town mayor at civic events. She is approachable, knowledgeable, and capable.
Her opponent, Joe H. Lloyd Jr., has not participated in forums or questionnaires.
We endorse Barbara Foushee for a second term.
Carrboro Town Council (3 seats)
Danny Nowell, Cristóbal Palmer
The council, which has three candidates running for three seats, has continued to invest in sustainability and push for a modernized Unified Development Ordinance. Danny Nowell, a democratic socialist who takes every opportunity to talk about either the power of labor or the tactics of basketball, is seeking a second term on the council. Cristóbal Palmer, who won the special election for a vacancy last year on a platform of transit and equity advocacy, is seeking a full first term. Fred Joiner, a former Carrboro poet laureate, is bringing commendable focus on the arts and passion for the time to his bid for a first term, but we have too little information about his platform to issue an endorsement.
We endorse Nowell and Palmer for council.
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board (3 seats)
George Griffin, Riza Jenkins, Melinda Manning
There is no shortage of educated and civic-minded residents in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools (CHCCS) district, so it’s something of a mystery why only three of them are running for the three seats in this year’s school board election. Perhaps those legions have realized that it’s easier to criticize from behind an anonymous Reddit username than it is to lead from a public dais.
The CHCCS board has faced its fair share of challenges in recent years—and the job is not getting any easier as the board looks at carrying out the construction paid for by the recent bond, consolidating elementary schools as enrollment declines, and figuring out how to maintain the same levels of excellence in a time when everything costs more and state funding declines along with student enrollment.
The board’s most daunting challenge will be in how to communicate solutions to the public, and how to maintain trust when those solutions cause some pain.
George Griffin and Riza Jenkins have proven themselves as effective leaders and communicators in their terms on the board. Griffin’s service in education goes back to the 1970s, and it shows in his knowledge of policy and adeptness in running board meetings. In addition to four years on the CHCCS board, Griffin also served as an administrator in Durham and Wake counties and at the state level. Jenkins, in addition to her four years on the board, brings valuable experience as a single mother of three CHCCS students who has long volunteered in local schools and the community.
Newcomer Melinda Manning has run on a platform of increasing transparency, promising to make more information accessible to parents and community members. Manning has a varied background of education experience, advocacy work, and civic involvement, having served as a teacher, assistant dean of students at UNC-Chapel Hill, a member of the Carrboro Board of Adjustment, and former board president for the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
We are pleased to endorse George Griffin, Riza Jenkins, and Melinda Manning for school board.
Correction: A previous version of this story state that Louie Rivers III is a current EPA employee and former professor.
INDY editor-in-chief Sarah Willets and staff writer Chase Pellegrini de Paur contributed to these endorsements.
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