A tense silence hung over city hall. Raleigh City Council member Christina Jones, with a slight smile, had just moved to restore Citizen Advisory Councils, a system of resident input groups dismantled in 2020 under Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin’s leadership.
After a beat, a few city council members—those in the know—hastily made their own comments in favor of`restoring city support for CACs. Baldwin kept her cool, at least until a few minutes later, when in a clipped, measured voice, she said it would have been “considerate” of Jones to share her motion with the full council before “surprising” people with it at the table.
“The reason I’m OK with how this happened today is because this is what you did to us four years ago,” Jones shot back, referring to the surprise vote to disband CACs, made without public input. Jones, the former chair of the broader Raleigh CAC (RCAC) organization, had finally reversed what she called “an attempt to silence our voices.”
The scene at February’s meeting wasn’t unexpected. Baldwin has been at odds with some council members since 2022, when four newcomers, including Jones, were elected. The current differences on issues ranging from development to community engagement and a Gaza ceasefire resolution occasionally escalate into heated dialogue, marking a shift from Baldwin’s early days as mayor when the council was united in a flurry of pro-development activity.
In 2019, Baldwin, who had served on the council for a decade through 2017, entered a crowded mayoral field as the voice of experience, promising to support community policing, create more walkable neighborhoods, and build more affordable housing. With a stagnant city council fraught with infighting frustrating many Raleighites, Baldwin won the race with 38.2 percent of the vote, taking charge of a younger council and embarking on an era of productivity.
Over the past five years, Baldwin led the council in a series of sweeping reforms that will shape Raleigh’s future for decades. Among her accomplishments are the signature “missing middle” housing policy, an $80 million affordable housing bond, and $39 million in federal funding for Bus Rapid Transit along New Bern Avenue. She’s also overseen progress on Dix Park construction and helped secure $300 million in public funds for renovations to an aging PNC Arena.
As the council made these changes, however, Baldwin’s administration came under fire. The surprise decision to disband CACs, which was not on the agenda and left council member David Cox out of the loop entirely, received harsh criticism from CAC members and other neighborhood groups. Later, in 2021, the council made another big decision behind closed doors, changing Raleigh’s election process without discussing the proposal in open session. Despite making some positive reforms that improved voter turnout in city elections, the changes also delayed the municipal election that year and gave city council members an extra year in office.
A few other dark spots mar Baldwin’s tenure. Her position at the contracting company Barnhill, which does business with the city, was controversial. She resigned in 2021, and disgruntled constituents mounted an unsuccessful effort to recall her. Downtown Raleigh has been in decline since the start of the COVID pandemic, with businesses struggling to survive amid crime and economic turmoil. And some say the city mismanaged revenue-generating events, such as the Christmas Parade, after the council disallowed vehicles following a tragic accident, and the IBMA bluegrass festival Raleigh lost to Tennessee.
Before Baldwin left the mayoral race in April citing a previously undisclosed breast cancer diagnosis, she had lost support, with popular former mayors Nancy McFarlane and Charles Meeker quickly endorsing Janet Cowell, a former council member, state senator, and state treasurer, after she announced her mayoral candidacy in January.
“I don’t feel like things are going that well and it’s time for some new leadership,” Meeker told The News & Observer in March.
But Baldwin has undoubtedly made progress in a rapidly changing city. While her detractors argue that her tenure won’t pan out for Raleigh in the long run, her record of achievement is solid and her legacy visible every day on the ground in Raleigh’s emerging built environment. The city is growing, and Baldwin had no small part in ushering that growth along.
Losing community trust
After the 2020 vote on CACs, the COVID pandemic stalled efforts at creating new, more expansive ways of connecting with the public. While the city council created a new Office of Community Engagement in 2022, the CAC vote hung over Baldwin’s administration.
Looking back, Baldwin says that while the decision was not her idea, she “didn’t disagree” with it.
“CACs were fighting amongst themselves about changing their rules,” she says. “They could not build consensus. We wanted to see CACs agree that they would have elections, that they would have different people in charge … to develop future leaders.”
Baldwin adds that while some CACs did a good job bringing in “new blood,” the RCAC faced heavy resistance in trying to incorporate new rules.
“It was frustrating to not be making progress to reform the CAC system,” Baldwin says. “I had a strong feeling that there had to be a better way.”
Jones, the loudest critic of the CAC vote, has long disagreed. Elected chair of the RCAC in 2019, Jones says she saw the “flaws of the organization” and understood CACs were not perfect. She planned to work with the city council to “build community,” she adds.
“When a month later CACs got disbanded, it was a shock. I said, ‘Wait a minute, I thought we were in this together. And if not us, who are you talking to?’” Jones says. “That was a monumental reason why I decided to run [for city council].”
CACs’ return this year has “energized” Jones, she says. As part of a compromise, she agreed that CACs will no longer make advisory votes on rezonings. But that won’t stop CACs from speaking for neighborhoods, she adds.
Jones says she hopes CACs can expand outreach efforts and bring more voices to the table, including renters’. She’s working with leaders to funnel CAC concerns and questions through a council liaison, instead of council members hearing “eight different messages from a million different people,” which was part of the problem before.
“As an organization, we want to be grassroots, we want to be autonomous, but we’ve also never had to do it on our own,” Jones says. “There’s been a big learning curve.”
Efforts to engage the public are also ongoing at the Office of Community Engagement. Baldwin says she’s “very pleased” with its work, including operating a community engagement vehicle and meeting with local leaders about the future of the DMV site in Southeast Raleigh.
Others disagree, and the city has continually drawn critics for its alleged inability to meaningfully engage the public. The city’s proposed relocation of Red Hat Amphitheater from its current location to a site a block away, which would involve closing South Street to traffic, is one of the latest examples of where the city has fallen short. While keeping the amphitheater downtown has broad support, residents say the move will impact the surrounding neighborhoods and wish they had been consulted.
“The plan to close the block of South Street is being pushed through without public engagement, especially from those most impacted by this closure,” Frank Haynes, a resident of the nearby Boylan Heights neighborhood, told the council at an August meeting.
A racial reckoning
In 2020, activists marched through downtown Raleigh chanting “I can’t breathe,” and “no justice, no peace,” in a series of protests following George Floyd’s murder. At the time, many hoped city leaders would hear their calls for racial justice and make major reforms to the Raleigh Police Department (RPD).
But four years later, activists feel as disheartened as ever.
“I would give [the RPD] a failing grade, because we have not seen any attempts at cultural change,” says Dawn Blagrove of Emancipate NC. “Or even acknowledgment that there needs to be a change in the culture.”
Blagrove says that while RPD has added new policies, officers have not faced real consequences for breaking them. The city enacted a “de-escalation” policy, for example, in late 2022. But when police confronted Darryl Williams in a Raleigh parking lot just months later, officers tased him repeatedly and restrained him, leading to his death. Officers involved in use-of-force incidents like this remain on the job, Blagrove notes.
“There is a lot of lip service,” she says, “[and] there is very little genuine desire to change. The change has to come from the top down.”
Overpolicing Black and brown neighborhoods and harassing residents continues, Blagrove argues. Activist Kerwin Pittman agrees.
“It seems like [RPD officers] feel more emboldened and empowered at this point,” Pittman says.
Despite ongoing pressure from citizens to divest from policing and invest in mental health and other community services, the city raises the police budget year over year.
Baldwin and other council members defend the budget increases as necessary to pay officers a living wage and fight staffing shortages. But the city’s other efforts to address racial injustice—a police-department-housed ACORNS unit and now-defunct police advisory board—have not satisfied protesters. And people of color, including Javier Torres, Reuel Rodriguez-Nunez, and Daniel Turcios, continue to die at the hands of Raleigh police.
Building new homes
One area in which Baldwin has seen undeniable success is in adding density to the city.
Baldwin championed Raleigh’s “missing middle” policy, and after passing in 2021 it has changed the city’s built landscape significantly. Designed to allow developers to build more townhomes, condos, cottage courts, and accessory dwelling units, the more permissive zoning structure has so far resulted in the construction of more than 2,800 new housing units, 203 of which the city considers affordable.
In June, planning and development director Pat Young touted the program’s success, calling it “one of the most productive in the country.” The city’s historic housing bond also fueled the construction of additional housing, with $7 million going to King’s Ridge, a nonprofit-operated apartment complex designed to help people transition out of homelessness.
The “missing middle” policy has mainly faced criticism from homeowners in historic neighborhoods, who argue the new rules don’t increase affordable housing but allow developers to build out of step with neighborhood character.
In 2023, six Hayes Barton homeowners sued the city (and a local developer) over the construction of 17 townhomes expected to sell for some $2 million apiece. The project was allowed without a rezoning hearing thanks to “missing middle.” In July, a judge blocked the project.
The council’s seeming willingness to deviate from the city’s Comprehensive Plan and grant site rezonings on a project-by-project basis is a source of frustration for some residents, too.
Despite this pushback, Baldwin says the city has “done the right thing.”
“There’s going to be people who don’t want to see change. And the fact is we’re changing,” Baldwin says. “We have to consider housing affordability and choice. Not everybody can afford to live in a 4,500-square-foot home. So we’ve got to start doing things differently.”
“Missing middle housing is the type of housing that used to be built before redlining,” she adds, “before they made single-family zoning the god.”
End of an era
Although Baldwin was first elected as mayor on promises of forward progress, momentum has slowed in recent years amid city council infighting and caustic exchanges at the council table.
Jones maintains that while there have been tense moments, conversations have never turned disrespectful, catty, or childish. Much of the tension has centered on important issues.
“People can disagree and not hate each other. Democracy is not always promised to be nice, to be easy,” Jones says. “We’re allowed to speak and say what we need to say in defense of something we believe in.”
She says it’s “a little bit crazy to expect that you put eight people in a room and [for] them to be best friends all the time and agree” on every issue.
“Whether you’re working in politics or you’re working in finance or at a school, you’re going to have differences of opinion.”
Despite recent conflicts, Baldwin says the council has “still managed to get things done,” moving forward on “a number of rezonings,” affordable housing, and the approval of the Bus Rapid Transit overlay district.
“We haven’t put on the brakes,” she says, citing recent economic development wins, including the PNC investment.
“The redevelopment for an entertainment district over there, we’re talking a billion-dollar investment, largest in the history of our city,” Baldwin says. “That is a legacy type of thing that we all could get behind …. We’ve moved things forward.”
Although Baldwin will leave the council, she’ll continue to advocate for affordable housing as executive director of Cooper Charitable Foundation, which provides housing stability grants to help people buy homes or stay in their current homes.
“This is something I really care about,” Baldwin says. “In some ways, having this role gave me permission to leave or not run again, because I’ll still be involved with work that I’m passionate about and warms my heart.”
Baldwin will also continue to serve on the GoTriangle Board of Trustees, at least until her term expires in 2026. As she moves away from local politics, Baldwin says she hopes the next council will continue her work to invest in Triangle sports and expand regional rail service.
College basketball, professional hockey, and women’s soccer can all be bigger economic drivers, Baldwin says. She adds that train lines connecting Raleigh to Washington, Wilmington, Salisbury, and Asheville could be environmentally friendly regional “game changers.”
After 15 total years in office, Baldwin is looking forward to taking care of her family and herself, she adds. She’s ready to step back.
“I felt that sometimes, somebody’s telling you something and you’re not getting the message,” Baldwin says. “I just said, ‘I feel like it’s time.’”
This is the first in a four-part series on the Raleigh City Council leading up to the municipal election this fall.
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