City of Raleigh
Raleigh City Council
The Raleigh City Council has had eight members since 1973, which also happens to be the first and last time Raleigh had a black mayor, Clarence Lightner. Since then, the city’s population has almost quadrupled, yet the structure of its government has remained virtually the same.
That could soon change.
Last week, the council instructed city attorney Robin Tatum Currin to begin creating a study group to explore if and how the council’s structure should change. That could include increasing terms from two to four years, upping council members’ pay (currently $17,412 for what’s considered a part-time gig), and expanding the council’s size. The move came at the urging of a coalition of residents that includes former News & Observer publisher Orage Quarles III, former planning commission chairman Eric Braun, and former council candidate Ashton Mae Smith.
Smith, who asked the city to form the study group during the city council’s public comment period last week, told the INDY that “these conversations have been going on for a long time.”
“Raleigh has outgrown its current governance structure,” Smith says. “I think, for this particular council, there’s more appetite to at least start the conversations than we’ve historically seen.”
While the council asked its staff for information on the matter in 2017, that memo is “protected under attorney-client privilege,” according to Currin’s office. It’s unclear what was in the memo, but it is clear that nothing came of it.
The new study group will examine what cities of similar size do in terms of council pay, size, and term length. Its purpose is primarily to collect data so that the council can make a decision.
Council member David Cox thinks the city should look into expanding the council’s size. His district alone has over 90,000 residents. More council seats, be they at-large or by divvying up the five existing districts, could encourage folks to run who otherwise couldn’t.
“Demographically, the city’s changed a lot, and I think everyone is in agreement that the council doesn’t really represent, at least demographically, the city’s population,” Cox says. “Not that increasing the number of council members will necessarily fix that, but I think it gives a greater opportunity to allow that to happen.”
By design, most of the people who have been able to run for office have been independently wealthy and retired; they’ve also tended to be white. Increasing council members’ pay might allow lower-income residents to run for office.
Additionally, increasing term lengths to four years with staggered elections could create more consistency in city leadership while cutting down the time council members spend campaigning.
“The criticism is that, serving under two-year terms, you’re governing one year and running for reelection the next,” says Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin. “That’s a governance issue.”
The conversation on expanding the number of council seats will likely have to wait until the census is completed later this year, Baldwin says. After that, the city will update its district lines to ensure the population is distributed evenly anyway.
“We’ll be looking at the districts again this year, because let’s face it, a lot has changed in Raleigh in the last 10 years,” Baldwin says.
She hopes the study group can be appointed within the next 60 days and complete its work by the end of summer.
Contact Raleigh news editor Leigh Tauss at ltauss@indyweek.com.
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