City Council Meetings – November 7, 2023
Highlights from November 7, 2023 City Council Meeting
Highlights from November 7, 2023 City Council Meeting
Raleigh City Council is doing another survey about election reform. We say another because they did a survey on the topic and published those results in January 2022. But, they didn’t like your answers. So, they are commissioning another survey and this time they are wording the questions differently to try to get answers they like.
Let’s all remember the City has had nearly a full year to create new safety protocols so that these parade cancellations could have been avoided. And, to-date they have made no public statements about what work they have done to develop the new procedures. Or, if they have even started the process. This debacle and the lack of transparency should be an issue in next year’s City Council election.
In 2017, ‘The Color of Law’ landed like a bombshell in progressive housing policy circles. In Raleigh, powerful development interests saw the opportunity to adopt — some would say co-opt — Richard Rothstein’s anti-segregation message by promoting pro-density zoning rules that not only lifted exclusionary zoning rules, but went much further. By 2020, a new alliance of developer money, self-righteous Council aspirants and their white privileged adherents provided the lubrication to fast track pro-density zoning proposals. Novice Councilors were assured that pesky public input needn’t impede this sweet deal to meld profits and equity.
On that one magical day I always think this is something wonderful Raleigh can do that not every city can do. But now, other cities can do it and we can’t.
Please do not vote to pass this decision. There is another way, there is compromise here. The safety of the residents matters. We matter.