Tim Niles is a founding member of Livable Raleigh and has been a resident of Raleigh for over 30 years.
Tim spoke at City Council on December 12, 2023. He had planned a 3 minute comment on election reform. But, due to the abrupt change by Mayor Baldwin limiting speaker time to only 1 minute, he had to change his comment. His 1 minute comment is printed here 1st followed by the comments he had planned originally:
In March this council voted to allow 3 minutes of public comment, guaranteed.
I know what guaranteed means.
There is no disclaimer saying it doesn’t apply if people actualy sign up to take advantage of the opportunity.
The problem is when you adopted this new guaranteed policy, you didn’t update the Rules of Decorum.
You need to remove the Mayor’s discretion to change the time lilmit.
I want to remind all voters that Mayor Baldwin and Councilors Melton, Forte and Branch voted against their own guarantee tonight. They voted for it before they voted against it.
Can you trust them to keep their word when they run for re-election?
Today they have shown you that you can’t!
You can read more about the reduction in speaking time here: Councilors betray the people to serve Mayor Baldwin
Mr. Niles’ originally planned comments follow next.
You met in June to authorize a new survey and expect to receive the results in January. Some of you didn’t like the results of the previous survey and decided another one was necessary.
Councilor Harrison asked to include a question about a primary because several councilors expressed a desire to have a primary if you move to four-year terms. She also asked for an opportunity to review the questions and provide input before the survey went public.
On the other hand, Mayor Baldwin summarized only four questions she wanted to include.
The survey went out in November and Councilor Harrison’s requests were ignored. There was no question about a primary and no opportunity to offer input into the wording of the questions. Only the mayor’s questions were included and only the City Manager and Community Engagement Department had the opportunity to review the questions.
The results are predictable.
The questions are worded with a bias intended to steer the respondents to the mayor’s preferences.
The first question on the original survey was:
“City Council should transition from two-year terms to four-year terms. YES or NO”
Straight forward wording and the result was a resounding 73% against four-year terms.
That same question reworded for the new survey:
“City Council members for the City of Raleigh currently serve 2-year terms. Extending the time between elections could give City Council members more time to learn about the organization, its issues, and align themselves to longer-term projects.
How supportive would you be of City Council members serving a 4-year term instead of a 2-year term?”
The bias in the framing is laughable. Tell the survey taker the possible benefits of four-year terms without warning them of the possible harms.
The question about adding districts to increase the size of council warns about the inconvenience of redistricting and moving precincts while noting those are not required for adding At-Large seats.
Worded to say adding districts is scary and uncomfortable.
This was all done in service to Mayor Baldwin’s preferences. She wants to move to four-year terms without a primary and wants to add an At-Large seat instead of adding districts. All of this could be implemented for the November 2024 election.
A primary and more district seats can’t be implemented in time for next year’s election because you’ve waited too long to take action.
The results of the survey will be meaningless because the questions were engineered to lead to a predictable outcome.
Because the mayor ignored other councilor’s input, all residents have not been represented.
Because the questions were manipulated, you need to throw out the results.
Read the results from the original survey: Survey Results for Council Term Length
Read the questions from the second survey: Council didn’t like your survey answers
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