Tim Niles is a founding member of Livable Raleigh and has been a resident of Raleigh for over 30 years.
Tim spoke to City Council on June 11, 2024:
Good evening Councilors:
It’s an election year. Perhaps it’s a good time to look at your past actions and paths forward.
Many of you campaigned on reinstating CACs (Citizen Advisory Councils) and kept that promise. You also provided access to some community centers for meetings.
Has there been any further progress on rebuilding this partnership or does it have to wait until after the election?
You still have time to put the CAC information back on the city website.
You could work to restore the CACs in Southeast Raleigh that shut down when they lost city support.
You know the old saying, you broke it, you bought it.
Many of you campaigned on reforming Missing Middle policy. The Planning Director advised you that it can be reformed. (here)
Why hasn’t this been given a higher priority?
While progress may be occurring behind closed doors, the public deserves to see movement to revise a policy that seems to be doing everything BUT increasing affordable housing.
After a year of discussing election reform and advocating for letting the public decide by ballot referendum, your impromptu action on May 7th took that choice away from the voters.
Was this the best way forward? Or, should you have placed your trust with the electorate?
Mayor Baldwin is quoted in Raleigh Magazine saying:
“People say they support 4-year terms”
This is straight up misinformation. The City conducted two polls. (here and here) Both times the results showed the majority is opposed to 4-year terms and she knows this.
She went on to say:
“If you put it on the ballot in a presidential year it’s probably going to fail because it will be at the bottom and won’t get a lot of attention.”
This is the height of hypocrisy. The Mayor and Councilors Melton, Forte and Branch are directly responsible for moving Raleigh elections to the end of a very long ballot.
They intentionally moved Raleigh elections from being the ONLY elections on the ballot to competing with state and federal elections for attention.
The question of 4-year terms would appear right after the City Council races, not off in some other random location.
How about just admitting it might fail simply because the public doesn’t support it as they have told you multiple times.
You directed the Department of Community Engagement to educate the public about city elections
If you can’t convince the public of the benefits of 4-year terms, the problem lies with YOU, not them!
The public is losing faith in government.
It’s time to step out from under administrative control and voice your independence.
Listen to your electorate and be more reflective of public input.
If anyone wants to sign the Election Reform Petition, meet me in the lobby.
Then meet the councilors who voted for the change to 4-year terms at the ballot box in November and vote them out of office.
Note – The councilors who voted to change from 2-year to 4-year terms, despite the public’s opposition, are Mayor Baldwin and Councilors Melton, Forte, Branch and Harrison.
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