You could have made a difference but you failed!

Donna Bailey has lived in Raleigh for over 25 years and has been a neighborhood advocate for much of that time. She served as President of the University Park Neighborhood Association and has also been Chair of the Hillsborough-Wade Citizens Advisory Council (CAC). Donna has been very active in educating the public on what is going on within the city and making sure that resident’s voices are heard. Donna is currently a member of the city’s Community Engagement Board.

Donna spoke to City Council on May 14, 2024:  

I want to address the vote that was taken last week regarding changing your terms to 4 years.

There has been much discussion about how disastrous the last council was with all the behind-the-scenes activity that changed our city council elections with no citizen input.

So now you did get citizen input with 2 surveys and one in-person meeting with fewer than 30 people in attendance. Both the surveys showed that the residents clearly wanted the 4 year term to go to a referendum on the ballot. The public meeting that was held was pitiful.

I’d like to point out that Livable Raleigh held a public forum on the New Bern BRT, which Councilors Patton and Melton attended, and had over 100 people in attendance. Livable Raleigh is an all volunteer grass roots organization and we had a 300% greater turnout than the meeting that was held by the Citizen Engagement office that has at least a $500,000 budget!

Corey, Jonathan and Stormie, you all participated in the last fiasco and you have shown that nothing has changed with your ability to represent what your constituents want.

This decision further undermines any trust with your decisions and who you are truly representing.

It’s unfortunate because you could have really made a difference with this vote and you failed and further undermined any trust and transparency.

Corey, this is particularly bad for you since you want to be the next mayor of Raleigh. This vote shows you are not to be trusted, again. And your comment of just let the citizens go out and get 5,000 signatures is demeaning.

So Livable Raleigh and others in the city ARE collecting signatures.  There are a few clipboards circulating in the audience where I invite any Raleigh voter to sign. (find petition here)

The bad part is that 4 year terms with a primary is probably the only way to get RID OF the plurality voting that you all voted for last time. Raleigh is better than this. I hope you will consider revoting on this promise that many of you made to the residents of Raleigh.

I was hoping that you would have learned something with the last Baldwin council and the manipulation that you followed from Mary-Ann.

NOTE – Donna will be holding a petition signing event at her home

710 Rosemont Ave 27607, Wed May 29, 5:30pm to 7:30pm.

You can sign the petition or bring your completed petition pages to us!

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