Filing for the Nov. 8 elections opened with a pre-Fourth of July bang Friday across the Triangle.
All three Orange County mayors filed for re-election on the busy first day of filing.
Chapel Hill Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt will seek his second term. Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton and Hillsborough Mayor Tom Stevens each will seek a fourth.
Chilton says this will be his last. He wants to stay on board as the town hires a new manager and make progress on some long-standing projects. After that, "I will be entirely ready to let somebody else take over," he says.
Also on Friday, Apex Mayor Keith Weatherly, Garner Mayor Ronnie Williams and Wendell Mayor Harold Broadwell each filed for re-election. Tim Hinnant filed to challenge Broadwell as Wendell mayor, and Jun Lee filed to run as mayor in Knightdale.
Other Friday filings:
Darren Eustance for Apex Town Council.
Incumbent Charlie Adcock and challengers Ed Ridpath, Sean Hearn and Tommy Williford for Fuquay-Varina Board of Commissioners.
Challenger Amaka Flynn and incumbents Buck Kennedy and Jackie Johns for Garner Town Council.
Incumbent Tim Sack and challenger Ken Henke for Holly Springs Town Council.
Challenger Steve Sommerville for Knightdale Town Council.
Challenger M. Greg Harrington and incumbent Peter Thibodeau for Wake Forest Board of Commissioners.
James W. Parham and Sam Laughery for Wendell Board of Commissioners.
Augustus Cho, Laney Dale and Lee Storrow for Chapel Hill Town Council.
Incumbents Dan Coleman and Lydia Lavelle and newcomer Michelle Johnston for Carrboro Board of Aldermen.
Incumbent Evelyn Lloyd for Hillsborough Town Board.
Incumbent Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board members Mia Burroughs and Jamezetta Bedford for four- and two-year terms on the board, respectively.
Elections for Raleigh, Cary and the Wake school board will be Oct. 11, with their filing period starting July 25.
Finding a hub
The possibility of renovating the old Dillon Supply steel fabrication building as a rail and transit hub in downtown Raleigh has captured the attention of city leaders eager for affordable solutions.
But the $20 million estimate for the project only represents an initial start-up phase, City Planning Director Mitchell Silver emphasized. The estimate doesn't include, for example, parking facilities or connections to the bus system, which could send the price tag much higher, Silver said.
The building's location and large size offer advantages, but city planners must figure out where and how to provide 800 to 1,000 parking spots, among other logistical challenges. The renovated building would initially house an Amtrak station but could be expanded for future commuter rail and high-speed rail.
The city's passenger rail task force will meet July 18 to hear more about the concept.
"It's a new puzzle," Silver said Friday. "This does solve one problem, but it triggers some others."
On accreditation
Wake County Superintendent Tony Tata isn't rushing to tell school board members to take advantage of a new state law that would allow districts to seek accreditation for its high schools from the state Board of Education.
The new law was passed in response to problems that Wake and Burke counties are having with AdvancED, a Georgia-based group that has warned it could remove accreditation from both districts' high schools.
The new state law would prohibit state-run universities and community colleges from considering accreditation in admissions, scholarship and loan decisions unless accreditation was from a state agency.
Tata said Wake officials first need to see how the accreditation process would be set up by the state.
In the meantime, Tata said he feels they're in "good shape" to address the concerns that AdvancED had raised in a report in March about the school system's practices.
Wrong, yet true, they say
We of the Triangle Politics staff are avid readers of the Elephant Express, an e-newsletter produced by the Republican Party of Wake County. It is packed with news developments, as well as encouragement for GOP members and accounts of recent triumphs. However, we had to take exception to a recent Express claim, to wit:
"We have now witnessed from our Wake County Schools and our Wake County Commissioners, major accomplishments thought impossible years before. Together, we have:
Reduced taxes for our citizens,
Reduced the size of government bureaucracies, and
Balanced our budgets."
First of all, the school board has no power to lower taxes, or raise them, for that matter. And the commissioners, whom the law requires to balance their budget, maintained the existing property tax rate, but did not cut taxes, according to County Manager David Cooke.
This warranted a note to Wake GOP Chair Susan Bryant, who womaned up, conceding that some of the language wasn't correct, but maintaining that the passage was true in a larger sense.
"No, neither Board cut taxes ... but they did cut spending so taxes on the County level didn't have to be raised," Bryant wrote. "The School Board did a particularly admirable job of making sure to enact efficiencies so they didn't have to beg for a tax hike. And the legislature did cut taxes.
"So our Republicans helped in making sure taxes didn't get raised, and then our Republicans in the legislature did cut Gov Bev's 'Temporary' Sales Tax by one cent, so every Wake County Citizen is getting a tax cut."
Compiled by staff writers Mark Schultz, T. Keung Hui, Matt Garfield and Thomas Goldsmith.