Winner: I'm just tip of iceberg

Chapel Hill elects 'pragmatic' man

CHAPEL HILL -- The results won't be official until Tuesday, but local politicos are busy debating how newcomer Matt Czajkowski managed to beat incumbent and Chapel Hill native Cam Hill for the last seat on the Town Council.

Unofficially, Czajkowski edged Hill by 63 votes and could be certified a winner next week along with incumbents Sally Greene, Bill Strom and Jim Ward, and Mayor Kevin Foy. "I didn't work hard enough, and it's my own fault," Hill said.

Czajkowski ran on a platform of downtown safety, a smoother development process and fiscal responsibility. He cast himself as a "pragmatic" candidate in contrast to the sitting council.

He said his message resonated with "moms in minivans" who want to bring their children to Franklin Street but don't feel safe.

"All I do is represent the changing demographics in Chapel Hill," he said. "This is a matter of people being not necessarily happy with some aspects of their town, and they're voting for somebody who's actually agreeing with them."

Local activist Tom Jensen, who helped with Hill's campaign and works for the Sierra Club, which endorsed all the incumbents, said Czajkowski attracted people who don't normally vote in Chapel Hill.

"If Czajkowski does win, I think the key factor for him will have been [mayoral challenger] Kevin Wolff's strong push to get Republican votes out the last week before the election," Jensen wrote in the online chat room orangepolitics.org. "Although [he is] not a Republican, I think most would agree that the themes Matt emphasized probably would have made him more palatable to Republican voters."

Jensen pointed out that Czajkowski finished first among all candidates in the same three voting precincts where Wolff garnered at least 40 percent of the vote.

But those precincts average about 23 percent Republican -- about the same as the rest of Chapel Hill. And Czajkowski considers himself a moderate Democrat. He voted for John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000.

"I always vote for Democratic presidents," Czajkowski said. "I have never voted for a local municipal election here. ... I never thought it was worth it because I never saw a candidate that to me really was meaningfully different."

Czajkowski would not be the first Town Council member friendly to business interests. Lee Pavao and Pat Evans took up that mantle in the 1990s.

Evans, chairwoman of Friends of Downtown, celebrated Czajkowski's election Wednesday, both for his interest in downtown and his expertise as a corporate finance officer. "I think he'll be very, very helpful in that regard," she said.

Czajkowski criticized the "OPies" on Orange Politics, calling them activists who are out of touch with mainstream Chapel Hill.

"There are an awful lot of moderates in Chapel Hill," he said, "and the moderates are slowly but surely starting to assert themselves, and I am just the tip of the iceberg."