Durham Mayor Elaine O’Neal on her 1st year, whether she’ll run again and ‘mean people’
Elaine O’Neal isn’t your typical mayor.
A self-described introvert, she prefers quiet walks to press conferences. She shares the gavel so other City Council members can preside over long stretches of meetings.
O’Neal succeeded long-term Mayor Steve Schewel in the midst of COVID-19, a business boom and housing affordability crisis, and ongoing gun violence.
The former chief district court judge said she has had to adjust to how slowly the wheels of government turn and how mean some people can be.
O’Neal, 60, largely keeps her personal life private. She is a mother and grandmother, divorced but seeing someone. She grew up in the city’s West End neighborhood and has nurtured a lifelong passion for music, especially gospel.
As she enters the second half of her two-year term, O’Neal spoke with The News & Observer about 2022 and what lies ahead.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
N&O: What’s it been like?
O’Neal: It’s been a challenging year, the most challenging assignment that I’ve had, but I’ve enjoyed it. For the most part, I’m adjusting — still very much on a learning curve.
N&O: Durham is one of America’s fastest-growing big cities. What do you wish more people understood about housing and development?
O’Neal: One of the things that I did not understand is how really complex and layered it is. Since city governments are creatures of the legislature, we have very little authority in that area. We have only the authorities that are given to us by the state. It’s difficult to get a real grasp of all the moving parts and how they work together to create what we have now. I want people to know just how convoluted the housing issues are.
It’s going to take a community to make some different kinds of commitments to each other. One of those commitments has got to be that we want everybody in Durham, North Carolina — everyone in the United States — to have safe and affordable housing, which is a basic need.
N&O: Southeast Durham has seen more development approved in the past two years than the entire previous decade, prompting concerns about runoff and pollution. You typically vote against those cases. Why?
O’Neal: My thought process is I’m not clear. We’re hearing from both sides of the aisle. So you’re hearing from folks saying, ‘We need this development. People are coming.’ And I recognize that, but at the same time I love the earth, and I want people to be able to get what they need from the earth in a safe manner.
Growth has gone really fast out there in that area. From 2020 to now, there’s been more growth there than any part of the city. So then when you have a group of people who are consistently coming in, who’ve lived in these areas for years and say, ‘Hey, look, we’re having issues out here with our environment.’ That’s concerning to me.
And so until I am clear on what is going on with those two kind of dialogues, I’m going to vote no.
On gun violence in Durham
N&O: What’s something that you wish more people understood about gun violence in this city?
(A record number of people — 318 — got shot in Durham in 2020, 33 fatally. That number has since declined, though the police department reports 247 people were shot in 2022, 41 of them fatally.)
O’Neal: It takes time and trust for people to allow you to see what’s really going on and for us to be able to address it. So the willingness to take the time out, to see our neighbors and help our neighbors rather than just react when the gun goes off.
N&O: Has this job illuminated the root causes of violence in new ways?
O’Neal: Definitely. When you’re on the bench, when you speak things happen, right? ‘I hereby sentence you to life in prison,’ or ‘You’re on probation,’ or whatever, and it happens right then. That’s not the case in other parts of the government. It does not move that fast, and a lot of times it takes collaborative effort from not just the elected officials, but all of the entities that interact in that arena. You have to be proactive. And that’s a change for me.
N&O: Tell me about some of your travel that you’ve taken this year?
O’Neal: We’re a legacy city with the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative (a program at Harvard that helps mayors from around the world hone leadership skills), and that’s going to be a part of the great story that I hope Durham will be telling in a couple of years. I’ve been to New York and Amsterdam with them, all at their expense.
I’m also on the GoTriangle board. (GoTriangle is the region’s transit agency and is planning a commuter rail that will one day go through Durham.) So we’ve had a couple trips looking at transportation systems in Miami-Fort Lauderdale, down in that area.
I went to Selma, Alabama, for this grant we’re about to receive. (Durham was selected to receive up to $5 million from the Partnership for Equitable and Resilient Communities to address inequities.)
And of course, the greatest of all is I’ve been to the White House a couple times and met with our president, and been a part of the vice president’s motorcade twice here in Durham.
So I’ve been on the road. And that’s probably been the most challenging for me is the time management.
On being an introvert and ‘mean people’
N&O: You’ve told me you’re kind of an introvert. And you’ve been letting some of the other council members run parts of the meetings. What’s that like?
O’Neal: I’m used to working in a collaborative-type environment where people with different expertise can bring that in.
It doesn’t look like it from the outside of the courtroom, but it is actually a team effort to get a trial. Most people just concentrate on the judge. If one of those other players doesn’t show up, court will not happen that day. You have to have the clerk. You have to have the district attorney. You have to have the bailiff. So I’m used to working in an environment where the center of attention might seem that it’s on the person that sits in the black robe, but really it’s not. You’re really kind of the shot caller.
And then it helps me also to concentrate on hearing what people say.
So for me that’s working and they seem to enjoy that kind of interchange too. I like the fact that we can be innovative in that space. It’s a seven-member council and everybody has the same vote, and so I want everybody to participate in the running of that meeting.
N&O: What is one thing that has surprised you this year?
[long pause]
O’Neal: I can answer that immediately, but it’s like, do you say it to the press?
How demanding and mean people can be. And I’ve seen a lot of that in the courtroom, you know I have, but it still surprised me.
I’ve run into people who are just mean for no reason. And they’re demanding with it, like, ‘Fix this now.’ And they will have that type of tone in their emails and their texts. And it’s like, what? You are not going to talk to me in that kind of way. I’m real firm on that.
I don’t know that anyone really knows what this position feels like until you get in it. And that’s why I’m quick to tell people if you think you can do better, run.
On re-election plans
N&O: Are you going to run again?
Durham elects its mayors to two-year terms. Candidate filing will take place in July and a primary will be held in October.
The four-year seats of council members Javiera Caballero, Monique Holsey-Hyman and Jillian Johnson are also up for grabs in 2023.
O’Neal: I haven’t even thought about it, to be honest. I try to get up every day and deal with the day before me, because a lot of times if I look too far ahead in my calendar at how busy it is, I can be overwhelmed with the stuff that I want to try to accomplish.
I can’t even get there yet. I am not even thinking about that.
N&O: What is your vision for Durham’s future?
O’Neal: That is a great place to live, work and play. That’s it. And that’s got to be for everybody.
N&O: What would you say to someone who maybe feels disconnected from that vision or unsure of where the city is headed?
O’Neal: Look at your neighbor and look down the street and look in your neighborhood. I always try and tell people to look at least a 10-mile radius around you and see if everybody else is having that experience — your experience. How many have it better? How many have it worse?
And that will give you a starting point for where your connection is. That’s where all connection is. You just have to look around.
This story was originally published January 9, 2023 at 5:27 PM.
