Raleigh mayor warns against ‘silly season’ after verbal skirmish at City Council meeting
A Raleigh City Council presentation on community engagement Tuesday ended in an accusation of politicking and an admonishment.
The topic of how and who the city consults with in its decision making continues to be a hot-button issue headed into the local elections.
Tiesha Hinton, the city’s inaugural community engagement manager, updated the City Council on the launch of a new community engagement hub, the new community engagement board and outreach with community organizations.
At the end of the presentation Council member David Cox thanked city staff members for meeting with some of the remaining Citizen Advisory Councils or CACs.
“I want to commend you on that,” Cox said. “And I also want to express a concern because there are some members of the council who have expressed that they don’t want to have anything to do with CACs or Livable Raleigh. And I want to be sure that all of our organizations in the city are treated fairly and equally.”
The Raleigh City Council voted to disband the 18 community organizations in early 2020. Some have dissolved, while others have continued to meet either under the CAC moniker or under rebranded neighborhood groups.
Livable Raleigh is a volunteer group of citizens active in local politics, especially around quality of life issues, according to its website. The group has generally been critical of Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin and the council majority.
‘Self elected, self selected’
The comments didn’t sit well with Council member David Knight, who said he had to respond.
“Mr. Cox decided to go political. So it’s that time of year, and I get it,” Knight said. “I have been very public since this council disbanded the CACs that I thought it’d be inappropriate for us to meet with them. They don’t exist in our process and it’s misleading to the public and mischaracterizes what they can do once we did that.”
“They were voting on other people’s property rights and other people’s rights without being elected to do so,” Knight said. “They were self elected, self selected. And they were exclusive. And they are inappropriate.”
Before the meeting adjourned, Baldwin reminded the council members to “focus on governance.”
“I just want to remind everybody (that) when we’re sitting at this dais we’re here to govern,” Baldwin said. “This is not about politics, running for office or anything else. It’s here making decisions that benefit the public. So let’s try to keep politics out of this.
After the meeting Baldwin said she was directing her comments toward the entire council and not a particular member.
“We’re here to govern not to politic,” she said. “You do that outside this building. And I don’t want to see silly season at the table. We have to be serious. We have to get things done. That’s what we’re elected to do.”
Cox is not seeking another term, while Knight and Baldwin are running for re-election. Early voting for the Nov. 8 election begins Oct. 20.
This story was originally published September 21, 2022 at 8:18 AM.
