Chapel Hill will elect 4 council members in November. This incumbent won’t run again.
Chapel Hill Town Council member Allen Buansi will not run for a second term in November, he announced Thursday in a news release.
Buansi, an attorney and the deputy director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights, was elected in 2017. Serving on the council “has been one of the great privileges of his life,” the Chapel Hill native said.
Buansi has been a leader in several town initiatives, including the Criminal Justice Debt program, Poet Laureate program, affordable housing projects and the community effort to reimagine public safety in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 murder in Minneapolis.
He also created the Training for Action and Progress program, which encourages young people and members of historically underrepresented communities to get involved.
TAP grew out of his campaign pledge to create a program to educate young people on local government and encourage them to serve, Buansi said Thursday evening in an interview with The News & Observer. The program had its first year in 2018, and now is being picked up by the Activate! IFC group.
In the past four years, Allen also has added duties outside of Chapel Hill to his schedule, serving as Gov. Roy Cooper’s appointee on the statewide Local Government Employees’ Retirement Board of Trustees, as assistant city attorney for the City of Greensboro, and on the State Board of Common Cause North Carolina, advocating for voters’ rights and ballot access.
He and his wife, Sarah, will continue to live in Chapel Hill with their children, Buansi said, adding that he “is so grateful to the people and voters of Chapel Hill for giving a homegrown kid an opportunity to serve and to move the ball forward.”
“I really enjoyed serving on council, but this particular fall is going to be a bit of a bear,” Buansi said. “My wife and I, we recently welcomed twins, and they’re not quite on a regular sleeping schedule yet, so between that, serving on council, working and then also campaigning — that campaigning part’s not going to work time wise.”
Chapel Hill council elections
In addition to Buansi, council members Hongbin Gu and Karen Stegman are up for re-election this year. Voters also will fill a fourth council seat, which has been vacant since former member Rachel Schaevitz moved to New Zealand in 2020.
Stegman recently announced she will run for a second term in office, along with the campaign season’s first challenger, executive chef and restaurant owner Vimala Rajendran.
Mayor Pam Hemminger’s term also will expire in December.
Candidates can file to run in the Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough municipal races, in addition to the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School Board race, from July 2-16.
This story was originally published June 24, 2021 at 4:14 PM.
