Where do Chapel Hill council candidates hang out? Here are their favorite spots.
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Five council candidates cite neighborhood spots that reveal local priorities.
- Parks, greenways and community centers feature prominently in candidates' platforms.
- Election set for Nov. 4 with early voting starting Oct. 16 in Hillsborough.
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Voter Guide: Chapel Hill, Carrboro & Hillsborough elections
On Nov. 4, 2025, Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough voters will elect mayors and town board members, and Chapel Hill and Carrboro voters will also elect Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board members. Here is information about voting and the candidates.
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Where someone lives and plays can say a lot about what they value and what might inform their vision for the future of their community.
Chapel Hill’s Town Council candidates sat down recently with The News & Observer to talk about election issues, but also to have a little fun by talking about their neighborhood and their favorite places.
Chapel Hill voters will elect four council members in a nonpartisan race on Nov. 4.
The slate of five candidates includes two incumbents — Camille Berry and Paris Miller-Foushee — and three challengers: Wes McMahon, Louie Rivers III and Erik Valera. Early voting began Oct. 16 in Hillsborough and starts Oct. 23 in Carrboro and Chapel Hill. (Mayor Jess Anderson, who is also on the ballot, is unopposed.)
Here’s what they said:
Camille Berry: I live adjacent to the Booker Creek neighborhood, and my favorite place to visit is where (we are) right now, Joe Van Gogh in Timberlyne [shopping center].
So many people pass through here. I get to see them. I get a lot of work done here. I also have a lot of conversations here. And the baristas are awesome. I don’t drink coffee anymore, but I come here just so I can talk with the baristas.
Wes McMahon: Technically, I live in Colony Woods. It’s in the part sometimes thought of as part of Briarcliff … over on the east side of town, near Ephesus Church Road Elementary School.
I like to spend my time here at the Community Center Park and on the Bolin Creek Trail. This is where town life started for me. My wife was working, and I became the at-home parent, so she could keep her job, and I got invested in how we can improve our playgrounds for families. So I got on the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee and got involved there with understanding how we fund our greenways, how we prioritize our park projects, and how we really create these amenities that we all love.
There’s a lot of great things we can do, and our parks and greenways are one of the ways that make us stand out among all the other communities in the area.
Paris Miller-Foushee: I live in the historic African-American community of Northside. This is my husband’s ancestral home. We are raising our 13-year-old son in his great-grandparents’ house, and I really like to spend my time along the Bolin Creek Trail.
I have an E-bike, and it’s just a beautiful place in space.
I love it because it’s really a highway of community. That’s how I view Bolin Creek Trail as a highway of community. You see people walking, biking, you come up upon a park and you have the beautiful Bolin Creek to be able to stop, sit and meditate with.
Louie Rivers III: I live in Northside, right on the edge of Carrboro.
I love the gym (at UNC Wellness in Meadowmont). It’s where I release stress, and there’s a really nice community for the gym. The people who work there are super nice … it’s a bit more laid-back of a gym. … You’re more likely to run into people that you want to have conversations with (and) the demographic for the gym is a bit older, (so) no one’s really in a rush. It also has a lobby area, so I can do some work here, if I’m working out of the office.
People, when they think about mixed use, I think they would think about places like Meadowmont, where you have access to the gym, you can walk to a grocery store, you can walk to the UPS store. You could walk to a couple different restaurants. … I feel like our neighborhood, Northside, feels that way, where we can walk to a lot of grocery stores. We can walk to Target. We can walk to Weaver Street. … This is what Chapel Hill feels like to me.
Erik Valera: I live in the Colonial Heights precinct near Umstead Park, and I love having the park nearby. I love having our greenways nearby. I am within walking distance to downtown Chapel Hill and downtown Carrboro.
I like to spend my time here in downtown Chapel Hill. I really love Epilogue books, where we are right now. This is a community space. It’s a cultural space. It’s a space that brings authors from all over the United States and all over the world, artists, poets, and it is inclusive. It brings everyone together.
This story was originally published October 18, 2025 at 7:00 AM.
