Randee Haven-O’Donnell, candidate for Carrboro, NC, Town Council

Five candidates are competing for three seats on the Carrboro Town Council in the Nov. 2 nonpartisan election.

Incumbent Randee Haven O’Donnell is seeking her fifth term in office. She is competing against two fellow incumbent council members Barbara Foushee and Jacquelyn Gist, and two challengers, Aja Kelleher and Danny Nowell.

Early voting in the nonpartisan Nov. 2 election begins Oct. 14 and runs through Oct. 30.

To find polling places and full details on early voting, visit co.orange.nc.us/1720/Elections or contact the Board of Elections at 919-245-2350 or vote@orangecountync.gov.

Name: Randee Haven-O’Donnell

Age: 70

Residence: 106 Fairfield Court

Occupation: Science, climate and environmental educator

Education: Bachelor of Science, Stony Brook University; Master of Science, Bank Street College of Education

Political or civic experience: Town of Carrboro Council (2005-present); NC DEQ Equity and Justice Advisory Board member; Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP Branch member; Climate Reality Orange County Chapter mentor; former president, Chapel Hill-Carrboro Association of Educators; Diversity Education Trainer (1992-97); Leadership Triangle, NC, former Executive Board member and program alumna; Sierra Club member; Environmental Educators of North Carolina member

Campaign website: randeehavenodonnell.org

Endorsements: Sierra Club, Equality NC

What do you think the town’s top three priorities should be? Choose one and describe how you will work to address it.

▪ Racial Equity and Social Justice

▪ Affordable Living, Housing, and Food Security (Local Economy, Arts, Independent and BIPOC Businesses)

▪ Climate Action and Environment

As a science educator, environmental activist, and social justice and diversity trainer, I have been vigorously involved in climate action, environmental education and protection. I will continue the work I have done and presently do to address the climate red alert priority and its existential challenge in the following ways:

▪ As a member of the Town of Carrboro Council and liaison to the Environmental Advisory Board and the Community Climate Action Plan Task Force (CCCAP), I have envisioned, implemented and continue to work on:

-CCCAP aligned educational outreach modules: architect and curriculum content designer, co-working with community module model builders. The current modules consist of:

Emissions: Transportation

Energy Efficiency (including Solarization and Weatherization)

Ecosystem Preservation and Protection

Food Footprint and Emissions

Composting: Community and Neighborhood

In development: Stormwater, Repurposing Stuff

▪ As a member of the NCDEQ Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board, I have been actively engaged across NC in community race equity and justice advocacy. This includes, and is not limited to, climate resiliency, mitigation and stakeholder empowerment in the most vulnerable of NC communities and counties burdened and compounded by cumulative impacts. Some of the issues and initiatives I have worked with our EJE Board to address include and not limited to:

-GenX permitting

-Coal Ash

-ACP

-Farm Digesters

▪ Climate Reality Orange County Chapter - Chapter co-founder and mentor

▪ NAACP Chapel Hill-Carrboro Branch Environmental Justice Committee

▪ Implemented:

-CCCAP aligned educational outreach modules: architect and curriculum content designer, co-working with community module model builders. The current modules consist of:

Emissions: Transportation

Energy Efficiency (including Solarization and Weatherization)

Ecosystem Preservation and Protection

Food Footprint and Emissions

Composting: Community and Neighborhood

In development: Stormwater, Repurposing Stuff

I will continue this work and will embrace every opportunity to further these initiatives.

What is the town doing right, and wrong, about development and growth?

What Carrboro is doing “right”: Comprehensive planning; Carrboro is asking the “right” question: “What can we help to create together?” This is the question being asked by Carrboro Connects, the interactive and intersectional plan to facilitate engagement in Carrboro’s comprehensive plan.

This is the first Carrboro Comprehensive Plan of this magnitude, reach and depth. The primary aim of Carrboro Connects is to inform the Comprehensive Plan with widespread, diverse, accessible and inclusive public engagement that will reflect deep community engagement in the planning process. This is what determinative democracy looks like. Broad community engagement will determine the values and guiding principles that will shape the development and growth of Carrboro. Thus far, the Carrboro Connects process has shown significant broad-based community engagement and solid, substantive discussion. Coming up this fall, we look forward to the Comprehensive Plan Task Force findings and recommendations to the Council.

What Carrboro is doing “wrong”: Wrong connotes something dishonest or immoral. In my view, Carrboro has been off target and incorrect in addressing affordability and affordable housing. Carrboro has had ample opportunity to build-up and increase density in our downtown. We have not realized opportunities to maximize downtown building heights. We are at a pivotal moment to address a range of affordable housing needs. We need to actively test the strategies in the tool box, we must forge strong public and private partnerships in order to advance housing affordability and housing security. We must have the political will to end homelessless, housing, food and work insecurity.

Climate change and flooding are growing issues and a regular part of the town’s development discussion. What do you think the town should do about it, and how would you pay for it?

As climate change causes more frequent and more severe rain events, Carrboro residents, their homes and properties are seriously impacted by the rain event stormwater and flooding intensity. Stormwater flooding and mitigation are a critical component of planning and development discussion. In 2017, Carrboro established a Stormwater Utility to address stormwater flooding and mitigation. The greatest amount of funding to address stormwater and flooding issues will come from the Stormwater Utility. The Carrboro Stormwater Utility is funded by property owners and is based on the impervious surface footprint of their property. In addition to the Stormwater Utility, the Carrboro Community Climate Action Plan Ecosystem Recommendation No. 1 frames goals, objectives and stormwater intersectionality with all other climate action measures. Additionally, the Carrboro Community Climate Action Plan Green Neighborhood’s project encourages, supports and coordinates community efforts to address climate resiliency, mitigation and ecosystem protection.

What skill or life experience do you have that would bring diversity to local government?

Skills:

▪ As an educator in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools, in 1992, I was certified as a Diversity Education trainer. I co-authored curriculum and training modules with my colleagues specifically on introductory diversity training, sexual orientation (term used at the time), and learning differences. We trained faculty and staff for the CHCCS schools, as well as other regional school districts.

▪ My training includes and is not limited to: Organizing Against Racism (Durham) and GARE (Government Alliance on Race Equity) Training with our Carrboro Race and Equity Commission.

▪ I have been a GSA advisor both in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and at Durham Academy Middle School.

▪ Science Educator and curriculum designer. Carrboro Community Climate Action Plan educational outreach module architect, content designer collaborator with community module makers.

▪ Community organizing and enacting projects and programs

▪ Teaching and guiding youth engagement in community activism, awareness, action, and advocacy

Lived experience:

I belong to a minority community, and I grew up experiencing macro and microaggressions, learning early what prejudice, discrimination and living with threat means. All of my grandparents escaped persecution to come to America. My parents were first-generation Americans. English was not their first language. They spoke dual languages. As they grew up, they shed most of their religious and cultural associations to assimilate and survive. I grew up belonging to a community whose lived experience required persevering in the face of historic persecution, diaspora, marginalization, ghettoization, and government policies of ethnic cleansing and extermination. Because of our history, human, civil and equal rights were core values in my family. Our lived experience taught us that freedom and democracy requires work and service. That a democracy depends on equity, justice, inclusion and protecting the rights, freedoms and access to resources of the most vulnerable and burdened.

These values inform and my lived experience informs all of my work. How do translate my lived experience into practical, do-able activism? An example might be this: Back in the day, my husband and I did migrant farm work. The low-wage, manual labor experience in our early years shaped my thinking ever since. It precipitated my work with El Centro Hispano, and collaboratively, we envisioned and designed the CEL (Casa for Employment and Leadership) for workers that is sited in Carrboro. The Town of Carrboro and El Centro Hispano CEL has a CEL Community Advisory Committee of which El Centro Hispano CEL staff, workers, Durham Tech and community resource organizations are members.

This story was originally published October 4, 2021 at 8:39 PM with the headline "Randee Haven-O’Donnell, candidate for Carrboro, NC, Town Council."