Eliazar Posada, candidate for Carrboro Town Council
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Carrboro Town Council candidates for special election
Who are the candidates running for the vacant seat on the Carrboro Town Council? The seat was left open when Damon Seils became mayor and has two years left on its term. Get to know your two candidates with our Voter Guide.
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Two people are competing in a special election during the May 17 primary to fill a vacant seat on the Carrboro Town Council.
Consultant Eliazar Posada is running against Aja Kelleher, who lost her previous bid to join the council in November.
Former Council member Damon Seils was elected mayor in that election, leaving a vacancy on the council. The winner will serve out the remainder of Seils’ council term, which ends in 2023.
Early voting in the primary begins April 28 and runs through May 14.
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: Eliazar Posada
Age: 29
Occupation: Consultant, Posada Strategy Consulting
Education: Bachelor’s degree in political science; pre-law, Campbell University
Political or civic experience: Carrboro Planning Board (2020-present); member, Carrboro Connects Comprehensive Planning Task Force (2020-present); State Executive Committee, N.C. Democratic Party (2020-present); County Executive Committee, Orange County Democratic Party (2019-present); professional co-chair, Raleigh Hispanic and Immigrant Affairs Board (2020-22); OWASA Precinct chair, Orange County Democratic Party (2019-21); Carrboro COVID-19 Mitigation Business Grant Review Committee (2021); co-chair, Community Strategic Engagement Committee, Durham Compact Board of Advisors (2020-21); member, Chapel Hill Reimagine Community Safety Task Force (2020-21); vice chair, Criminal Justice Debt Relief Program Advisory Committee (2020-21); Carrboro Emergency Fund Review Committee (2020)
Campaign website: eliazarforcarrboro.com
Who are your top three campaign contributors?
Allen Buansi, Wiley Nickel, Sue Hunter
What would be your three top priorities if elected? Choose one, and explain how you would address it.
If elected, I will focus on representing all of our community, and amplify new and inspired voices to the council. My top priorities are:
▪ Affordable housing
▪ Equality for all
▪ Equitable public transit
These issues address the core needs of many in our communities who have been disenfranchised by the current systems. On council, I will work to ensure when decisions are made at the council table, they are a reflection of the entire community.
Affordable housing should be at the top of our priorities. As a town, we must find creative ways to build new, and sustain current, affordable housing units, evaluate our land use ordinances and improve our zoning to build new development and opportunities for affordable housing, and encourage new and diverse housing. We must pursue new apartment developments, improve existing units, build tiny homes, support manufactured homes and home ownership programs.
Making housing affordable should not be our only goal in addressing housing in Carrboro. We must ensure that we use our resources to improve our town, so that our communities can live, work, and play in Carrboro. By investing in our town’s Affordable Housing Fund, creating partnerships with landlords and developers, we can support our neighborhoods in making any improvements needed, and ensure that Carrboro remains the best place to call home.
Carrboro will be approving and beginning to implement our first Comprehensive Plan; we must ensure that our affordable housing goals are prioritized.
What will you do as council member to address the town’s affordability and cost of living?
Affordable housing is my top priority; I would ensure that affordable housing is a top priority for the town. As a member of the comprehensive plan task force, I worked with community members and leaders, elected officials and town staff to fully understand the ability of the town to ensure affordable housing. I believe that by increasing the resources of the Affordable Housing Fund, ensuring zoning is changed to encourage new development that has affordable housing units, partnering with nonprofit organizations like Habitat or Tiny Homes, and ensuring there are resources set aside to maintain our current affordable housing, we can ensure all members of our town are served. The comprehensive plan has some great community-driven solutions for affordable housing. Now, the town must ensure we are meeting those goals and priorities. I believe AMI (area median income) target levels are helpful, but I would much rather see a system based on the working class of our town. Look at the average income of an “entry level” worker in the town and clarify what we see as affordable housing to their annual income. Carrboro has many folks who earn multiple times that of a waitress at Spotted Dog, clerk at This&That, OWASA technician, barista at Grey Squirrel, stocker at CommunityWorx or the cook at Vecino. These are crucial folks to our everyday lives in town. They all should be able to afford to live in the town if they wish to live here. So I favor an evaluation tool that represents that need.
What would you change about the direction of Carrboro’s growth? What would you emphasize?
As Carrboro grows and becomes more diverse, we must change as a town. Carrboro strives to be a progressive and welcoming town, but we have some work to do so that it can be a home for everyone. As the town adopts the comprehensive plan and builds the new library, I want to see the town increase density in our downtown and rezone areas of the town to encourage new and better development. By rezoning underutilized spaces and building vertically, we can encourage economic growth, increase housing and allow business to expand in Carrboro.
What do you envision for the future of Carrboro’s now-rural Northern Transition Area?
I would like to learn more about what the residents of the Northern Transition Area would envision for themselves. I would be more in favor of looking at rezoning and better developing our downtown before developing the NTA. I would look to partner with the county and support measures that would allow for some development, expansion of services and increasing residential units, but I would ensure development or changes are ecologically sound. We know that as we combat climate change we want to ensure to preserve our natural resources and pursue development that will not drastically increase our impact on the environment.
This story was originally published April 12, 2022 at 10:19 AM.