2005 election warm up

re: Carrboro -- before we start predicting who'll win, i'd be interested in knowing the issues/values on which voters will be basing their decisions.

My important issues for Carrboro are:

1. More cops with better training and newer equipment, getting the cops out of their cars and walking around, and getting Carrboro and Chapel Hill PD's to work together on the drug problem (which neither seems to want to admit exists).

2. Affordable housing

3. Improving schools...I don't even have kids and I think this is important. Lets just say if I did have kids, I'd home school. OK I know that is more of a state issue and not a local one.

Here's my outsider take on Carrboro:
Nelson wins if he runs.
Zaffron wins if he runs.
Chilton wins if he runs.
It's a matter of who wants the job.
I can't even imagine a Ryan/Voyce- backed candidate making a splash. How do you frame, 'I hate Carrboro. I want to destroy it.'?

Lashanah haba'ah b'Yerushalayim!
Hope everyone feasting tomorrow night has as much fun as I will!

Tsk, tsk, tsk, Mary, such harsh language. I've never said I hated Carrboro, and I haven't heard Brian say it either. May I also remind you that you signed the petition to be annexed into Chapel Hill as well....so what's your problem with Carrboro ? Mine is simply that it's badly run. Idealogues of any ilk seldom make good policy decisions.

Never signed anything.
I'm glad you like Carrboro. Guess I misunderstand your postings and Brian's letters.
My problem with Carrboro was waking up one morning and reading in the paper that I was going to be annexed. No psychological preparation. Had the usual reaction people have to involuntary annexation. Have moved on.
Peace

To those offended by my first post, I only meant the sign off as a traditional toast, not as a political statement. I firmly support Palestinian rights! (Whew!!!)

From the CHN:

Mayor may not run for re-election

Wiggins '98 percent sure' she won't run again.

UNC student Jason Baker says he may run for Chapel Hill Town Council
http://www.jehb.net/blathering/category/politics/orange-county-politics/
Jason turns 21 this summer.

Former Councilmember Bill Thorpe announced, at least informally, yesterday his intention to run for Council this year.

So, as far as I know, we have these new candidates:

Laurin Easthom
Robin Cutsen
Jason Baker
Bill Thorpe

with the near certainty of:

Ed Harrison
Dorothy Verkerk

both of whom will face a very difficult election season (maybe they'll realize that and cede their place at the table).

There's a good chance that Edith Wiggins will run in spite of her previous statements saying if a suitable candidate came forward she wouldn't.

And then there's the speculative. Anyone care to publish their current speculative slate?

Absolutely correct Dan, but will "Mayor Pro Tem" Wiggins show the good sense to leave with the MLK win or will she run and face all the prolific, specific criticisms her incumbency will provide fodder for?

BTW, that's Robin Cutson, not Cutsen, sorry about that Robin.

I exchanged a few emails with Jason Baker this week, realized I had met him last fall while I was working a voter registration drive at NCSU here in Raleigh last October. Jason just finished his SOPHOMORE year at Carolina. At Carolina in 2004, he coordinated voter registration for the campus Dems and was also working for the Democratic Coordinated Campaign doing the same thing in the three trianlge counties. He seems very politically attuned and high energy. IF the 7500+ students who registered in Chapel Hill last year vote again, this could have a big impact. The last time that many students registered in one year in Chapel Hill was 1972, and I got a ride on the last bit of that tidal wave in 1973. (I finished second in the race for four Chapel Hill Town Board seats that year)

little known fact and trivia department:
while there has been a lot pf publicity about Mark Chilton and I being the only two students elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council, I've seen little or no press in recent history about the fact that a fellow law student of mine was elected to the Carrboro Town Board in 1973. George "Pete" Beswick like me finished undergrad at Carolina in 1972 and went on to Carolina Law. He sat next to me in a law school class Fall 73 and was CONSTANTLY complaining about the Carrboro Town Board. To shut him up, I gave him $5 for his filing fee and sent him to Carrboro Town Hall to file. The same heavy student voting in 1972 in Carrboro carried over to 1973. Pete now practices law in Morehead City.

Will,

Can you be a little more specific about what you mean about facing "all the prolific, specific criticisms her incumbency will provide fodder for?"

Trivia Question: Who was the last Town of Chapel Hill Council candidate to receive more than the 4,883 votes that Edith Wiggins received in 2001?

Mark K., I was trying to highlight the new candidates and then, for some reason, went on to describe all the placeholder incumbents.

I assumed you'd be pushing on to finish all the good in-progress projects.

Want to make it official?

Other than Ed's lowkey response (when asked at the MLK event) that he'd run again, I haven't had an absolute confirmation on Verkerk and Wiggins - just speculation.

Fred, are you kidding? I voted for every member of the current Council at one time or another. Why? I didn't have a track record to go by - I went by their rhetoric alone.

Fred, I'm sure a good chunk of Ms. Wiggin's, Ms. Verkerk's and Mr. Harrison's support came from people like myself - judging a book, so to speak, by its cover.

I won't be making that mistake again and I imagine that a published, detailed profile/timeline of various incumbents behavior/actions will educate a significant portion of that electorate as to whats written on the "pages" of these candidates "books".

Of course, in the unlikely event that Mayor Pro Tem Wiggins lets better sense and a commitment to her previous stated position on resigning overcome her desire for another term, she'll have an opportunity to leave on a high note and avoid having to defend her incumbency (or is she planning to run exclusively on the MLK renaming?).

As far as Ms. Verkerk, she's had her run and warmed the seat long enough. A quick review of her prepardness, demeanor towards citizens and coziness with the Town management should be enough to derail her candidacy. Hopefully, she'll see this and bow out.

Finally, I like Ed, but he's had significant problems staking out a position on a number of issues. He's initiated almost no substantive actions. I appreciate his diligence in attending meetings with local, county and state boards, but, in the next 4 years, years that will be extremely demanding of leadership, vision and initiative, can we afford keeping someone because they're a nice guy?

Will, what did I miss: "a commitment to her previous stated position on resigning?" What ever all you referring to?

Wiggins '98 percent sure' she won't run again.

Mayor Pro-tem Edith Wiggins said she's “98 percent sure” she won't seek a third term, though she said she might reconsider if no strong black candidate emerges.

Wiggins, the only black council member out of nine, has tried to recruit a successor, but so far no one has committed.

“I've been really disappointed,” she said. “I don't see the diversity I think we need on the council. It would be bad for Chapel Hill as a community to be left without

So, will Ms. Wiggin's attachment to the status and special parking space Council membership confers cause her to cling to the %2 she left hanging or is she prepared to move on?

Fred, do you plan to run? Who's CAN putting up this time?

Oh, completing one's term of office and not seeking reelection is not "resigning."

I am running for nothing other than good health. CAN does not "put up" candidates; it did endorse in the last Town election.

I also believe in diversity on the Council and that diversity should include the diversity of opinions that reflect the variety we see in our population here.

Fred, I'm glad to see you endorse a range of opinion on the Council, so do I. What I don't endorse are Councilmembers that are unprepared, confused by the issues in front of them, condescending, unethically collaborating with Town vendors, unable to stake out a position and defend it within a reality-based context and warming a seat that a more qualified candidate could fill. The citizens of Chapel Hill don't have the time or money to piddle around with trifling leadership, now more than ever.

Dan stated that Bill Thorpe would be the strong black
candidate that Edith is looking for. History however
disagrees. The last time Bill Thorpe ran was in
1991 and he finished way back in approximately
9th place out of 12, amassing nowhere near enough
votes to even approach winning a seat. He was a
very weak candidate then.

Joe, are you saying if Ms. Wiggins runs then she must consider Mr. Thorpe a "very weak candidate"? He made some rather stirring remarks at the MLK renaming. Can you take us back to '91 and comment on why his candidacy was weak back then? Was it organization, message (or lack thereof), stronger candidates, etc. ?

Ruby, then why did she go out of her way to introduce race as the single determinig factor?

“I've been really disappointed,” she said. “I don't see the diversity I think we need on the council. It would be bad for Chapel Hill as a community to be left without any African Americans on the council.”

I thought it rather odd she seemed to lump, politically, people together based on their race, but assumed she meant what she said.

Will and Ruby, I can't read Edith's mind and won't
predict what she will do -- that's up to her.
All I stated was that Bill Thorpe did very poorly in his
last attempt for town council. In 1991, as today, the
field of 12 candidates went from forum to forum,
presenting themselves to the public, answering
the questions and expressing
their opinions. Bill's performance in contrast to the
top six candidates was very poor. Please note however
that there was another black candidate in the race, Roosevelt Wilkerson, a minister, very intelligent and
well-spoken. Roosevelt was an incumbent and finished
in 2nd place. The winners in order were
Herzenberg, Wilkerson, Capowski and Chilton, and
Ken Broun for mayor.

Capowski? Any relation ;-)?

Joe was in fact the correct answer; he had 5,123 votes.

Mark, could you elaborate on why Ms. Wiggins would be such a strong candidate? Obviously, you don't think her track record will haunt her effort. Thanks.

Excellent anaylsis, Mark, and I tend to agree with you.

Carrboro has an election this year too. According to today's paper, Mark Chilton and Alex Zaffron may be competing candidates for mayor. Margot asked earlier what the Carrboro issues are. Although I won't get to vote (I'm an extraterrestrial!), my support will go to the candidate who proposes a well thought out plan for economic growth. We have to find a way to bring income into the town since appears that I may be the only one who would support limiting population growth/development. I'd also like to hear plans for how to the downtown traffic plan will be implemented (funded).

Dan, everyone minus one.

Much wasn't made about the vote total, it was an question that was clearly labeled "trivia question" and was comparative in nature. At least you show consistency when you overstate by saying "Since much has been made on this thread of Edith Wiggins' 2001 vote total." By whom?

And the quote is exactly the point. What is the connection between a vote total and what Chapel Hillians really think? As my electoral politics prof Robert Martin told us years ago, a vote total tells us the outcome but it doesn't tell us the real story. His researched black voting patterns in post-war Chicago and he was after the real story that the totals didn't provide. Much of his voting research helped Cong. "Big Bill" Dawson's machine to elect the first black mayor in Chicago in 1983

In this county, we don't even know how many people voted for the Town Council; the closest that we can get is how many voted for mayor. But surly some vote for Council and not Mayor, and we don't know how many voters cast four, three, two one or no votes for the Council.

Look at the 2003 math:

a. 7,338 of 34,192 registered Chapel Hill voters voted (21.46%)

b. 5,894 votes were cast for mayor. This equals 80% of the 7,338 voters and 17.2% of registered voters. “Last minute” write-in candidate Pat Killian received 173 votes ((2.9%) and other write-ins received 251 (4.3%). Together the total write-in votes equaled 7.2% of mayoral votes (424 of 5894).

c. For Council, 27,640 votes were cast for the 12 candidates and write-ins. The max possibility horizon is (7338) x (4) = 29,352, or 94% of those who voted. Of course, it is unknown how many voted for Council and not for Mayor.

So we do know is that almost 8 out of 10 people who are registered don't vote. We also know (or at least I've been lead to believe this from comments people make) that some people who vote go for a mix of candidates, like the person who told me that they voted for Bill, Cam, Dianne, and Terri because they wanted a variety of opinions to be represented on the Council.

So my point remains that we shouldn't be too hasty in linking the vote total to anything but that election and that field of candidates. After all, the bottom five finishers in the last Town election had 3,324 total votes, the middle four had 7,896, and the top four had 16,349; somebody though that each candidate should serve! I won't accept that there were not others who felt the same way as the voters did, but they just didn't vote.

And yes, it doesn't count unless you vote.

WillR,

Who were you refering to in your 5/10, 4:01 posting...Sally, Cam or Bill?

Bobby Clapp

So Mr. Clapp, running for office?

Voters do not necessarily vote for the same number of candidates as there are slots. This makes analysis of municipal elections difficult as there is no way to know if a voter cast a vote for 1,2,3 or 4 candidates. There was a previous thread on this site 'a single shot vote for.....'

Yeah, I thought his reappearance was a harbinger of something....maybe a "responsible corporate citizen" is sponsoring a new candidate and, just as he did for ACS and the RLCs, Mr. Clapp is going to be the pointman.

Wow! He couldn't be working for the Actioneers could he?

BTW Mark, Mr. Clapp appears to live within the Town's electoral jurisdiction.