Raleigh mayor Janet Cowell delivered her first State of the City address last night to a lively crowd at the Raleigh Convention Center. Her speech touted the city council’s accomplishments in its first 100 days and set the agenda for the remainder of her two-year term, emphasizing housing, public safety, and transportation.
The tone of the evening was upbeat, made more so by a folksy rendition of “Tennessee Whiskey” by a band composed of Parks and Recreation Department staffers and the grazing tables piled high with sweet potato flautas and mushroom-plantain tostadas from Centro. Cowell began her speech by thanking the City of Raleigh’s 7,000 full- and part-time employees and declaring that “cities matter now more than ever”—both in terms of meeting residents’ basic needs and providing “community and a sense of meaning” in “uncertain times.”
Raleigh, Cowell said, “has grown from a sleepy government town to a vibrant and economically diverse, as well as socially diverse city … We are in an incredible place to live.”
Here are a few key takeaways from Cowell’s speech.
Raleigh needs more housing, particularly affordable units.
Cowell rattled off a list of statistics about housing in Raleigh: the median cost of a home is $500,000; median rent is $1,600; the city has an estimated housing shortage of 37,000 units. In the council’s first 100 days, she said, they’ve approved rezonings and new projects that could potentially add up to 3,000 new units.
“We need mixed-income, mixed-use housing integrated with transit,” Cowell said. “This council also feels very strongly about housing security … trying to provide some stability to both renters and homeowners.”
Cowell added that housing scarcity and homelessness go hand-in-hand. She touted the launch of the Bringing Neighbors Home pilot program, which she said has placed unhoused 47 families (66 people) into housing and is providing them with monthly payments.
Expanding the police department is a priority for the mayor.
During her mayoral campaign, Cowell said she wanted to invest in the police department and pay officers competitively. In her speech last night, she shared that RPD has “close to no vacancies” at the moment and is set to grow this year.
“Coming up in this budget, we’ve got compensation changes coming,” she said. “There’s also a plan to increase the number of officers.”
Cowell also cheered the recent hiring of Rico Boyce as the city’s new police chief and gave a nod to the Raleigh CARES crisis response team, which the city council approved funding for in January.
Raleigh’s leaders are bracing for federal funding cuts to impact transportation projects.
Cowell made clear in her speech that public transportation is a big part of her vision for Raleigh’s continued growth. But key projects have stalled in recent months, whether because of uncertainty about ongoing federal funding, in the case of the Raleigh to Richmond high-speed rail project, or due to issues securing a contractor, in the case of the New Bern Avenue Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor.
Cowell said the city is “re-working” its construction plan for the New Bern BRT corridor in order to attract a bidder and working to ensure that federal funding for other BRT corridors doesn’t dry up.
“We are going to be lobbying the federal government to try and keep our money,” she said. “I am working with the other mayors of Wake County to write letters to the whole delegation.”
After her speech, Cowell elaborated to INDY that the city believes “signed contracts will be honored.” Beyond that, ongoing federal funding for transportation is not guaranteed.
“Roads and bridges are very popular, and of course, BRT is a road project, and you hope that those get factored in,” she told the INDY. “But our anticipation is things like sidewalk projects or [electric vehicles] will probably not be as forthcoming.”
Bonus: Cowell brings the levity
The mayor punctuated her speech with archival images of city life in Raleigh through the decades alongside her own re-creations of those moments.
In one black-and-white snapshot, a woman dressed in a trench coat, headscarf, and sunglasses zooms down Hillsborough Street on a motorcycle. Cowell’s version is impressively similar, down to the blurred background and her retro accessories.
“I do not quite have the joie de vivre of the woman on the Honda Super Cub,” Cowell admitted, “because I was on a 1,000-pound E-bike in a rainstorm. But this was a fun attempt to recreate that moment.”
Chloe Courtney Bohl is a corps member for Report for America. Reach her at chloe@indyweek.com. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.