Over the weekend, four of Durham’s government leaders gathered in the library auditorium to talk over some of the city and county’s ongoing challenges and successes in a conversation moderated by Kids Voting Durham and INDY’s own Justin Laidlaw.
A recording of the full panel with county commission chair Nida Allam, city council member Javiera Caballero, state representative Marcia Morey, and school board chair Bettina Umstead will be posted by Kids Voting Durham. In the meantime, here are our four biggest takeaways from the two-hour conversation.
1. Durham’s debate about development and character will continue to be a defining issue as the local election ramps up.
None of the panelists are on the ballot this fall, but that doesn’t mean that no one was taking advantage of the opportunity to press some flesh.
INDY spotted three of the six candidates for the Ward 1 city council seat working the room, including Andrea Cazales, Matt Kopac, and incumbent DeDreana Freeman. Mayoral challenger Pablo Friedmann found a perch at the very top of the stands and incumbent school board members Natalie Beyer and Wendell Tabb showed face, although they’re not on the ballot this year.
Those city council candidates are sure to discuss the rate of development, which is always a hot election topic in an area that has seen insane growth in recent years.
In one of the most charged moments of the afternoon, Anita Scott Neville of Hayti Reborn got a round of applause from the audience for asking Caballero about the upcoming city council vote on the Hayti Square development.
“The comprehensive plan for Durham highlights equity and community voice in how our city grows, yet the voting history of our elected city council members reveals a propensity for approval of the goals of interloping developers,” said Scott Neville. “How do city council members think about, talk about, reconcile that disparaging reality between the plan for the city and the actions of the council members?”
Caballero, in her response, highlighted the urban growth boundary in Durham’s comprehensive plan.
“We want all development to fall inside that urban growth boundary, because we don’t want to sprawl out,” she said. “Everything on the inside of that line is going to densify, because if you’re not going out, you got to go up. Those are your two choices, or you stifle your growth … And I understand that that’s uncomfortable for residents, because it means that our urban environment is going to change.”
2. Everyone wants to see Durham Public Schools succeed.
Umstead, recently reelected to the role of DPS board chair, perhaps put it best in her opening statement about her priorities for the year.
“Some of them are not as exciting, like operating efficiently,” Umstead said. “We’re really doing a lot of work to make sure that we’re running smoothly, students are getting to school every day, they’re getting fed, people are paid.”
It may seem like a low bar, but functionality is the name of the game for a district that has, per the superintendent’s own comments, struggled with “forced errors” over the past few years: reneged staff raises, inconsistent school bus service, and a prolonged spat with its educators’ union.
Allam pointed out that the county has continued to increase its funding for DPS over the past five years, ending up at a $224.5 million contribution to the district this year, a $13 million increase over the previous year.
The city doesn’t directly support the school district, but Caballero said that getting high schoolers to use the city’s fare-free bus system is one of the best solutions to the district’s ongoing transit crisis. Getting more high schoolers on those buses (and making sure the buses run on time) she said, “will help lower the transit costs and the bus costs for our school system so that we can make sure our elementary aged kids have more reliable [school] bus service.”
Caballero also shouted out the city’s early-stage bus rapid transit project, which is still lagging behind similar programs in Raleigh and Chapel Hill.
“I really want Durham to get ahead of Raleigh,” she said, “because that is something that gives me deep joy.”
3. Durham will continue to feel Trump’s agenda.
Last month, Durham Public School worried about losing $3 million in federal funding when the Trump administration temporarily froze some funds for “review.” Those funds have since been released, but the Triangle has still been hit particularly hard by cuts to USAID, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Veterans Affairs, and higher education.
All levels of Durham government have been struggling to respond to the Trump administration’s aggressive use of federal powers, but the immigration crackdown was the most visible part of Trump’s agenda last month when bothAllam and Caballero mobilized to the Durham courthouse last month in response to Siembra NC’s report that ICE agents had been spotted. Caballero highlighted that community response as one of the only things that Durham really can do, at this point.
“This isn’t just on electeds, it’s on our community,” Caballero said. “What is going to happen to our community is actually quite terrifying. And so when I say that we’re going to have to put our bodies on the line, it’s not hyperbole. I think that that’s what it’s going to take.”
Allam urged Durhamites to continue to “witness, record, document what is happening, to make sure that our community stays as safe as possible, and that there’s a record of these incidents.”
4. … And the state legislature isn’t coming to progressives’ rescue.
Morey was, by her own admission, a bit of a Debbie Downer (“Glad to be here, I hope I don’t depress you,” she told the crowd at the outset).
North Carolina is a solidly purple state—voters in 2024 opted for Trump in the same election that they picked Democrat Josh Stein for governor and Jeff Jackson for attorney general. About 40 percent of North Carolina’s voters are unaffiliated while 30 percent are registered Democrats and 30 percent are registered Republicans.
Despite that, Republicans hold both chambers of the state legislature, which Morey called “a product of extreme gerrymandering.”
She also described Democrats as having “shot ourselves in the foot” last week, when Mecklenburg-area representative Carla Cunningham joined with Republicans to overturn Governor Stein’s veto of a bill that requires local sheriffs to work more closely with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in its brutal ongoing crackdown.
Throughout the conversation, Morey listed bills on gun safety and subsidized housing for teachers that didn’t “see the light of day” because they didn’t have Republican support.
In short, the ultra-blue Durham should not expect to see much help from the state anytime soon.
Caballero, though, said that there might be opportunity for bipartisanship around transit and housing because even the red areas of North Carolina are seeing rapid growth.
“Johnston County will be the fastest growing county in North Carolina between now and 2055,” Caballero said. “They’re facing the same affordable housing and transit issues so those are the very few places that we might see some real movement between Republicans and Democrats.”
Reach Reporter Chase Pellegrini de Paur at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].