In an effort to increase voter turnout for the October elections, municipal candidates shared their visions for Raleigh’s future in a town hall forum on Thursday night. Hosted by HQ Raleigh, the meeting featured short speeches from mayoral candidate Charles Francis (Dem) and city council at-large candidates.
Francis is a lawyer who grew up in southeast Raleigh. After graduating from Sanderson High, he attended Princeton University and Duke University School of Law. He moved back to Raleigh in 1991, determined to represent and work with the people of Raleigh.
“I’m running for mayor because I am convinced that we can do better than what we’re doing now,” Francis said. “I’m running for mayor because I believe we need a change in the mayor’s office and the leadership of the city, and I’m running for mayor so that more people can win and more people can be successful in Raleigh.”
The main issues Francis says he plans on tackling as mayor of Raleigh include preserving and creating more affordable housing, updating the transit system, improving health care and overall changing city government for the better from the mayor’s office.
“This mayor we have now is closed, she’s not open,” Francis said. “You can’t lead people unless you’re engaging. It’s not a touchy-feely thing. You get different policy when you have a closed form of leadership and a lack of diversity on the council than what you would get if you were open to all people and a more diverse council.”
City Council at-large candidate Russ Stephenson (Dem) took the floor after Francis. He is running for re-election. Stephenson graduated from NC State with a degree in architecture.
Zainab Baloch (Dem), a Raleigh native and NC State alumna, is running for a city council at-large position. She is currently working for state government in the Division of Mental Health, and she says her campaign is centered on making Raleigh a healthier and safer city.
“I’m running because I’ve been proud to call Raleigh my hometown and I want for generations to come to be able to do the same,” Baloch said. “I’m running because I’ve seen the amazing revitalization Raleigh downtown has gone through but I also know that there’s also parts of Raleigh that has not gone through that same revitalization, and I’m going to raise Raleigh.”
The final candidate to take the floor was Shelia Alamin-Khashoggi (Dem). She is running for a city council at-large position as well. Khashoggi has two master’s degrees, the first of which is in public administration from North Carolina Central University, and the second is in religious studies from Shaw University Divinity School.
Liz Tracy, the director of HQ Raleigh, spoke about the reason HQ opened up their doors for this event.
“I think it’s an opportunity for everybody to be involved and hear the candidates’ stances, because we have a lot of innovative companies in this space that are pushing the boundaries of innovation and sometimes policies at the local level can’t keep up with that,” Tracy said. “We need city councilmen to know that these companies exist so that when they do come up against those barriers, they know who they can go up to so they can push for change.”
Information, dates and locations of early voting can be found on the Wake County Board of Elections website.
