CHALT announces the endorsement of Hongbin Gu for Chapel Hill Mayor,
For Town Council CHALT endorsed Adam Searing and Vimala Rajendran for Chapel Hill Town Council.
Since 2015, CHALT has endorsed candidates for Chapel Hill Mayor & Council, as well as for Orange County Board of Commissioners. Of the 20 candidates we endorsed, 16 were elected (80%). We have strived to make our selection process transparent and inclusive. Because of Covid this year, we needed to move much of the interview and selection process online, but it is largely the same as in previous years. CHALT is a large organization with a wide diversity of opinions, which makes the process lengthy.
- All candidates were invited to participated
- Interview questions were developed by the group and were given to the candidates beforehand
- We have published the questions for the public to see
- Video recordings of the interviews were publicly posted in their entirety (with the candidate’s permission)
- We invited close to one hundred people to participate in the two-day selection event (approximately 25 people attended in-person & several others sent in written comments)
- We brought in a trained facilitator to run the meeting to ensure that everyone would be able to speak without any strong voices dominating.
- We set a 2/3’s minimum for any endorsement (all decisions were actually made with more than 90% agreement)
The group of candidates for Town Council were particularly green this year. With the exception of Karen, who is an incumbent, and Adam, who has served as chair of Carrboro’s Planning Commission, none of the other candidates for Town Council had any significant expertise in municipal government. Most of the time for the council is spent on land use planning, and so we would recommend that anyone considering a run for Town Council or Mayor would first serve on one of the primary planning review boards (Planning Commission, CDC, Housing Advisory), or the regulatory boards (Historic District, Board of Adjustment).
Covid prevented many of the CHALT members from being able to spend the usual amount of time getting to know new candidates at forums and events, which in previous years were plentiful. Because we are consensus driven, we often don’t endorse for every open position, but only endorsing two candidates for the Town Council is unusual for us. Requiring a 2/3’s minimum agreement for endorsement may have led us to overlook some candidates simply because a 45-minute interview, by itself, was insufficient for some members to offset their concerns over the candidate’s inexperience.
Attached is a short description of our thoughts and discussion on each candidate for both Mayor and Council. Andrew Creech did not respond to our request for an interview.
Here is the detailed review of the candidates.
CHALT 2021 Review.Chapel Hill Mayor Candidates1