Since 2015, CHALT has endorsed candidates for Chapel Hill Mayor & Council and, in 2019, for Orange County Board of Commissioners. Of the 20 candidates CHALT has endorsed, 16 (80%) were elected. 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 process 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 participate
- Interview questions were developed by the group and were given to the candidates in advance of the interview.
- 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). View the interviews here.
- We invited close to 100 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
- To receive an endorsement, a candidate needed to have support of at least 2/3’s of those participating in theselection (As it turned out, there was greater than 90% agreement on all three endorsements)
The group of candidates for Town Council were particularly green—i.e., inexperienced— this year. Among Town Councilcandidates, only Karen Stegman, who is an incumbent, and Adam Searing, who has served as chair of Carrboro’s Planning Commission, have had any significant expertise in municipal government. Much of council members’ time 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, Community Design Commission, Housing AdvisoryCommission), or the regulatory boards (Historic District Commission, 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 do not offer endorsements for every open position, but only endorsing two candidates for the Town Council, as we have done this year, is unusual for us. Requiring support from a 2/3 supermajority for endorsement may have led us to overlook some candidates simply because a 45-minute interview, by itself, was insufficient to allay some members concerns about a given candidate’s inexperience.