Adam Searing for Mayor!

“A healthy community is one where we build more homes but we don’t lose the amazing trees and green spaces that make Chapel Hill not only a great place to live but better able to deal with climate change.”

This is the vision of a leader, someone who understands that tradeoffs are required for community consensus. This is the vision of Adam Searing and why I am so happy to endorse him for Mayor of Chapel Hill. 

It’s easy for candidates to tell us what we want to hear, but Adam doesn’t do that. He says what he sees as the truth. For example, while both he and his opponent recently agreed that Chapel Hill is spending enough on affordable housing, Adam’s opponent also said she would support a new bond AND a new 2 cents tax on property tax dedicated for affordable housing. Which is it…are they spending enough or do they need to spend more? Adam said no to both, opening the door for being criticized for not caring about affordable housing. 

So why doesn’t he support a new bond and new taxes? Property tax is regressive, meaning that it has a higher negative impact on poor people than on the wealthy. Chapel Hill just raised its portion of the property tax by 10%. We haven’t yet seen how that is going to impact the cost of housing, but it’s a pretty safe bet that rents are going to increase yet again.

The Daily Tar Heel recently reported that roughly “one in five homeowners and more than half of renters in Chapel Hill are cost-burdened.” So if the cost of living here is so high, won’t new debt and even higher taxes translate into higher rents for non-homeowners and more threat to the security of those homeowners who are living on the margin? Do we have equity if current residents can no longer afford to live here?

Our town budget is a mess. This year’s budget raises your property taxes almost 10%, one of the largest increases in town history (I actually haven’t yet found another time we raised our property taxes more than this, but let me know if you do!). And this at the same time we are spending on such discretionary items as million-dollar out-of-town consultants to rewrite development rules and construction mistakes in our town parking garage that have put it $9 million over budget. And instead of buying new land for parks, we are buying new land to run roads for more for-profit development.

We want and need new residents, but we also need to protect those who already live here. It's a balancing act. It requires someone who will listen and knows how to negotiate with the UNC and UNC Healthcare behemoths. Adam has already proved those skills at the state and federal level with his work on affordable health care. Let’s put him to work for Chapel Hill!

UNC Hospitals offered a $5 million no-interest loan to the town for affordable housing if we allowed the building of a parking garage in land identified for wildlife and preservation. Because UNC Hospitals already has a community benefit obligation under federal law to Chapel Hill to assist us with things like affordable housing for their growing employee base, I voted against this project, believing we could get a much better deal for affordable housing with smarter negotiation with UNC. I also did not like once again pitting our need for affordable housing against our need for environmental preservation and this time at the insistence of an outside entity. 

We can achieve Adam’s vision of preserving trees and green space as well as ensuring those vulnerable residents living on the margin of affordability can stay here. But we can’t do it with the same rush-rush groupthink we’ve had for the past 8 years.

Governing is not an easy job; it requires someone who will stand up and fight for everyone in this community. Adam Searing is the one who I believe can do that. Vote Adam for Mayor.