William Peace University student James Shaughnessy IV is running for mayor.

Incumbent Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin is not seeking reelection.

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Shaughnessy, 25, is one of five candidates in the non-partisan race to replace Baldwin. The others are:

In the non-partisan race to replace Baldwin. The others are:

WRAL News spoke with each candidate about their views before Election Day on Nov. 5.

Note: WRAL News’ questions in bold and candidate responses follow

You are coming into this race against other candidates who have a lot more experience in politics and in community organizing. What makes you the candidate that people should be voting for?

Well, the mayor race is technically nonpartisan, but we all know that all the other candidates have a partisan affiliation, whether it's Republican or Democrat.

There's one Republican running, there's [three] other Democrats … And with that independence, I have a lot more mobility when working with other partners.

I don't have to play the political game.

There's been a lot of problems, not just at a local level, but we see it on a national level too, where good policy gets brought up and then the conversations happen behind closed doors and it gets thrown out because they don't want the other side winning. Pick any issue. Do we see that changing in Congress and even on a local level? We’ve seen that the [General Assembly] won't even want to work with a lot of Raleigh City Council because they're all registered as Democrats. And I don't have that problem.

I can have a fresh start with any person I'm coming into to work with, and I feel like a lot more people need to be open to that idea about having a more people-focused sense of politics, instead of party-centric purpose.

Affordable housing a huge issue in Raleigh. What are you going to do to tackle this problem?

One big thing is that we need to build a lot more, and we need to do a lot quicker. Raleigh has built a great city, and a lot of people found out, and they all decided to move here, and we have struggled to keep up with the demand.

A lot of that demand has been spreading out into the Raleigh municipal area, which means our job growth has grown considerably, but our population has not grown to the same degree.

We have [about 750,000] people that come [into the city of Raleigh] for jobs every day, but we only have 460,000 residents about, so we need to open up to have a higher tax base. And one thing I would like to do is build up more mixed-use development, making it more affordable for renters or even have condos.

[I want to] have that conversation about opening up more equity for younger people, because houses are getting more expensive here, and I don't think that price is going to go down, especially with the confined area that we have already have.

As well as having that retail space on the first floor as part of mixed use, you get a strong tax base from sales tax, and it offers more mobility or less mobility for cars because if you have a grocery store that's underneath your apartment or the place that you're living in, you don't need to go drive anywhere. It's right there, and it offers more accessibility to maybe lower-income families who maybe can only afford one car, or they can't afford a car at all.

Building the public transit system around those mixed-use developments, it offers more mobility for everybody, not just like lower income.

If you're a college student, you can live off-campus and have more accessibility to maybe going downtown and having fun with your friends, or possibly it's so expansive, and what you can do with that and just increasing that would be a really, really big thing.

Your website says, “My team and I are developing our own take on the modern hamlet that could change our community.” Can you explain this?"

If you drive around Raleigh, you notice that there are a lot of strip malls, and it is the worst waste of real estate I've ever seen in my life.

In Europe and other high-dense cities, they don't have this as much. So, it's going to basically be the same thing.

You're going to have that strip mall, but above is just going to be apartments. Imagine an apartment above the regular Food Lion. That accessibility to that food will decrease food deserts and make it more accessible, and just having that conversation about we need more mixed use.

It's not a like a European thing. It can be an American thing too.

I mean, even in California, Costco built affordable housing above their warehouse, because that was the only way that they could open up a Costco. So, there are avenues to get this done. We just [have] to be bringing that to the forefront of the conversation."

Let’s talk about downtown revitalization. What will you do to make a city a place where there is character and energy throughout?

I think one thing that we have to talk about is safety. I don't go downtown with my fiancée because it just doesn't feel safe to us. We'll go maybe once or twice a year, but it's doesn't feel as safe as it used to when I was growing up.

Even recently, we have purchased new private security to keep us safe, which shows a lot bigger problem within the city than it should. Opening it up to make it safer and more enticing to young people is a very big step in revitalizing that downtown space.

People talk about moving Red Hat [Amphitheater] and how that's going to hurt downtown. One thing that we've got to do is we've got to keep that in there. We have to make sure that it stays in order to make sure that these businesses can stay afloat because a big part of their business comes from those concert days, when a lot of young people come downtown and they need a bite to eat or want to go get a drink afterwards, or go shop the boutiques right before the show.

Let's stay on the topic of public safety. Looking through your website, you talk a lot about helping people with mental health challenges. You want to expand the ACORNS unit with the Raleigh Police Department. You want to build a mental health hospital. We already have Holly Hill Hospital, but you want to build another one? Do you want more funding for patrol officers?

Absolutely, I think one of the biggest failures that Raleigh has is that we are a capital city, but we're not the best paid for our police. [An officer] can go get more money [in] Cary or Morrisville or Wake Forest, and you're not going to be on as many calls, and you have a lot higher quality of life

So, it amazes me how we are the capital city, the home of the North Carolina General Assembly and the Governor's Mansion, and yet we're not attracting the best talent. We need to put more money into it, and we could possibly talk to the General Assembly and the state government saying, ‘Hey, because we're the capital city, we have a lot more responsibility because either we're hosting more political events, we're bringing in foreign diplomats, bringing more business to talk to the governor or the General Assembly and things like that,’ we should have a higher standard.

Bringing that higher standard is really important, [it] can help us with the problems with policing that we've seen, or problems with pay. Because if you increase the pay, you increase the standard, and we can entice more young, hard-working people to think about it as a career.

Do we need more police officers?

We're short about 1,000 personnel … We've fallen behind on that. Raleigh has not grown [its] police department very much. And the only reason it hasn't grown very much is because of the way that the funding works, and how they can open vacancies. And so … they can't entice more people because it costs more. So, they try to keep it right where they're at, instead of coming up with an honest conversation with the city council, saying, “Hey, [these are] the problems we are facing. We need this many more officers every day.” We're going to be losing a lot of retirees soon because a lot of older police officers will either move to go get a better job, or they're on the end of their career.

[Do] you think you're the candidate that is going to be able to compel [the Raleigh] City council to find that funding and to rally that kind of support?

Absolutely, the one thing is just communication with not just our local partners, but our state partners too. Like I said, the General Assembly is right there, and I feel like having that conversation with them and saying, “Hey, we keep you safe every day. You need to work with us in order to make sure that we have enough personnel to keep you safe as well as our other citizens.”

Like I said, before, there's 750,000 people coming into Raleigh every day to work. We don't have a department that can deal with 750,000 people. So, we're taking a brunt of the load for protection, while a lot of other municipal governments don't have to deal with that, mainly because their job base is not as large.

So, we need to open up that dialog and conversation, and we need to make it happen.

You want to restructure zoning laws to encourage more development.

What's an example of the existing zoning laws being too restrictive?

A lot of the areas in downtown or surrounding downtown are only R1 or like, single-use residential, which it made sense when we were developing back in the ‘40s. I lived in a house in downtown that was built in the 1940s, but it makes no sense to have that there.

When the Village District is right next to it, there should be more development in our heart of the city because there's [North Carolina State University] that's right there. There's Shaw University right there. There's a lot of ample jobs for low-income residents right there to have service work or municipal work. A lot of our bus drivers have to start their day at Moore Square bus station. A lot of our police officers have to start their day at the police station because we don't [have a]} take-a-car home program.

So, increasing more residential housing, so that we can get more of our workers inside the city is very, very vital, and with the way that the zoning is around downtown, there's so many areas that are just have gotten forgotten about, either because they want to protect it because of their old historical homes, which I admire, but not every home is historical.

We have to keep the Pope House. That is a historical home, the first Black doctor in North Carolina. [There are] a few other homes as well, but we don't need every home to be done.

We've seen that developers will buy these historical homes, and again, get an exception to bulldoze it and build this brand-new modern house, which is fine, but it would be better if there was more mixed-use development and more dense.

I just want to clarify what you're saying. So, you would like to see fewer single-family homes and more developed condo buildings, apartment buildings, mixed-use buildings. Is that correct?

Yes, ma'am.

What does that do to gentrification and to pushing out people who have been living in those homes for a really long time and may not be able to afford these new developments?

One thing that I would like to do is keep Raleigh families that have been there for generations in Raleigh and in their homes, that they are at. They're a cornerstone of our community.

So how do you do both?

Well one thing that you can do is open up CLMs (Community Land Management), and then, building along the new BRT line is a big thing that we could do, while not doing it all at once.

We do it in a natural way, so that we can build more naturally, and so it doesn't force people out. And, if we build more, it makes it more affordable to everybody else.

I don't know any area in Raleigh where we can build a new single-family neighborhood, but I know plenty of areas that could use more apartment dwellings or condos.

As Shaughnessy sat down for this interview, WRAL’s Ashley Rowe noticed his tie. Tell us about your tie, she asked.

I've worn this tie like this since I've been working in hospitality.

It's tucked in because you can't work with the tie in your face. You tuck it in to get work done, and I plan on doing that. I want to make it happen.

I want to make sure that Raleigh is progressing forward and working really, really hard to make sure that we are an accepting community and building enough so that it's more accessible and making the future brighter, especially for younger people.