Former North Carolina State Treasurer and former Dix Park Conservancy President Janet Cowell is running for mayor.

Incumbent Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin is not seeking reelection.

Other WRAL Top Stories

Cowell, 56, is one of five candidates in the non-partisan race to replace Baldwin. The others are:

Cowell stepped down as president of the Dix Park Conservancy on Oct. 4 to run for mayor. She became the president of the Dix Park Conservancy in January 2021. The conservancy said she helped raise $40 million in private funding and launched projects such as the restoration of the park’s historic Stone Houses and an ambitious public art initiative.

Cowell served as the 27th treasurer of North Carolina from Jan. 10, 2009, to Jan. 1, 2017. The Democrat also served in the state Senate’s 16th district from Jan. 1, 2005, to Jan. 1, 2009

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

Affordable housing is a huge problem in Raleigh. We've been seeing drips of progress, but this still remains a top issue for so many people. What are you going to do to address this?

We’ve all seen the cost of living here escalate dramatically in past few years.

How do you facilitate the building of housing by private sector? I think the past two councils have made a number of reforms trying to facilitate and allow for more flexibility in types of housing across the city and particularly in transit corridors.

From a city perspective, of course, we've passed the Affordable Housing Bond.

We could do more to help stabilize families that have been in place for a long time. There are weatherization programs, there are things like home repair programs. They don't serve a whole lot of people. Great programs, but I would love to work with the business community and other stakeholders to see how we could scale those to help more people stay in their homes longer.

Another idea: There is a tool called Tax Increment Financing, which, just at its basics, is when you're making a major public investment, draw a line. Say what's the baseline value here? And, as that public investment escalates, you could take some of that value and plow it back in subsidy for affordable housing or other programs.

So, that's a tool that Raleigh has not used much, and I would love to see us use it like Charlotte, Durham and other cities have.

You've said on our WRAL program ‘On the Record,’ months ago that the city has not done a good enough job of tackling affordable housing. And what you were just describing, perhaps, is one thing that they missed. But what else has the city missed here?

Supply, subsidy and stability are three components of affordable housing. And so, I think they're attacking supply, and we could do better on the metrics and measuring where that supply is, and also making sure that supply isn't all in areas like southeast Raleigh (that have) already been saturated with affordable housing projects on the subsidy.

Again, I think we've done some things on the affordable housing, and I do think we could partner more looking at city-owned land or even state land, long-term leases on land that the state may not want to sell.

Are there ways to use government property? We have the Raleigh Housing Authority, which, because it runs public housing, has tools that nobody else has, and sort of vouchers and things. Is there a way to work more closely with the Raleigh Housing Authority to use city-owned land to do housing?

So, I think that stability piece of allowing more people to stay in their neighborhoods, to stay in their homes, is probably the weakest point to date.

I would work on all three, but that's one in particular.

I want to talk to you about downtown revitalization, now. What would you do to make the city a place where there is character and energy throughout, not just in pockets?

So recently, I was having lunch with the head of the Museum of Natural Sciences downtown, which I'm sure many of us have gone to, and she was stating, it's just really rare that anybody gets all the heads of those museums together to talk about how they can work off of each other and maybe encourage people to, you know, make a half day of it. You go to Marbles with your kid in the morning, and then maybe you go over to the science museum, and you stop to get the coffee shop or the lunch spot.

One thing is just the power of a mayor to convene and have that -- allow people to think through, well, what are the ways – churches, a lot of people go to church downtown – how are we encouraging people to stay or feel safe and brunch? How are we working together on those kind of things?

I served in the General Assembly, so I know the government complex well … there are 20 blocks downtown that have no retail.

You've mentioned so many people who have … a lot of power. How do you engage them as well as hear the voices of everyday people?

Well as you state, it is challenging the people, the underheard voices, I think. It includes renters, young people and folks who may be struggling to make ends meet and have had to leave the city or even leave the county so their voices are no longer heard.

I think just knowing that is a challenge and working to develop programs or technologies. Everybody … has a smartphone. Can we develop more two-way technology?

My understanding is there's a SeeClickFix program, but that's sort of, I see a pothole and you never hear back. I do think the city's working on a more upgraded and interactive model.

Things like that, tools like that, are important to facilitate community engagement and not just hear from the usual suspects or those with money or time.

You want to implement a forward-looking rezoning plan. What does that look like?

I think some of the changes made over the last two years have been in the right direction.

My understanding is there are a lot of new units being built, but again, I think we could use better tools like these spatial zoning maps to see where were these developments, and is the time and the ease at which people are getting approvals fast enough?

I was talking to a friend who was getting an accessory dwelling unit -- these backyard units -- and I think it's supposed to be a pretty quick process.

It didn't seem as quick as it maybe should be. So, one could just be the efficiency at which we allow the changes that have already been made to actually be executed.

You talk about wanting to support our patrol officers. Does that mean raising their pay, increasing officers on the street? What does that look like?

So the current city council, again, I give them kudos. They raised the public safety pay 10% in this most recent budget. That is a good start.

We know that right now, the city of Raleigh police were paid some of the lowest in the county and surrounding area, which is obviously not a long-term sustainable (solution), so we will need to continue to make pay increases. And, there's a big pay study coming out at the beginning of next year, so I will be looking to that and working with the city staff to implement for not just police, but public safety and all city employees.

The other issue would be … more police on the streets. We have a lower ratio of police per population than many other cities. Maybe that speaks to the fact that Raleigh has been a safe place to live.

I think I saw a survey [showing] a large majority of people feel pretty safe in their neighborhoods, and that's a good thing, but as we grow, continuing to have a really thinly staffed police and public safety staff is not ideal.

And then finally, I know many of us have seen an increase in the unhoused, more panhandling issues, where it's some of our neighbors in distress, and the police has created an ACORNS unit, which is about mental health, social workers, clinical psychologists, trying to assist people that really aren't a public safety hazard, what they need is social services. I am a big supporter of continuing to build those kinds of programs, so that police can be freed up to really focus on safety and not other issues.

In your conversations with people in the public safety community, does the ACORNS unit need to be expanded?

I was talking to one beat cop, and she said, 12-hour shifts, one call an hour, six of those are social services … Certainly, looking at best practices and outcomes is critical to making the decisions on how to allocate your dollars.

As former state treasurer, I have to ask you, with all of these big ideas, how do you pay for them?

The current city council, in the most recent property tax increase, has reserved over $20 million to put towards some of these compensation plans.

We have to take a hard look at the budget. So, one of the things I've noted is that the general administrative expenses for the city have grown to about 20%.

I mean, generally, if you're a nonprofit, (the norm is) 15%.

Look at what are the programs that are working, what are programs that aren't working? And looking at efficiency and effectiveness.

What do you want Raleigh to look like in 10, 15 years?

Well, we're going to have more density. We're going to have more apartment buildings, more duplexes, more townhomes, because there's just not that much land left for a lot of sprawling development.

But inside of that, we all know we're a southern city that's always had nature and parks and trees and this incredible greenway system. I would love for us to really embrace that.

Just as an example for the greenways, when you think about like Crabtree Valley Mall, it's on a greenway, but you wouldn't know it because they've turned the back of the entire mall, as if it was just a drainage ditch turning things towards greenways.

You’re elected. It's day one. What's your first priority?

Well, the first priority is really working with the current council. One of the challenges has just been all these divisions in the community and the country, and some of that spilled over to the city council table and setting the tone, working together with my compatriots and figuring out what their priorities are, right?

Working with the citizenry and trying to help everybody come together to make Raleigh a city that works for everybody.