Special Election

We have an amazing opportunity in Carrboro over the next 18 months. When as many as six positions on the Board of Aldermen could be up for grabs. Beginning with the Special Election on March 19.

If anyone, including your preferences, truly wants to serve, they will have more than ample opportunity. So, let’s use these series of Elections to do more than just engage in Carrboro politics as usual.

Let’s use these next 18 months to encourage the widest, broadest and deepest conversation possible about the state of our town, and the direction in which it is heading.

In that regard, I have a challenge to all those who make up the political establishment in Carrboro. Stand back. Let the people have that conversation. Without imposition by you. Let them make their own choices. Without direction from you.

Do not nominate, do not endorse, do not lobby, do not campaign. Do not close ranks to anoint an heir. Rather, step back. And encourage as many different people as possible, with as many different views as possible, to nominate themselves as candidates. And then campaign, only for themselves.

Dan Coleman will be missed in Carrboro. I have a couple of sisters who lived in Australia. I've already written to Dan offering what help I can with his transition. But I know that he will enjoy his new adventure in Australia.

Which means. A vacancy will soon be opening on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen. And my mind turns to matters of political ‘establishment,’ the righteousness of challenge in a community, and what makes me itchy.

Now. Let's get clear. There is a political ‘establishment’ in Carrboro. This is not necessarily a bad thing. So, why the itch?

Well, I get itchy at any appearance of an 'establishment' coronation.

I get itchy at any sense that one has to be a part of an homogenous 'establishment' to make progress. That the primary attribute of a candidacy should be that one has worked one's way up the ladder of 'establishment,' allowing its members to get comfortable with one.

I get itchy at the suggestion that a community is, indeed, homogenous. When patently no community is homogenous.