Alderman Lydia Lavelle announces run for Carrboro mayor

Under the elm tree outside of Carrboro Town Hall on Thursday, Alderman Lydia Lavelle officially announced her candidacy for mayor.

“I have been humbled by the amount of people who have encouraged me to run for the position,” said Lavelle, who was first elected to the Board of Aldermen in 2007.

The election will take place in November, and Lavelle is the first to announce her candidacy.

Lavelle said when Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton announced he would not seek a fifth term, she began to think about her campaign.

“When Mark Chilton announced he was stepping down as our town’s leader, I started giving the idea of running for mayor serious consideration,” she said.

If elected, Lavelle would be the first openly lesbian mayor of Carrboro.

“I don’t think it’s an issue at all,” she said.

“When I first ran for the Board of Aldermen six years ago, it was in the news a lot, and I don’t see it as often now.”

Lavelle’s partner, Alicia Stemper, said she is supportive of the campaign.

“I think she’d be a fabulous mayor,” Stemper said. “She’s smart, she’s level-headed, she’s passionate, and her leadership skills are just really fun to watch.”

Lavelle is an assistant professor at the N.C. Central University School of Law.

“I’ve been able to do my job at Central very well while serving on the Board of Aldermen,” Lavelle said.

“People who know me know that I’m a very engaged and present alderman. When I decide to do something, I do it 100 percent.”

Lavelle also sits on the Transportation Advisory Committee of the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization and is a member of the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau Board of Directors.

Her platform emphasizes improving transportation planning, establishing relationships with regional partners and increasing Carrboro’s tax base.

“We need to find a way to identify revenue streams so that our taxes don’t keep going up,” she said. “We need to be smart about how we build our commercial, and we need to be smart about how we try to figure out ways to make money.”

Chilton said Lavelle’s active engagement in multiple organizations and town boards will make her a good candidate.

He said Lavelle lives in an area that is often underrepresented in town government, so she will be able to bring a voice to those people.

And Alderman Sammy Slade said Lavelle’s diverse opinions would serve the town well.

“She has good capacity to listen and try to reconcile varying viewpoints,” he said.

“That’s a pretty valuable attribute for a mayor to have.”

Contact the desk editor at city@dailytarheel.com.