The Daily Tar Heel has covered a wide array of issues and produced dozens of stories on the 2023 municipal elections.
We've compiled these stories into one place, so you can go to the polls informed about your choices. We'll update this page as we publish more stories on the elections, right up until Election Day.
First and foremost, we've published the results of the Carrboro mayoral and town council races. Other stories to come.
Chapel Hill Town Council and mayoral races
- This summer, we covered some of the major candidate announcements in the Chapel Hill elections, like for Jess Anderson, Adam Searing and Theodore Nollert.
- But even before the campaign began, the main dividing lines were being drawn. Searing had staked his opposition to the Housing Choices LUMO plan, and voted against the change in a meeting over the summer, just after he announced his mayoral candidacy.
- The amendment — which has been at the front lines of the election — has yet to substantiallly change the Chapel Hill housing market.
- We broke the news that a new PAC proposed by a local resident that planned to raise $120,000 to support Searing and his town council slate was not forming. Some residents later urged prospective donors to instead give to the Chapel Hill Leadership PAC, which is affiliated with CHALT.
- Later on, we investigated what appeared to be an illegal nonprofit event to support Searing and his slate of town council candidates. The founder of the nonprofit denied that the group hosted the event, saying the host was actually CHALT, despite flyers and advertisements that included the nonprofit's email.
- When they came out, we reported on the initial campaign finance reports and the overlap between the Chapel Hill Leadership PAC — which is affiliated with CHALT — and Searing's donors.
- When Searing sent out a mailer that illegally left off a payment disclosure, we covered his response.
- We've covered sustainability in the election, misinformation, student voting and low turnout. We've covered how the different parts of our community have responded to housing rules, and we spoke to sitting mayor Pam Hemminger about the election and potential outcomes.
- After a poll came out about the election, we covered the results.
- We did some digging into the differences between 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) organizations, which were put front and center in the election when Searing wrote negatively about Triangle Blog Blog and NEXT Chapel Hill-Carrboro in a newsletter.
Carrboro Town Council and mayoral races
- After Damon Seils announced he would not be seeking a second term, we covered Barbara Foushee entering the race — nobody else did, so Foushee is running unopposed.
- We later spoke to Seils about his thoughts on the future of Carrboro.
- Sammy Slade and Susan Romaine both decided not to run again, and we covered their decisions.
- We've done two overviews of the Carrboro Town Council election, one this summer and one in September — including the Better Together slate of Eliazar Posada, Catherine Fray and Jason Merrill.
- The Bolin Creek Greenway has been an important point of contention during the Carrboro election season, and we've covered the controversy. We also covered the town council meeting where the Creekside Alignment was approved.
- We also spoke to some Carrboro residents about what they thought of the Creekside Alignment.
CHCCS Board of Education race
- After a slow start and a post by a Triangle Blog Blog, more than a dozen candidates filed to run for four seats on the CHCCS Board of Education. There are still 13 in the running for the seats, including three incumbents.
- There has been one major candidate forum for the race, which we covered.
- We have been covering school board candidates and their platforms in a segment on the Before You Vote podcast.
- We have also been working on a series of feature stories on as many of the candidates as we can, including Barbara Fedders, Mariela Hernandez, Vickie Feaster-Fornville, Honoria Middough, Allison Willis and Meredith Ballew.
