Last week, Bull City Rising had a chance to sit down with five of the six finalists for Durham's three open City Council seats. We're bringing you our in-depth interviews with the candidates this week, ahead of early voting. We invite you to watch each and full -- and, to check out our commentary on each candidate's interview and perspectives, after the jump.

Robert T. Stephens is a Durham newcomer, having lived in Durham for a little less than a year. Stephens argues that his lack of Durham experience is countered by an understanding of what he describes as systemic oppression, particularly with his involvement in Black Lives Matter activism, his travels to Ferguson, Mo. and elsewhere, and what he describes as an organizing role leading a march on the Streets at Southpoint Mall last year. We have a candid and frank conversation with Stephens about his experience and positions, his candidacy's heavy backing from Teach For America alums, and his advocacy for those he argues are left behind in today's Durham.

Note: the bottleneck in getting these interviews posted is the transcription and writing efforts; the previous posts have averaged 2,000 to 3,000 words. We're behind and in the interest of time, we're posting this interview without the transcript and narrative-- those will be added this evening.

On Why He's Running

Those who have heard Stephens speak at candidate forums have likely heard his very personal, difficult story of learning his father, a Raeford pastor, died from a heart attack after working to save neighbors' children from a fire. We asked Stephens to go beyond the personal call to service and talk about the issues that most concern him.

And Stephens' core issues of concern are clearly around economic and racial justice.

"When I got to this city, I found a city that was hurting. I found people telling me, hey, this is what I’m experiencing," Stephens said.

Last week, Bull City Rising had a chance to sit down with five of the six finalists for Durham's three open City Council seats. We're bringing you our in-depth interviews with the candidates this week, ahead of early voting. We invite you to watch each and full -- and, to check out our commentary on each candidate's interview and perspectives, after the jump.

Jillian Johnson has made a big impact on the Durham political scene in the course of a fraction of a campaign. She placed a strong second to Steve Schewel in the primary -- trailing an incumbent, past school board member, and all-around four-decade political vet by only a thousand votes or so. And if we ribbed Charlie Reece for his ubiquitous mailers, I challenge you to find a street corner in Durham that doesn't have one of her campaign signs. (Johnson told Lisa and me during an off-camera moment in our interview that her young children, unsurprisingly, delight in seeing 'mommy' everywhere they go.)

But Johnson's embryonic political history -- she's been engaged in activist movements throughout her sixteen years as a Durham resident, but has not appeared to serve on any City or County boards, and hasn't participated in broad-based civic activities outside deeply progressive movements -- also have raised questions, both about her background and about the apparently extremely well-organized engine to bring a capital-P Progressive to Council.

So in this interview, we talk with Johnson about her positions on the key issues she's raised in the campaign, including affordable housing, gentrification and policing -- but also about the politicking that may have helped earn the PA endorsement and about Johnson's previous civic work.

Note: Our camera equipment failed on the first half of the interview; Lisa, who did a great job putting these videos together, has placed the last half of the interview first with the first segment an audio-only section at the end. We did check with Johnson to make sure she was okay with this out-of-order editing. Apologies for the technical difficulties.

Johnson's Decision to Run for Council, and Past Civic Experience

Johnson centered her interest in running for office squarely around concerns she has about the impacts of Durham's rapid change since she arrived at Duke in 1999.

"I’ve been hearing, in my community and just around Durham for a long time, serious concerns about gentrification in my neighborhood and in neighborhoods all around Durham. And I think it’s something that we’ve been talking about for a long time," Johnson said.

This story was updated at 12:25 to add a comment from the Durham Housing Authority.

This story was updated at 2:45 to add a comment from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

This is a story of Durham's affordability crisis: Marian Spicer, a teacher's aide in Durham Public Schools, earns $20,000–$24,000 a year, not even half of the county's annual median income. That salary level qualifies her for subsidized housing, which would be useful, except that her former apartment complex, Foxfire, on the north side, stopped taking Section 8 vouchers, Spicer told the Durham Housing Authority board last night.

And if she doesn't find a new place that accepts Section 8 recipients by Christmas, she will lose her voucher, go to the back of a very, very long waiting list and become homeless.

"It's almost impossible to find a one-bedroom in Durham," DHA CEO Dallas Parks said. "We're not the solution. It has to be a community solution."

Last week, Bull City Rising had a chance to sit down with five of the six finalists for Durham's three open City Council seats. We're bringing you our in-depth interviews with the candidates this week, ahead of early voting. We invite you to watch each and full -- and, to check out our commentary on each candidate's interview and perspectives, after the jump.

Mike Shiflett is making his second bid for a City Council seat; in 1999, he came in fourth in the primary and couldn't get enough votes to make the top three in the general election. It's 16 years later, and Shiflett came in - fourth in the primary, again. This time, he's doubtlessly hoping for a different general election outcome. Interestingly, in that 1999 race, People's Alliance president Diane Catotti publicly backed Shiflett, their nominee, while the now-defunct centrist-left Durham Voter's Alliance considered swapping their support to Thomas Stith after the primary when Shiflett said he wanted to see all the City-County merger details before giving the idea his unqualified support.

(Psssst, hey, all you kids with stars in your eyes and Instagram on those shiny phones of yours: Back before we had smartphones; hell, before anyone but realtors and doctors had cell phones; we used to talk about merging the governments. Oh, and how broken local government was, something the nouveau Durhamites have truly not experienced, you lucky dogs, you.)

In 2015, Shiflett didn't get the PA endorsement, but earned conservative and Durham Committee support he never would have garnered that cycle. Will it be enough to lead to a different outcome?

On Affordable Housing and Gentrification

In his comments on housing prices and the impact of gentrification, Shiflett's comments seem to look for a balance between concern for ensuring the presence of safe, affordable housing in Durham, while also celebrating the community improvements and investments that have led to some housing price increases in the first place.

"Affordable housing is a big issue right now," Shiflett said. "And for me, it's the history that I have in Durham," he added, noting his work with former city councilwoman and Durham housing advocate Lorisa Seibel in the 1990s on affordable housing issues, and more recently his volunteer work for groups pressing to include affordable housing in the planning around transit stations.

Last week, Bull City Rising had a chance to sit down with five of the six finalists for Durham's three open City Council seats. We're bringing you our in-depth interviews with the candidates this week, ahead of early voting. We invite you to watch each and full -- and, to check out our commentary on each candidate's interview and perspectives, after the jump.

If you don't know the name Charlie Reece by now, your postal carrier does: the first-time office seeker has had a fairly ubiquitous presence via mailers, street signs and an active social media campaign. Like his fellow People's Alliance endorsees, Reece's platform includes a heavy focus on campaign themes of equity for all -- including affordable housing and preserving Durham's neighborhoods' character -- along with a focus on the importance of community policing. Reece, the general counsel for his family's contract research firm Rho, sat down with Lisa Sorg and me to talk about his candidacy and his stand on some key public policy issues.

Durham's Next Police Chief

Relative to the rest of the PA slate, Reece has spent more time talking about policing and community safety issues -- an area where he's focused before the race, too, given his connections to the FADE coalition that successfully lobbied Durham officials on changes to probable cause searches and other perceived inequities in justice.

Reece talked about the characteristics he wanted to see in Durham's next police chief, highlighting three:

• Good experience with true community policing
• Experience working in a very diverse city
• Police-media relations expertise

While Reece didn't rule out his support for an internal candidate, he also mused that such a person might not exist, given what he described the historically out-in-front role of the chief as the seeming chief spokesperson as well, versus further developing the leadership experience of command staff. An external candidate would need help understanding the unique nature and neighborhoods of Durham, Reece said, but noted he hoped the city manager would select a person with strong management and public relations experience.

Last week, Bull City Rising had a chance to sit down with five of the six finalists for Durham's three open City Council seats. We're bringing you our in-depth interviews with the candidates this week, ahead of early voting. We invite you to watch each and full -- and, to check out our commentary on each candidate's interview and perspectives, after the jump.

Steve Schewel may be in his first City Council re-election bid, but he's no stranger to Durham politics. Besides his first four-year term, Schewel sat on the Durham school board during its stranger-than-fiction dysfunction in the mid-2000s; and, as the longtime and now former publisher/owner of the Independent Weekly, an experienced observer of local politics.

Schewel talks with Lisa Sorg and me about why he's seeking re-election, affordable housing and incentives downtown, the proposed new police headquarters, and what's working and what isn't in job creation. We also ask Steve about where he differs from his fellow PA endorsees -- and talk about his interest in the mayor's seat should Bill Bell indeed not seek re-election in 2017.

Durham, from Gilded Age to Golden Age?

Of all the candidates we interviewed, Schewel was the most positive in tone both on the performance of the current Council and on Durham's future. Perhaps this is unsurprising, given his status as the sole incumbent running for re-election. 

Not that Schewel didn't express his desire to see certain policies change; in talking about a Council that was often unanimous in spirit and even final votes, yet frequently disagreeing professionally about the right approach to get there, one senses Schewel would be more than fine with seeing his PA slate running mates brought into office, perhaps to move the needle a bit on policy outcomes.

Run, deer! Here comes the train! Al Buehler Trail, March 2015  Photo by Lisa Sorg

I have to say, I was dreading this part: Noisy highways, strip malls, concrete and asphalt. The only respite was to be a trek along a segment of the Al Buehler Trail. Instead of realigning the trail, as originally proposed (and which would have been horrible), the light rail line will be elevated over part of the trail and the Duke golf course. To accomplish this, GoTriangle will have to acquire 5.6 acres of Duke Forest. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement says there will be “negligible effects related to visual and noise conditions.” (See page 4-121 at the link above.)

1. I find this promise of “negligible effects” very hard to believe.
2. The construction and maintenance will likely damage the flora and fauna in the area, caused by a loss of trees and understory.

Duke biologists, chime in.

From here, the line cuts to Cornwallis Road, near the Jewish Community Center, the JCC Day School, Carter Charter School and Western Boulevard/U.S. 15-501. Here, GoTriangle has considered building the ROMF—rail operation maintenance facility—at a former Pepsi plant. It would require a rezoning of the land but with less bureaucracy than other sites.

Not so fast, said the JCC. Several JCC members and leaders are concerned the facility would also gobble up 2.5 acres that the Jewish Federation owns, and has plans for building recreational areas.

Continue the journey, including more on who tends to live near maintenance facilities, and a pass by the old Herald-Sun offices. (Could the ROMF be built there?)

A crowd of about 40 Durhamites attended last night's InterNeighborhood Council candidate debate featuring the six finalists for at-large City Council seats, along with the mayoral finalists.

The entire debate is available for viewing on YouTube -- and it's a must-watch, we'd suggest, for folks who are planning to vote in the general election. After all, newspapers, PACs and blogs can endorse, summarize and critique, but ultimately this election is about finding the candidates each voter feels is qualified to serve and represents the values that they think should be reflected in Durham.

Incidentally, next week Lisa Sorg and I will be recording video interviews with each Council candidate. Look for those on the site late next week.

Here's a rundown on some of last night's highlights and key areas of discussion.

Public Safety and Crime

Most candidates agreed that Durham faced a perception of increasing crime and that, in the last year or so at least, crime had seen an increase. 

Several of the candidates emphasized the importance of repairing citizen-police relationships. Ricky Hart noted that residents and police "do not have that trust, they do not have that fellowship" as car-based officers drive through communities, while Charlie Reece called to "recommit to a policing strategy that gets police officers out of their cars and walking beats in their neighborhoods."

Just a reminder that the INC is hosting a debate for mayoral and City Council candidates tonight in the City Council chambers.

Doors open at 6:30pm, with introductions starting 15 minutes later. The debate will start at 7pm and is slated to run for two hours.

We'll be covering tonight's debate so look for a full rundown of what transpires. Even better, come yourself and have a chance to meet the candidates in the flesh. The event will also be broadcast on public access -- Time Warner Cable channel 8, and AT&T U-Verse channel 99.

Favio, near Duke Medical Center between the proposed Flowers and LaSalle stations.
Photo by Lisa Sorg

A man limped in short stutter steps as he pushed an empty wheelchair onto the sidewalk along busy Erwin Road between LaSalle Street and the Duke Medical Center. 

"Do you need some help?" I asked, only then noticing he had only prosthetic legs. He seemed unsteady, unwell, as if perhaps he should still be under a doctor's care. His white medical bracelet read "Favio," and listed his birthdate as 1960.

"I'm looking for a Mexican grocery," he replied in English. He was fluent, but he spoke haltingly, as if the words were floating above his head and he had to catch them. "Someone told me there's one about a mile up the road."

I didn't remember a tienda being in either direction, but began checking for one on my phone.

"Are you sure you're OK?"

He showed me his right arm, which although apparently healed, was crooked and could not be extended. The side of head, asymmetrical in shape, also looked like it had been injured in the past.

"May I ask how you lost your legs?"

"In Mexico, my wife took my children and I decided to kill myself."

"Did you jump?"

"No, I sat on the train tracks, and then ..." He made a sweeping motion with his arm.

I gave the man $2, enough for a bus trip to downtown and back. I pushed him in his wheelchair across the street to the stop in front of Duke hospital.

"Seis o once (the 6 or the 11)" I told him. "Buena suerte."

Continue the journey along the proposed light rail line, including a brief history of the Crest Street neighborhood.