The race over four seats on the Chapel Hill Town Council continues to gain candidates, as David Adams filed for election on Thursday.
Adams, who is an adjunct associate professor and cancer researcher at Duke University, launched his campaign with a message of pledging to meet the needs of community members in a fiscally and environmentally responsible way and criticizing recent decisions made by the sitting town council.
“I am running because I believe in representative government and in public service,” said Adams. “If elected, I will make decisions based on what I hear and learn from you, my constituents, rather than on my own personal beliefs and preferences.”
In the release, Adams said he believes some of the current Chapel Hill Town Council’s actions did not “heed to residents’ well-informed concerns.” Among recent examples of council actions he said he believes fit within this category is the change to Chapel Hill’s land use ordinance to allow for more housing diversity in existing neighborhoods — which Adams described as the “elimination of single-family zoning.” He said he hopes to seek housing policies that add affordable and “missing middle” inventory in new, larger projects instead of as infill development on existing individual lots.
Additionally, Adams pointed to the council’s decision in December to allocate a portion of town-owned property off Legion Road for affordable housing. He said he believes the land should have been entirely used as a community park, instead of just 25 of the 36 acres of the plot.
“As a scientist,” he said, “I know that climate change is real and mitigation is critical. Hence, it is essential that our town government act to protect and expand our parks, green space and mature tree canopy.”
Among other policy goals, the cancer researcher pointed to more partnerships with UNC to improve housing options for the university community, safely removing coal ash from town-owned land, and making the town’s spending more efficient.
“I believe Town budgets should be pragmatic,” Adams said, “especially when the Town has a sixty-million-dollar backlog in meeting core needs and our debt service is substantial. Taxes may need to rise, but they should do so gradually. At the same time, commercial rather than residential development should be stressed to balance our tax base.”
Adams entering the race brings the total of candidates who have either filed or verbally entered the race to nine. Melissa McCullough, Renuka Soll, Breckany Eckhardt, Erik Valera, Jeffrey Hoagland, Theodore Nollert, Elizabeth Sharp, and Michael Beauregard have all shared intentions to run — while Adams, Soll, Eckhardt, Valera, and Hoagland have all filed as of Thursday night.
The final total for candidates in the Chapel Hill Town Council race — and all other local 2023 races — will be finalized after the official filing period closes at 12 p.m. on Friday, July 21. To see who has filed so far, and to learn what is necessary to file for office, click here.
Photo via David Adams.
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