As of Monday, Renuka Soll joined the growing list of candidates running in the upcoming Chapel Hill Town Council race.
Soll is a literacy tutor for New Hope Elementary School and has 14 years of public service experience – as Treasurer and Board member of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, creator and leader of three local Gun Give Back events, and a member and chair of the Town’s Parks, Recreation, and Greenways Commission.
Photo via Renuka Soll for Chapel Hill Town Council.
“Chapel Hill is a special place. I loved it the day I moved here with my family in 2005, and I still love it today,” Soll said.
“However,” she added, “like many growing, thriving communities, we face complex challenges. We need more affordable housing and more parks. We need to be stewards of our environment and encourage local prosperity. We need a vision that balances our resources across our many needs. I will bring that vision.”
Soll said her commitments include protecting the environment, prioritizing parks and recreation, creating affordable housing and welcoming citizen participation.
Of those commitments, she spent the most time discussing the first two.
As a member and chair of the Chapel Hill Parks, Recreation and Greenways Commission, Soll said she has led efforts to make playgrounds more accessible.
“With the Commission, I led efforts to begin addressing some of these needs,” she said, “by advocating for funds to make our playgrounds more accessible to children with disabilities, to returf the Cedar Falls fields, to begin the westward expansion of the Morgan Creek Greenway to connect Chapel Hill to Carrboro, and to break ground on a new skatepark. However, we have so much more to do. Our town currently has over 70 park and greenway projects needing at least $25M to build, repair or upgrade. This is because our town has systematically deprioritized parks for more than a decade, starving them of needed funds. I want to change this. We can do better.”
Soll also mentioned that she wants to see Chapel Hill become an environmental leader.
“We need to implement our Climate Action Plan by building carbon neutral homes and using renewable energy sources, insist on more green spaces in development projects, and improve our transit capabilities. We need to connect our existing patchwork of trails and greenways so that people can walk to nearby parks, bike to work, and walk to school,” she said.
Soll ran for election to the Chapel Hill Town Council in 2019 and finished seventh with 12.9 percent of the votes.
This election cycle, she is placing significant importance on community input.
“Most importantly, I will listen to you and hear your ideas. I will welcome public input and use it to make decisions that best reflect your needs and ideas. Chapel Hill used to welcome and encourage citizen participation,” she said, “However, recently, our leaders have been curtailing it by eliminating almost all public review for development projects in the Blue Hill district and now limiting advice from the citizen advisory boards during the developmental review process. I want to restore a culture of listening and learning.”
Soll joins the other six confirmed candidates running for the four seats that will be open for election. Existing candidates include Theodore Nollert, Michael Beauregard, Meslissa McCullough, Elizabeth Sharp, Breckany Eckhardt, and Jeffrey Hoagland, who have all either filed to run or announced plans to file in this election cycle.
Additional announcements are likely to follow shortly, as the official filing period for 2023 municipal elections runs through Friday, July 21. To see who has filed so far, click here.
Photo via Renuka Soll for Chapel Hill Town Council.
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