NC Metro Mayors Coalition Finds Common Ground at Fall Meeting

The North Carolina Metropolitan Mayors Coalition fall meeting took place earlier this month, which brought nearly 40 mayors and town staff members from across the state for several days of presentations and discussion.

The coalition was founded in 2001 and is a nonpartisan organization led by mayors that focuses of issues pertaining to the larger cities of the state.

Carrboro mayor Lydia Lavelle, an at-large board member of the coalition, says that while presentations ranging from emergency management and climate change to transportation and affordable housing had particular relevance to Carrboro, it was the exchange of common issues that she found most important.

“As much as all the presentations we heard and all the information we got, it’s also just that networking with the other mayors,” says Lavelle. “Mayors were there from Durham, Greensboro, Asheville, Concord, Gastonia, Fayetteville, probably about 40 mayors and staff members there, just the exchange of common issues and common concerns that we have.”

An overview of the impact of this month’s midterm elections also took place at the meeting, which saw the Republicans maintain their majority in the North Carolina General Assembly but lose supermajorities in each chamber.

Lavelle says the group viewed the election results through a bipartisan lens.

“We all were aware of being able to defeat the supermajority,” says Lavelle. “We talked about that in terms of issues that are common to all of us.”

Lavelle listed reallocating the sales tax, transportation and affordable housing as areas of commonality between the mayors.

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