For North Carolina, election season usually isn’t in the summer — but an unexpected vacancy on the Board of Orange County Commissioners is heating up some brief campaigns.
The death of District 1 county commissioner Jamezetta Bedford in June created an opening for Democrats who live in Chapel Hill or Carrboro to join the county board without a primary opponent or Republican challenger in the general election. Since Bedford won the March primary, the Orange County Democratic Party’s leaders in the two towns are responsible for determining her replacement, with a person poised to earn a four-year term as a commissioner.
The local party closed its application windows for the vacant seat on Monday and subsequently shared information about the six Democrats who registered to succeed Bedford. The executive committee will vote between Leah Bergman, Rani Dasi, Pam Hemminger, María Palmer, Renuka Soll and Erik Valera during a party meeting on Monday, July 20 — ultimately making a selection on the four-year term and a recommendation to the current board of who should complete Bedford’s unexpired term through December.
Here are the details for each candidate, with a link to their responses to the Democratic Party’s application questions and some highlights of their responses:
Leah Bergman
Photo via Leah Bergman.
Bergman, a Chapel Hill resident, has a professional background in housing. She works as the president of Southern Repair Service Inc. and Bergman Rentals in Durham, which focuses on owning, leasing, and repairing apartments and homes. The company manages 1,300 residential units across the Triangle and western North Carolina, with Bergman touting her business’ commitment to providing units at affordable rates and dedicated to those in the local workforce. Her advocacy work on affordable housing extends to working with Durham’s “Unlocking Doors” initiative to connect nonprofits and residents to federal housing programs.
In her application, Bergman responded to questions about addressing Orange County’s lack of affordability by focusing on developing housing targeted for those making 80% AMI and broadening the county’s tax base by taking advantage of Opportunity Zones or other zoning tactics to attract more commercial taxes. She also said she supports strengthening the county’s existing programs to build upon the work its staff are already doing instead of starting new initiatives from scratch.
Rani Dasi
Photo via Dasi for School Board.
Sitting Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools Board of Education Member Rani Dasi is looking to make the jump in elected bodies, from overseeing one of the state’s most in-demand school districts to the county government. Dasi has earned election to the school board three times, serving as chair for a two-year stint in 2017-18, and her term is set to expire in 2027. Professionally, she works as the vice president of operations finance for RTI International, an independent scientific research institute in the Research Triangle Park, and has often examined issues on the school board through a lens of financial expertise and efficiency.
Her responses to the Democratic Party’s applications highlighted prioritizing density in key travel corridors where water and sewer infrastructure is already built — using the development strategy to help address housing needs, limit environmental impact, and create dynamic places. The party also asked each candidate whether they would support a study examining a “hybrid service model” for the county’s two school districts to share resources and lower total costs. Dasi answered by saying she believes requesting the Orange County Schools and CHCCS district staff to brainstorm and collaborate where possible is her preferred move, while recognizing the district’s different needs.
Pam Hemminger
Photo via Pam Hemminger on Facebook.
Pam Hemminger’s entry to the Democratic Party is her first signal of a return to elected office since stepping down as the mayor of Chapel Hill in 2023. Hemminger is well known in the local and state political scene, having served on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education and Orange County Board of Commissioners for one term each before seeking and earning the mayoral office. During her eight years at the helm in Chapel Hill, the town government put a priority on improving housing stock across all types — not only approving projects, but working to adjust zoning ordinances an ultimately build a framework to guide holistic decisions around development.
Those priorities were also reflected in Hemminger’s response to the Democratic Party’s questions, with the former commissioner sharing her belief and strategy of growing the county’s commercial tax base to ease the burden on property owners and create more jobs for people to work locally. Of note: Hemminger’s pitch to the party’s executive committee indicated she is largely focused on serving in the short term and finishing Bedford’s expiring term instead of the full four-year term. She suggested the party pick her and allow whoever is selected for the November ballot to be trained alongside two other incoming commissioners for 2027.
María Palmer
Photo via Maria Palmer for Orange County.
María Palmer, a former Chapel Hill Town Council member, is the only applicant to be campaigning for the District 1 seat a second time this year. She was Bedford’s sole opponent in the Democratic primary election, losing to Bedford’s 57% of the vote. Palmer said she stepped in to challenge the two-term, well-liked commissioner because she believes the county’s most vulnerable residents are not being considered enough by the local government amid imbalanced property revaluations and a steep cost of living. Palmer is an immigrant from Peru, who recently retired from a career in ministry and public education, and much of her current advocacy work is done through the non-partisan, multi-lingual group Orange County Justice United.
Citing her time on the Chapel Hill Town Council as helpful to navigating housing and development, Palmer said she supports the county’s encouraging dense housing along transit lines and expanding water and sewer infrastructure to addressing both housing and commercial needs. She said she also wants to encourage board members to think outside the box when it comes to addressing housing inventory, affordability, and expanding the county’s tax base — proposing the county to incentivize manufactured homes, offer micro-loans to business ventures, and play up its tourism attractions to help generate revenue.
Renuka Soll
Photo via Terri Buckner.
While she has not been elected to office, Renuka Soll holds experience around the town government from many years on the Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation Commission. She also served as the president, treasurer and secretary of a PTA in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district and continues to work as a math tutor for New Hope Elementary School students. After coming up just a handful of votes short of a Chapel Hill Town Council seat in 2023 and falling in the 2019 election, Soll is now angling to bring her perspective to the county government’s elected body.
Soll’s comments in her application focused on environmentally-friendly approaches to addressing housing and affordability. She said she supports building density on existing water and sewer lines, and leveraging publicly owned land to help with workforce housing. Soll also said she would promote attracting businesses of “clean industries” and basing economic development around alignment with the county’s Climate Action Plan in addition to its strategic financial goals. In addition to her work in the Chapel Hill town government and schools, she also is a gun control advocate and served seven years on the North Carolinians Against Gun Violence’s board of directors.
Erik Valera
Photo via Erik for Chapel Hill.
A Chapel Hill Town Council candidate the past two cycles, Erik Valera’s quest to serve in an elected capacity comes after a professional career dedicated to helping nonprofits serve their respective communities. Valera held leadership roles El Centro Hispano, CommunityWorx, Youth Forward and the Diamante Arts & Cultural Center before starting his own consulting firm that works with nonprofits to train staff, develop plans, and assess their programs.
After running in 2025 on a platform to encourage gentle density and alter zoning to allow for more “missing middle” housing types within neighborhoods, Valera’s responses to the Democratic Party continued to focus on those methods while emphasizing the importance of lowering the high tax burden on county residents. He also said he supports further funding the Longtime Homeowners Assistance program, encouraging communities to preserve and repair affordable housing instead of relying on new units, and determining additional ways to attract families with school-aged children to help address both housing and school district struggles.
The Orange County Democratic Party will meet and hear from the candidates with a virtual forum on July 20 before taking two votes on who to appoint to the 2027-31 term and recommend to the county commissioner for the short-term.
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