To reflect on the year, Chapelboro.com is re-publishing some of the top stories that impacted and defined our community’s experience in 2023. These stories and topics affected Chapel Hill, Carrboro and the rest of our region.
Local elections and politics in Orange County are rarely boring, and the 2023 cycle encapsulated that. Accusations and claims of dark money over campaign funding. Examinations into how endorsements are made. Defining how “liberal” or “progressive” candidates are. And, most importantly, discussions about policies determining the direction and futures of the three towns and their residents. At the end of it all, Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough welcomed three new mayors and nine first-time elected officials to their leadership ranks.
The local election cycle for 2023 began with announcements that indicated changes were coming — as Carrboro Mayor Damon Seils and Hillsborough Mayor Jenn Weaver each announced they would be stepping down from their roles. Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger took longer to finalize her plans, but ultimately shared she too would be leaving the town’s highest elected office.
Once the filing period began, those changes began to take shape even more. Chapel Hill Town Council members Michael Parker and Tai Huynh each chose not to seek another for years, with Susan Romaine and Sammy Slade each stepping aside in Carrboro. Ten candidates filed to run for the four Chapel Hill Town Council seats on the ballot, with Carrboro’s council drawing five candidates for its three seats and four running in Hillsborough for its three Board of Commissioners seats.
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education race, though, saw no candidates file in the opening days. A post from Triangle Blog Blog in the final days of the period speculated that members of the right-wing activism group Moms for Liberty could run and be elected if few candidates filed — writing its team had “heard inklings that a right-wing four-person block is ready to run.”
That ultimately did not materialize, but the post prompted more than a dozen people to enter the race. By the end of the filing period, 19 people had put their names in for consideration — although some removed their names with the Board of Elections or quickly dropped out after seeing the crowded field.
On Election Night, one race ended up being almost too close to call: the final, fourth seat on the Chapel Hill Town Council. Incumbent Amy Ryan, as well as Melissa McCullough and Theodore Nollert, established leads with the early voting count that only strengthened as the night went on. Attention quickly turned to the final seat, which shaped up as a dead heat between Elizabeth Sharp and Renuka Soll — two candidates who had run in a slate with mayoral candidate Adam Searing. Sharp led Soll by 16 votes after polls closed, which led to the count of absentee, provisional and military ballots by the Orange County Board of Elections carrying more weight.
After the final cross-county counts were finalized on November 17, Sharp maintained her lead by six votes.
“I feel ready and excited to get into the work of serving my town,” she told Chapelboro following the results becoming official. “The most important thing that I feel is [I am] incredibly grateful to Renuka Soll for being a gracious, smart, thoughtful, talented, dedicated running mate and candidate. I would have been so thrilled for her to serve on town council as well, and I’m sad I don’t get to serve beside her, but I could not wish for a better person to have gone through these last ten days of uncertainty with.”
Jess Anderson ultimately defeated Searing in the mayoral race with 58 percent of the vote, marking a new mayor for the first time in eight years and ending Anderson’s two-term stretch as a council member. Anderson ran a campaign focused on adhering to the Complete Communities framework passed in 2022, with the goals of developing to accommodate more, controlled growth and affordability challenges while also improving long-term environmental and economic sustainability. On Election Night, she acknowledged that accomplishing those goals would require having council members and residents move on from the contentious campaign season.
Incoming Chapel Hill Mayor Jess Anderson takes her oath of office from District Court Judge Joal Broun on December 18, 2023. (Photo via the Town of Chapel Hill.)
The new mayor alluded to that message with some of her opening comments after being sworn in on December 18.
“Today is an exciting new day,” Anderson said to those gathered in the town hall. “With your support and participation, I’m confident we can overcome our challenges, embrace opportunities, and write a new, inspiring chapter in the story of Chapel Hill.”
Since the race for mayor in Carrboro went unopposed, sitting council member Barbara Foushee was poised to make history. When she was sworn in earlier this month, she became the first Black woman to become Carrboro mayor and only the second person of color to hold the position. She pledged on the campaign trail and on Election Day that she would work to be a “unifier” in the tow government.
“Certainly,” Foushee said following the results, “I will bring a different lived experience to the seat, a different moral compass, somewhat of a different vision. I dare not say better — but I will just say ‘different.’”
Foushee was joined on the town council by incumbent Eliazar Posada, who ran in his first general election cycle after winning a 2022 special election, as well as Catherine Fray and Jason Merrill. The trio campaigned together as the ‘Carrboro Better Together’ slate, highlighting their aligned views on diversity, density, affordable housing, and transit policies.
Catherine Fray (left) takes the oath of office for the Carrboro Town Council, as administered by former mayor Lydia Lavelle. Fray earned the most votes from the cycle’s five candidates in 2023. (Photo via the Town of Carrboro.)
Hillsborough also saw an uncontested mayors race as well — meaning Mark Bell was slated to assume Weaver’s seat from July onward. He still campaign, promoting the town’s recently approved comprehensive sustainability plan and pledging to implement policies to achieve the plan’s goals. After taking his oath of office in December, he thanked the Hillsborough community for their support and engagement during the elections this fall, saying it will push him during his two-year term.
“The questions that people ask us during the election cycle,” Bell said, “that’s what informs us about what is really important to you and how we should prioritize those things. Thank you for being involved and engaged in that process.”
Meanwhile, two incumbents earned election to Hillsborough’s Board of Commissioners and a newcomer joined their ranks by assuming Bell’s empty seat. Meaghun Darab earned the most votes of the four candidates, while Matt Hughes was elected to his second, full four-year term and Evelyn Lloyd earned a phenomenal ninth term.
Evelyn Lloyd (right) takes the oath of office for her ninth term on the Hillsborough Board of Commissioners. New mayor Mark Bell sits in the background to watch the proceedings. (Photo via the Town of Hillsborough.)
Meanwhile, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education race saw three new candidates join its ranks. Incumbent Rani Dasi earned the most votes, while Barbara Fedders — an attorney with a focus on justice-involved youth and associate professor at UNC’s School of Law — and parents Meredith Ballew and Vickie Feaster Fornville maintained healthy leads over the rest of the field on Election Night.
Dasi, who finished a cycle as the school board chair, said she plans to help Fedders, Ballew and Fornville integrate with the other sitting board members as she begins her third term next year.
“[I’m looking forward to] really just helping with continuity and helping bring the new board members up to speed on the issues and the practices of the board,” she said on Election Night. “And then continuing to advocate across the state for the appropriate level of investment for public education in North Carolina.”
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Superintendent Nyah Hamlett (far left) stands with the 2024-25 Board of Education for a portrait following its organization meeting in December. From left to right: Barbara Fedders, Riza Jenkins, George Griffin, Vickie Feaster Fornville, Mike Sharp, Rani Dasi and Meredith Ballew. (Photo via CHCCS.)
Visit the Chapelboro Local Election Coverage page to see full coverage of the Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough municipal races from 2023.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
Comments on Chapelboro are moderated according to our Community Guidelines