97.9 The Hill WCHL and Chapelboro.com are your headquarters for local news and local voices in Chapel Hill-Carrboro. Every weekday morning, 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck chats with government officials, UNC scholars, business and nonprofit leaders, area musicians, and others in our community as they share their thoughts, their experience, and their expertise on the central issues of today. Click here to listen back to all of Aaron’s conversations – and tune in to “This Morning with Aaron Keck” at 7:30 a.m. on 97.9 The Hill to hear those conversations live.
Every other Monday, Aaron is joined at 8:30 a.m. by Tom Jensen, the director of Public Policy Polling, for a longstanding regular segment called “What We’re Thinking,” looking at recent survey numbers and discussing what they tell us about American public opinion – election-related and otherwise.
This week, Tom and Aaron preview the 2023 local elections – especially the crowded races for Chapel Hill Town Council and Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board.
In Chapel Hill, there are effectively two ‘parties’ – anti-growth CHALT and pro-growth NEXT – and each will likely endorse their own slates of four candidates each. Interestingly, the one incumbent, Amy Ryan, may not get an endorsement from either group – because she’s been in the middle, in favor of the town’s pro-growth track but also willing to reject big development proposals that she thinks don’t hold water. Will she finish first, or will she finish ninth? Tom says it’s likely to be one or the other, if she doesn’t get a CHALT or NEXT endorsement.
In the school board race, meanwhile, there will be 19 names on the ballot for just four open seats. Many of those candidates were motivated to run after hearing unconfirmed rumors of a right-wing Moms For Liberty slate – but did the rumors make a Moms For Liberty takeover more likely, not less? Tom says maybe: MFL’s only chance of winning school board seats in Chapel Hill is if progressives split their votes among a ton of indistinguishable candidates – which is now possible, with so many names on the ballot. (Should the local Democratic Party break tradition and endorse candidates in the nonpartisan CHCCS race, to avoid that possibility? Tom says it wouldn’t be a bad idea.)
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