PITTSBORO — The second News + Record candidate forum was held last Wednesday, with the two events — one Oct. 20 at the Chatham Ag Center, and the other at Central Carolina Community College’s Pittsboro campus — giving voters a chance to hear candidates share thoughts about a number of issues.
Here’s a summary from the two forums:
The first forum took place on Oct. 20 and featured the N.C. Senate Dist. 20, N.C. House Dist. 54 and Chatham County’s Sheriff races. Democratic candidates Sen. Natalie Murdock, Rep. Robert Reives II and Chatham County Sheriff Mike Roberson spoke for about two hours on a myriad of topics, including Chatham’s growth, affordable housing, what distinguished them from their opponents, reforming N.C.’s marijuana laws and more. Republican candidates seeking those seats — Alvin Reed, Walter Petty and Marcus Globuschutz — chose not to participate in the forum.
One of the primary topics the three candidates were asked about was Chatham’s growth.
Roberson, who’s seeking his second full term as sheriff, said his department needs additional funds from the county to prepare for the inevitable influx of an estimated 20,000 people.
“What we’re gonna need is more deputies, and the reason we’re gonna need more deputies is we keep building in unincorporated areas … they’re not paying town taxes, but they want town services,” Roberson said. “We’re going to have to start funding the sheriff’s office to be able to have more deputies on the road to the be able to answer these calls.”
Reives said the key to preparing for growth is providing affordable housing options for new and current residents. He said growth should be “controlled,” ensuring the small-town charm of Chatham remains.
“We’re able to plant growth, and so, I’ve been able to work with Chatham Park and some of the folks in Pittsboro and Pittsboro town commissioners to go ahead and set highways so that they’re bypassing the downtown,” he said.
Murdock reiterated both Roberson’s and Reives’s points and added growth needed to be “environmentally friendly.” She wants life-long residents not to be pushed out of their homes and communities, which has happened in other regions across the state.
“So many folks are multi-generational, born and raised in Chatham County, and they shouldn’t be pushed out because of that growth,” she said. “As we shared this evening, (we) just want to make sure we do it in a way that doesn’t leave folks behind.”
Candidates were also asked for their stances on drug policy and enforcement regarding marijuana.
The N.C. Senate voted to legalize the medicinal use of marijuana in August, and the bill currently sits in the N.C. House. Reives said he wants to see the bill pass, since he believes marijuana policies haven’t been consistent in the way they’re enforced.
“I think the decriminalization of marijuana is something that we have to address, mostly because I’ve seen what it can do for people who are in chronic pain and PTSD. It saves them,” Reives said.
Roberson said in his role as sheriff, he doesn’t make laws — but he has to enforce them. He said if only legalized for certain uses, it would complicate what his deputies have to enforce.
“If we’re going to do it anyway, I would treat it like alcohol, and have it be regulated,” he said. “I want to know where it comes from, know the quality of it, know who sells it and know where the tax is going when it’s sold.”
In discussing the topic of political partisanship, all three candidates at the forum agreed if elected, they wouldn’t just represent their party — they would represent all of Chatham.
“It really is our duty as legislators to do we serve and represent all people,” Murdock said. “These are not partisan issues — we may disagree on how to do it — but no matter what, the goal really should be the same, even if we have different paths to get there.”
Five of the six candidates for county commissioner — Democrat David Delaney and Republican Tom Glendinning in Dist. 3, Republican Joe Godfrey and Democrat Katie Kenlan in Dist. 4 and Democrat Franklin Gomez Flores in Dist. 5 — were present for the Oct. 26 forum. Republican Peyton Moody, seeking to unseat Gomez Flores in Dist. 5, was traveling and unable to attend.
Growth was also the main topic of conversation among these candidates. When asked how to make a more populous Chatham County a better Chatham, Gomez Flores said growth has pros and cons evaluated during the planning process.
“I’ve been pushing the board … every single board meeting during my commissioners report that we need to sit down and really identify all the needs in Chatham County,” he said. “We need to identify and plan these property taxes that we’re estimating to collect from these economic opportunities [Wolfspeed and VinFast] to address major one-time investments.”
Godfrey said he believes Chatham commissioners need to focus on addressing infrastructure shortcomings, including roads, wastewater treatment, utilities and more.
“We’re two to three years behind on the infrastructure as it stands right now — we need to do something about it,” he said. “We’re going to need new schools, we’re going to need wastewater treatment in some form … We need to make sure that we’re being responsible for the tax money, all of us are being affected by inflation right now … So we need to make sure that we’re using tax money from the people efficiently.”
Kenlan, Godfrey’s opponent, said she wants to make sure the environment and green spaces for residents are among the top priorities when commissioners are planning growth.
“We really need to take in and evaluate what are our current green spaces … and protecting and preserving strategic areas in our county,” she said. “People are moving here for a reason. Chatham is incredibly beautiful, and we have a lot of character here that we want to protect.”
Glendinning advocated for subdivisions to be separate from the affordable units, making a separate neighborhood for just affordable homes.
“Affordable housing can be attained outside in its own subdivision and not cause a blighted area within a nice subdivision like Briar Chapel,” he said. “The expectations and the disparity in income have caused a real difficulty for the people who are actually the ones we’re thinking about and working toward it.”
For Delaney, he said he wants to focus on ensuring all Chatham residents can benefit from the incoming growth, by focusing on equity.
“There is gross inequity in the way that our students of color, our students of lower socioeconomic statuses or disability status, are treated in this county,” he said. “We can do a much better job in terms of investing in those places where we see signs of inequity, to make sure that everyone has a better starting point.”
Three of the five board of education candidates were also featured on Thursday’s panel. Dist. 3 incumbent Del Turner and her challenger Jessica Winger shared the stage along with Dist. 5 candidate Tim Moore. Moore’s opponent, incumbent and board Chairperson Gary Leonard, was ill on the day of the forum and did not participate. Incumbent Jane Allen Wilson, in Dist. 4, is uncontested in her race, she attended the forum but wasn’t included as a participant.
Both Moore and Winger discussed their “parents first” approach to the board of education — giving parents more input when it comes to school policies and curriculum.
Winger criticized the transparency of the current board, saying she felt the board failed to effectively communicate with parents regarding their children’s education.
“Instead of getting clarity, and collaboration, I saw that parent voices were pushed aside,” Winger said. “There was a distinct disconnect from what was talked about in the meetings and decisions that were being made, and what was actually happening in the homes of these families in our community.”
Turner disagreed with Winger, citing the board’s willingness to talk to parents through surveys, special meetings and more.
“In terms of communicating with parents, we always communicate with our parents by survey, by email, and by telephone call every Friday night or no later than Sunday afternoon,” she said. “I don’t understand people saying that I’m communicating and that we’re not responsive to them. I don’t know what else we can do.”
“Parents first” rhetoric has also accused Chatham County Schools of teaching critical race theory, a collegiate-level concept that observes how institutions, policies and other organized systems are shaped through the lens of race. The academic theory draws from the work of several prominent Black voices throughout American history, including Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass and W. E. B. Du Bois.
During the forum, Winger said that she believes “CRT is teaching racism” and “does not acknowledge any progress that we have made in the past and in history.”
At this point, a few audience members held up signs saying “FACT CHECK” and made vocal exclamations as Winger continued speaking. Eventually, audience members stopped shouting when they were told they would be forced to leave the event if the disruption continued.
Moore said he wants the schools to “go back to the basics,” and focus on elevating test scores and performance in each grade level.
“Reading, writing, and arithmetic … are the most critical elements,” he said. “We have all these employers that are coming looking for sharp young employees, and we have a large amount of our students that can’t read, write or add. So that’s my major focus.”
Turner, the only person of color currently on the board, reiterated statements she’s made that CRT is not being taught in Chatham County schools.
“Critical race theory is not a pre-K through 12 conversation — it is a college conversation,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of teachers come to us and say, ‘We don’t really know how to discuss issues of race to the children, Black children and white children.’ So they’re just getting professional training in having conversations that don’t turn out to be offensive or violent or anything like that. I don’t see anything wrong with that.”
CN+R Publisher and Editor Bill Horner III served as forum moderator.
Reporter Taylor Heeden can be reached at theeden@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @HeedenTaylor.