Candidates in several local races met with local real estate professionals Tuesday afternoon during a Wilmington Regional Association of Realtors’ meet-and-greet event, entitled Pork n’ Politics.
The event featured candidates for council positions in Wilmington, Carolina Beach and Kure Beach. While Realtors ate Carolina barbecue sandwiches and banana pudding, hopeful and sitting politicians stationed themselves at tables spread throughout the association’s dining hall, ready to answer questions and talk issues.
Candidates vying for Wilmington City Council seats attended the event. In addition to incumbents Margaret Haynes and Neil Anderson running for reelection, six other candidates are running for three open council member positions. One point all agreed on was that without a race for mayor — incumbent Bill Saffo runs unopposed — it should be a low-turnout election, with just roughly 5,000 votes needed to take the seat.
Common issues included transportation, development, job creation and crime. Candidates said with the projected growth of as many as 50,000 new Wilmingtonians over the course of the next two decades, housing, roads and jobs will be issues that city council will have to wrestle with over the coming years.
Most candidates said they favored a proposal by the planning department to reroute some city train tracks and replace them with a trolley system. They also generally supported the recent transportation bond passed by the city council.
Margaret Haynes, a former congressional staffer, said her priorities were environmental preservation and economic development, two goals that can go hand-in-hand. She said industries like pharmaceuticals and film are “clean” and fit with the environmental priority the city must maintain to continue to draw tourism.
“Protecting our air and water and environment helps protect our tourism industry,” she said.
Haynes said the city council isn’t doing enough to offer incentives that would bring new industries to Wilmington.
“It’s too parsimonious,” she said of the council. “Other communities spend more on economic development. The council is very conservative with its spending.”
Deb Hays, chair of the city’s planning commission, said a city council priority should be implementing elements of the comprehensive plan that the city has developed with input from the public. Hays was a member of the plan’s steering committee.
“It’s our roadmap for the future,” Hays said. “We have to get a housing plan passed that can accommodate the 50,000 people that will come here over the next 20 years.”
With the anticipated population growth, Hays said the city needs more “nodal communities” that mix residential and commercial development in a way that factors in transportation to make it easier for residents to walk or take public transit.
Candidate Alvin Rogers, the owner of Rogers Appliance at 4715 Oleander Drive, said transportation issues were his main priority, especially the traffic around South College Road, Kerr Avenue and Oleander Drive. He said making South College and Kerr one-way roads would help alleviate the congestion. He also suggested extending Kerr through to Oleander.
Rogers also supports more mixed-use development, which he said would help deter crime as the presence of residential properties near businesses would discourage break-ins.
Hollis Briggs Jr. said job creation would be his priority as a councilmember. Another would be homelessness, a problem that can be addressed with more funding, he said. He said the recent closing of a homeless shelter at Fourth Street and Red Cross Street turned more than 100 people out onto the streets, which will lead to more problems.
“We need to find the resources to deal with this problem,” he said.
Briggs said one idea that the city should explore is creating districts for the councilmembers. Currently, all members are elected as at-large members. While adding districts should be considered, Briggs said it should be handled by the city, and not the state legislature.
“If we let Raleigh decide the districts, it will probably be worse,” he said.
Candidate Paul Lawler said the current at-large system works.
“Every citizen can contact all seven council members and expect a response,” he said. “Right now, if you have a complaint, you can call them all.”
One area ripe for redevelopment is Market Street, which Lawler described as a “sad” street. He said improving the road to create more space, especially for residential properties, could help address the city’s projected population growth. While Lawler joined other candidates in expressing interest in the trolley proposal, he said it would be important to consider the costs.
“I want it to be practical,” he said.
Lawler said economic development is among his priorities, especially luring high-paying jobs to Wilmington.
“Wilmington has tremendous potential in the tech sector,” he said. “Would your rather be in the tech industry in Raleigh and sit in traffic for an hour or be in tech here and sit on the beach for an hour?”
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