The terms of the current City Council will end on Thursday, Aug. 11.
The City Council was elected to a four-year term in November 2017, and that term has been extended and extended again.
However, the city has announced that a special “Organizational Meeting” will be held on Thursday, Aug. 11 at 5:30 p.m. in the Katie Dorsett Council Chamber at city hall.
The Monday, Aug. 1 meeting is listed in the council meeting schedule on the city website as a “Tentative Organizational Meeting,” but that will now be a regular meeting of the current City Council.
At the organizational meeting, the newly elected mayor and members of the City Council are sworn in for what would in normal circumstances be four-year terms. In this case, the newly elected mayor and city councilmembers will be sworn into terms of a little less than three years and four months.
Unless the North Carolina legislature or the North Carolina Supreme Court finds a reason to delay the 2025 City Council election, those elected on July 26 will serve until the next organizational meeting, which should be the first Tuesday in December 2025.
All nine members of the City Council are on the July 26 ballot, but since Mayor Nancy Vaughan and District 3 City Councilmember Justin Outling are each running for mayor, along with write-in candidate Chris Meadows, the City Council sworn in on Aug. 11 will have at least one new face. It is also almost a given that District 3 City Council candidate Zack Matheny will be elected, since he is running unopposed for the District 3 seat.
Six members of the current City Council are running for reelection to their current seats and, historically, incumbents have fared well in City Council races.
At-large City Councilmember Hugh Holston is also running for an at-large seat, but since he was appointed to the City Council in September 2021, to fill the seat left vacant when Michelle Kennedy resigned to accept the position of director of the Housing and Neighborhood Development Department, Holston is technically not running for reelection.
Many of us hope that the council will see new members that want transparency in government and understand that the money they set in a budget is the tax payers money not theirs.
Vote for Chris Meadows (write in for mayor), Katie Rossabi (at large), Thurston Reeder (district 4), Tony Wilkins (district 5). Put common sense back on the council.
AMEN !
All of Hugh Holston’s signage reads ‘Re-Elect’. Inaccurate and misleading and intentional. He won’t be receiving my vote.