Will Raymond For Town Council

As much as I’d like to run the lowest cost competitive campaign, this year we need a few more dollars to get the message out.

Please consider contributing not more than $100 to our campaign to bring Will’s pragmatic, practical and fiscally prudent leadership to our Town Council.

Further information here.

A big thank you to all the folks who contacted and encouraged me to run.

Below is my formal announcement, more posts to follow:

Will Raymond Announces Run for Chapel Hill Town Council 2009

Chapel Hill, NC – July 17th, 2009

I am taking the next step in my eight year continuum of public service to Chapel Hill by announcing my candidacy for Town Council.

After listening to hundreds of my fellow citizens during the Sustainability Task Force’s nine recent public forums, it is clear that Chapel Hill’s residents want to move forward on a different path for the next decade.

Moving Chapel Hill forward will require common sense leadership that is innovative, experienced, tested and prepared to follow our citizens’ mandate to change course.

Successfully working with a variety of community organizations, advisory boards, the Town Council and Orange County Board of Commissioners in the past, I have taken on some of the thorniest, toughest and, occasionally, most controversial issues facing our community.

Listening to the community, gathering the best advice, with conviction and thoughtful fortitude, I have been unwavering in my support of reasonable growth policies, fiscal prudence, environmental protection and transparent government operations.

As my understanding of these challenges deepened, so has my sense of responsibility for making sure our community thrives when meeting them.

The next four years finds Chapel Hill at a crossroads. Addressing these four issues will be vital to our community’s sustainability:

• Beneficial Growth – I joined the Town’s Sustainability Task force to help build community consensus on measurably healthy growth.

  I know we must adopt balanced development policies that enrich all of our community. These policies must maintain our residents’ quality of life without sacrificing those bedrock principles that have made Chapel Hill shine. As existing projects like Greenbridge and East54 change the complexion of our community, and new projects like Carolina North and University Square come to fruition, we must better honor those values which have made Chapel Hill a sought after community.

• Fiscal Responsibility – I know we must strengthen our Town’s fiscal foundations so that we can meet not only the unique demands of the current economic downturn but prudently manage existing obligations. We need to implement a broad range of pragmatic policies, many previously suggested by our talented citizenry, to tighten our Town’s belt – to live within our residents’ means – while also seizing new opportunities to expand our pool of jobs and commercial tax base.
• Environmental and Neighborhood Protection – As a longtime resident, I know many citizens see enhancing and protecting Chapel Hill’s neighborhoods as inextricably linked to nurturing and defending our environment. Our Town’s growth goals, though, must be consistent with our environmental policy, with expected trade-offs clearly understood by our community.
• Public Participation – I know now is the time to build upon our improved relationship with the University and expand upon the commitment to make public participation central to managing the expansion of UNC onto Carolina North. Carolina North can be a stunning success if the burdens and benefits created are mutually understood and shared. Firming existing relationships, operating in good faith, we can make sure that financial, transit, environmental and social costs are not thrust upon residents’ overtaxed shoulders.

Read the rest of this entry »