Janet Cowell's victory in this month's election for Raleigh mayor brings her back to where she started her career in politics.
Cowell was first elected to the Raleigh City Council in 2001, quickly rose to the state Senate, and then became the first woman to be elected State Treasurer in 2008.
After a break from politics, she announced her campaign for Raleigh mayor this year and won handily with nearly 60% of the vote.
WUNC's Will Michaels spoke with Cowell about her goals for her first term.
This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
What is item one on your to-do list when you get sworn in next month?
Working on housing and getting more housing units in the city of Raleigh. We have a big shortfall, and of course, that was the number one issue in the campaign.
As mayor, you've said that you would work to diversify housing options to address the shortage of affordable housing in Raleigh. What does that mean?
Past city councils have already tried to change it so that you can build a greater assortment of houses. That would mean things like accessory dwelling units. It used to be very hard to add those in Raleigh. Now it's easier. Things like townhouses, duplexes, quadruplexes, things that maybe if you grew up in the South, you don't even know what that is.
The city, like others across North Carolina, speaking of shortages, also has a shortage of police officers. Earlier this year, Raleigh police officers rallied for a 15% raise across the board, but got 5% in the most recent budget. I know that you've talked about at least raising starting pay for police officers in Raleigh in the next budget, though, would you consider closing that gap between what they wanted earlier this year and what they got?
Yeah, absolutely, that was another top issue. City of Raleigh has a very good police force, very good police chief, but we struggle to retain all of the police that we train and they go get recruited to other municipalities.
There is a big compensation study coming out probably first quarter of '25 that will guide both salaries for police and salaries for city employees in general. But I would anticipate another significant raise this year, and there has been money put aside from the past council to start making a dent in some of those salary gaps.
You were the CEO of Dix Park Conservancy for three years before running for mayor. So I'm curious, where do you think Raleigh stands when it comes to its parks and recreation programs in the Triangle, and how do you get it to where you think it should be?
Well, Raleigh is an amazing city for parks and rec as you know, our greenway system is nationally known. I think leveraging those assets more than we do and the change of attitude, when you think about the 1960s and 1970s, people turned their back to these amenities and treated it almost like a drainage ditch, as opposed to this incredibly beautiful creek. You're seeing newer developments facing these creeks, putting amenities like pubs and coffee shops and bike rentals there, so that it becomes really part of a destination for the city.
And then, you know, for public private partnerships like Dix, let Dix raise money in ways that it can. We can have big festivals on the big field and make money that way that allow the Parks Department to use taxpayer dollars for those neighborhood parks.
Have you started thinking about what success might look like at the end of your first term?
It would be great to get good baseline numbers on affordable housing units, the number of unhoused. All of these are not easy issues to resolve, but even if you don't have absolute control, we need to understand these. This is what matters to the citizens and making progress against those goals.
