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This week, Cassidy Santaguida announced she would run for Wilmington City Council, kicking off the unofficial start to the 2025 municipal election season (the official filing period is from July 7 to 18). Council staggers its six seats, with three members elected to four-year terms during every municipal election; the mayor's seat is up for grabs every two years.
Santaguida’s announcement comes just a few months after losing her race as a Democratic candidate in the 2024 race for the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners. While she placed last, I spoke to people from both Republican and Democratic campaigns who felt she ran a strong race. The field was ultimately decided by just over one percentage point, and Santaguida, running as a relative unknown, had an uphill battle.
Santaguida will likely have an easier time running for council – both because she’s garnered some name recognition and because Wilmington leans far more Democratic than the county, which is a tighter split between Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters (who seem to lean left or right in almost equal number).
Of course, municipal elections are technically nonpartisan, which means low-information voters won’t have an R or D next to a candidate’s name, making it harder to vote a party-line slate. But, at the same time, city council candidates’ affiliations are rarely a secret.
It’s also worth noting that, while turnout for city elections is pretty dismal (less than a quarter of registered Wilmington voters cast a ballot in the 2021 election), those who do go to the polls seem to be passionate and informed, in my anecdotal experience. That doesn’t mean every campaign issue splits neatly between Rs and Ds, but those labels have certainly played an increasing role.
As other candidates throw their hats into the ring for council in the coming weeks and months, it’ll be interesting to see if they lean into party affiliation.
Now, I do want to note: if you’re reading this and feeling like you didn’t get a lot of mental downtime since the last election season, it’s because you really didn’t.
For one thing, the 2024 election dragged on well past Election Night on November 5. While experts had been predicting that the presidential contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris could take days, even weeks, to call confidentially, that didn’t end up being the case. But at the local level, a snafu over the handling of absentee ballots led to confusion, an election protest, and a recount, which pushed the final results into late November. (A county-funded 'review' of the local elections board is apparently still ongoing.)
For another, the 2024 election is technically still going, in that the state Supreme Court race between Allison Riggs and Jefferson Griffin is still being litigated. Griffin, a Republican appellate judge, has asked both state and federal courts to throw out over 60,000 votes. His legal efforts have prompted protests from Democrats – but also the occasional side eye from Republicans, including Senate Leader Phil Berger. But Griffin has held fast, and there are no signs the situation will be resolved anytime soon. This week, the Supreme Court declined to fast-track Griffin’s legal challenges, meaning a slower path through the court of appeals. Even an expedited schedule there is likely to go well into March.
Lastly, Santaguida’s announcement is earlier in the cycle than many other past candidates (some of whom have not announced until the official filing period). But we’ve seen people jumping into races sooner every election, which has practical benefits, like fundraising and establishing name recognition. The latter, based on recent election results, is impossible to ignore: Bill Rivenbark, who shares a well-known family name with his city councilman brother Charlie, won the most votes of any commissioner candidate last year with little campaigning.
Speaking of Rivenbarks, it’s not clear if Charlie Rivenbark will run for a seventh term. The outspoken, and occasionally cantankerous, Vietnam veteran has served on council since 1993. Once a conservative-leaning Democrat, Rivenbark switched parties prior to his 2021 campaign, where he took the second of three seats. Rivenbark hasn’t responded to a request for comment on this year’s election.
Luke Waddell, the only other Republican on city council, was the top vote-getter in 2021, despite running as a relatively unknown newcomer to politics.
Waddell’s popularity, especially in liberal-leaning Wilmington, has been encouraging for conservatives. So it’s not surprising that I’ve often heard the young councilman touted as the future of the local GOP, with people suggesting he should run for mayor or state office. But, when I asked him, Waddell was more cautious.
“As for the 2025 election, I have not yet made a decision. With a two-year-old at home and another child due in May, this is a conversation I need to have with my wife before determining the best path forward. Public service is important to me, and no matter what the future holds, my commitment to Wilmington remains steadfast,” he wrote as part of a statement.
The other incumbent council member up for reelection is Democrat Clifford Barnett, Sr. Currently serving as mayor pro-tem, Barnett is thoughtful and reserved. Others have told me Barnett plays his cards fairly close to the vest — and his decisions can be difficult to predict, sometimes making him the swing vote. Barnett hasn’t responded to a request for comment about whether he’ll seek a third term.
Then there’s the mayor’s office, where Bill Saffo has served for nearly two decades. Saffo needs very little introduction in Wilmington politics — and he’s proven he can pull votes, and campaign donations, from not just Democrats but also unaffiliated and even Republican residents.
Since I started reporting on local politics, I’ve heard every two years that Saffo might hang up his spurs. I’ve never quite believed it.
After several uncontested wins and a wildly unserious challenger in 2017, Saffo had to hustle in 2019 in his race against Devon Scott (who was later disgraced and pled guilty to sexual assault). Saffo won, but it was relatively close — and the tough contest seemed to reinvigorate him.
In 2021, I was again hearing that Saffo might step away. But then former mayor and state senator Harper Peterson, a fellow Democrat, signaled he would run – which once again fired up Saffo. That year, Saffo broke six figures in campaign fundraising, including from Republicans. (Some supported Saffo because they saw him as a moderate pro-development consensus-builder, and some because they deeply disliked Peterson, a more progressive candidate who had also managed to rub a lot of people the wrong way.)
Around 2021, I asked Will Knecht, then chair of the New Hanover County GOP, if they'd ever considered running someone against Saffo. Without talking out of school, Knecht had to pick his battles. I'm sure the GOP would love to have a conservative mayor, but the party also had its sights set on legislative races, the board of commissioners, and the school board – where Republicans would go on to sweep the 2022 election.
In 2023, Saffo again ran unopposed. Last May, he told my colleague Johanna Still at The Assembly that he wasn’t done. “I think I’ll know it when I know it,” he said.
This week I called Saffo and left a message, but didn’t hear back. I was debating whether to push the issue when I saw the mayor would be a guest on Derrick Anderon’s Facebook community affairs show (if you’re not watching, you should). Part of Anderson’s format is posing questions from his audience directly to his guests.
In this case, “the elephant in the room,” as Anderson called it: is Saffo running again?
After musing that I would chase someone “to the ends of the earth,” Saffo promised he would give me — and the city — an answer very soon. It’s a serious job, which he loves and respects, and he’s giving it serious consideration, he said.
I’m hesitant to guess what Saffo will say. I’ll admit, though, I have a nagging sense Saffo would like to see things through on the Gateway Project — a collection of parcels the city has assembled on the north side of the central business district. A planned development with East West Partners fell apart in 2023, just a month before the election. Resurrecting that deal, or finding another one, would nicely round out Saffo’s effort to remake downtown. It’s just a hunch, but it feels like a good reason to stick around for one more campaign. On the other hand, if Saffo doesn’t run, I can imagine it would be because he’s handing the baton to someone who can cross the finish line for the project.
In any case, it seems likely there will be competition for the mayor’s office this time around. I’ve spoken with two very different people who say they’re preparing to announce a campaign — but I don’t want to get over my skis, or push them over theirs, so you’ll have to wait on that front. (You probably won’t have to wait long, if it’s any consolation.)
While it will be interesting — even fun — to see the personalities that emerge during this year’s municipal races, at WHQR we dedicate most of our elections coverage bandwidth to policy.
And there is no shortage of policy issues facing the city. The big ones, from our most recent round of community agenda surveys, haven’t shifted much in the last few years.
Near the top of the list, voters are still very concerned about affordable housing — but also overdevelopment. Addressing both can feel like trying to get two dogs in a bathtub (if you haven’t tried this, take my word for it, it’s hard). Officials can’t simply go with the party line, either; both issues defy partisan answers.
There’s also the perennial issue of public transportation. Much of the service area of WAVE, the region’s public transportation authority, is within the Wilmington city limits – and for many years conservatives on the county Board of Commissioners argued that meant limited, if any, county investment. That’s changed in recent years, as the county has increased its funding. It will be interesting to see how city candidates approach the issue, and where they’d like WAVE to go in the future.
Other issues, like homelessness, economic development, and public safety also look a little different for city officials than they do at the county level. There are people without or at risk of losing their housing throughout the region, but many of the most visible of our chronically homeless neighbors are in the city. Likewise, gun violence is pervasive, but many of the high-profile shootings happen inside city limits.
There are internal issues for the city, as well. Police Chief Donny Williams and City Manager Tony Caudle are both set to retire before the end of the fiscal year. Dealing with that could fall to the current council, and we could see new permanent positions hired before the election in November. But, at the very least, adjusting to new top administrators will fall to candidates who prevail in the election. (And, if we’re being honest, dealing with some of the systemic issues and discontents in the fire and police departments will likely both play a role in the campaign – and still be around after the election.)
And, of course, I wonder if some of city council’s decisions — namely the purchase of the former Thermo Fisher building and the subsequent tax increase — will come back to haunt them. I’ve heard plenty of good arguments from staff and council members for relocating the city’s previously far-flung services into the newly rebranded Skyline Center tower. But I’ve also heard plenty of simmering discontent, and not just from tax-averse conservatives.
“Fiscal libertines,” is not the harshest thing I’ve heard people call council.
So, all of that to say a few things: one, watch this space for more announcements; two, stay tuned for some deeper dives into the issues I’ve sketched here, and; three, let us know what you would like to be on the agenda as we prepare for interviews and (hopefully) candidates forums for the upcoming election.
We're getting ready, and we hope you are too — because, really, it’s election season all year round these days.
Letters to the Editor
We welcome letters to the editor’s desk on any topic. Our ideal length is around 400 words or less, but if they need to be a little longer, that’s fine. We reserve the right to edit or add context when necessary. We ask that submissions come with your name and where you live (no street address necessary, just your neighborhood, town, city, etc.). Criticisms are welcome, but we ask you to try to keep it civil. Send your letter to BSchachtman@whqr.org — or by mail, if you're old school, to WHQR Public Media 254 N. Front Street, Suite 300, Wilmington, NC 28401.
This edition’s letter comes from Sunset Beach resident Vince Amoroso, a retired attorney who served as the Chief Enforcement Attorney for the SEC’s Boston office and a special assistant U.S. Attorney in Rhode Island. Links were included in the original letter.
Seven United States Justice Department prosecutors resigned rather than dismiss bribery charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams. Danielle Sassoon, who clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was appointed United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York by Trump on Jan. 21, 2025. She resigned on Feb. 13, 2025 when Trump’s acting deputy Attorney General Emile Bove ordered her to drop the charges as part of a deal to help Trump politically.
Sassoon called it “a quid pro quo,” with Adams supporting Trump’s immigration policies “if the indictment were dismissed.” Charges would be reinstated if Adams didn’t come through as agreed.
Sassoon called it “an improper offer of immigration enforcement assistance in exchange for a dismissal” of Adams’ case, and an “abuse of the criminal justice process…driven by improper considerations" creating “obvious ethical problems." The deal, she concluded, amounted to “weaponization of the Department."
Six other prosecutors also resigned, including lead Adams investigation prosecutor Hagan Scotten, who is a decorated Special Forces veteran who clerked for then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts. Scotten wrote, “No system of ordered liberty can allow the government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.” Only a “fool” or a “coward,” he added, would agree to dismiss the charges.
Mayor Adams delivered the “quid” on Feb. 13 by allowing federal immigration agents into facilities closed to them under New York law. Bove delivered the “quo” on Feb. 14 by moving to dismiss Adams’ charges, subject to reinstatement if Adams stops cooperating. In a joint television appearance that morning, Adams looked like he was making a hostage video as Trump’s border czar Tom Homan threatened: "If he doesn’t come through, I'll be up his butt saying, 'Where the hell is the agreement we came to?'"
In a separate matter, Denise Cheung, head of the Criminal Division for the District of Columbia’s U.S. Attorney’s Office resigned on Feb. 18 after Trump appointee Ed Martin ordered her to open a criminal investigation into whether a federal contract was unlawfully awarded by the Biden administration, to issue grand jury subpoenas, and to freeze funds from that contract. She refused because she concluded there was no probable cause to do either.
Trump routinely promises to pardon or prosecute those who can help or hurt him politically. Weaponizing the Justice Department is what he does.
***
It’s hard to ignore the bizarre dynamics of Trump’s dramatic rescue of troubled Democratic Mayor Eric Adams (who recently announced he would not switch parties as he runs for reelection). But obviously, there’s a lot more at stake.
As Amoroso notes, key players in the Southern District — namely Danielle Sassoon and Hagan Scotten — had conservative bona fides that make their resistance to the Trump Administration more notable. But, for people who follow this type of thing, the stiff spines — and sharp words — aren’t surprising coming out of an office long known as the “sovereign district” of New York.
The office has fought to earn and keep its independence from Washington. It’s been tough on white-collar fraud (as the “Sheriff of Wall Street”), organized crime, and public corruption. It has a special place in people’s hearts — even those who've chaffed at the office’s occasional inability to play well with others.
All that, one suspects, made bullying the district out of its case against Adams deeply satisfying for Trump and just as concerning for those who’ve held up the office as a paragon of law and order.
I can’t think of a steelman argument for dropping the prosecution against Adams (if you’ve got one, I’m happy to hear it). Trump’s DOJ has itself offered some contradictory explanations. Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove testified that dropping the charges had nothing to do with the strength of the case — but Attorney General Pam Bondi’s chief of staff has suggested the opposite.
In his effective resignation letter, Scotten offered a plausible explanation if not quite a defense, writing, “I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal.”
Whatever people think of that deal, there are good reasons to worry about a politicized (or weaponized) Justice Department.
Imagine if the Southern District of New York had ‘leveraged’ former Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, instead of prosecuting his egregious, almost cartoonish level of corruption (one of Sassoon’s last acts was announcing an 11-year sentence for Menendez).
As a former New Yorker, I’ve heard from my friends, family, and colleagues in the city that if their mayor is corrupt, they’d like to see him prosecuted and, if guilty, held accountable. They don’t care which party he’s in or whether he's found favor in Washington. And neither did the Sovereign District — that's why it is, or maybe was, such an important institution.