EOT 368- Eye on the Triangle Election Special

WKNC Content Creator, Owen Martin, interviews several candidates for the Raleigh City Council.
The candidates interviewed are Joshua Bradley, Jonathon Melton, James Bledsoe and Anne Franklin.
Due to the length of these interviews, the episode has been segmented based on discussed topics.
This episode is an introduction to the candidates as they share their backgrounds and goals. Following the introduction the candidates discuss their stances on public health and transportation.

Show Notes

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What is Eye on the Triangle?

Eye on the Triangle is WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2’s weekly public affairs programming with news, interviews, opinion, weather, sports, arts, music, events and issues that matter to NC State, Raleigh and the Triangle.

00:00
Brian Jurado
The views and opinions expressed during Eye on the Triangle do not represent WKNC or NC State student media. Your dial is currently tuned into I on the triangle here on WKNC 88.1 fm hd1 Raleigh. Thank you for listening. Hello everyone. This is Brian Jurado, the public affairs director here at WKNC and host of Eye on the Triangle. We've got an election special for today's episode. In anticipation for the upcoming local election, WKNC content creator Owen Martin has interviewed candidates running in the Raleigh City Council at large race. The candidates interviewed are Joshua Bradley, Jonathan Melton, James Bledsoe and Anne Franklin. This episode has been segmented to organize these interviews. Our first segment is getting to know the candidates. Candidates will speak on their history within the area and backgrounds. Hope you all enjoy.

01:10
Owen Martin
Welcome back to WKNC 88.1 FM HD1 Raleigh. I'm your host, Her Majesty and team. Today we have the WKNC election special for the at large seat for Raleigh City Council. I sat down with four of the people running for one of the large seats. James Bledsoe, Joshua Bradley, Jonathan Melton and Anne Franklin. I originally set out with the intention to interview Joshua Bradley and then I was reminded of my legal obligation to reach out to all the other people running and these are the people that reached back and were able to schedule something with me. There are two seats on the city council for at large members and in the election you're able to vote for two.

01:58
Owen Martin
Without further ado, here are the candidates a little bit about their core values, how they came to Raleigh and just, you know, some all arounders as well as some of these questions. I may not have answers from all of the candidates as it was kind of an evolving process as I got to know each of them and had different ideas of what I wanted to ask them.

02:27
Joshua Bradley
Hey everybody, my name is Josh Bradley. I'm running for City Council at large. I am a member of the Socialist Party usa. I'm a member of the North Carolina Green Party and have also joined the DSA and right now those are my endorsements. We have applied for a lot of endorsements, but I'm running to give the working people a voice in Raleigh. Right now we've got a city council that's run by the, you know, basically run by the development industry who have donated all that money to the current council. And the workers need a voice because without workers you don't have to get a lot out of that.

03:16
Jonathan Melton
So during these kind of races, there are a lot of words brought up, and just in general a lot of kind of buzzwords around things that candidates will often say. How would you say you differentiate what you're trying to achieve-- the model you're trying to set for other people from maybe, some other candidates who are running? Even similar platforms to your own?

03:31
Joshua Bradley
Well, I mean, let me try to answer this correctly. I mean main, I'm a State, I'm a socialist, I'm a leftist. I, I'm not what conservatives would think of as a Democrat. Right. Because they tend to call Democrats socialists. They obviously haven't read a lot of theory. But I think that what would differentiate me, I guess, I mean there are a lot of good candidates that are running now that I don't think that there are a lot less space between us. But I'm the only, as far as I know, I'm the only socialist that has run for city council in Raleigh as far back as I can find. So it's been 100 years anyway. I. Would say that with it, I'm not focused on the developer class and I'm not focused on the moneyed interest because they already have a seat.

04:24
Joshua Bradley
They own the table. They, they have a seat at the table. And what we don't have in the city is a workers like you know, ground level workers on the city council and most everybody's pretty well to do and I'm most certainly not. So I mean, which presents challenges in running for city council. But in order to actually, I think succeed as a city is we need to put the focus on the workers and on the poor and people that are traditionally held back. And so I'm unapologetic. I'm not going to dance around it. I'm not going to compromise my issues. I will. People accuse me of being a socialist and I will say I'm a socialist. It's not really, I don't think it's a scary word, you know, I mean Raleigh has never been an ideal city. I like the city.

05:19
Joshua Bradley
It took me a little while coming from a very small town in western North Carolina. It was, it was an adjustment, but there was a time that Raleigh had the balance. It was enough of a city to where you could see good music and you could find a place to live. But it wasn't too expensive like in the 90s. I lived in university apartments off of Avent Ferry. I guess they're still there. I was paying $400 a month for a two bedroom townhouse and was angry that they raised my rent to 425. Like I thought it was unconscionable that they would do that, which is crazy now, right? Yeah, I've had car payments that are about that, you know, but. And that was the beauty of Raleigh at the time. It had a really good music scene.

06:07
Joshua Bradley
There was a lot of good stuff that you could go to that was interesting and quirky and it wasn't expensive, it wasn't super posh and bourgeois. Right. It was, I mean there was like legit stuff that was happening that you could happen no matter who you were and what area you were. And you know, it's not that there weren't problems, there certainly were, but like it still felt like a city that was for the people that were here. Like it made space for the students. You know, it had people that were, you know, traditionally not treated very well and are still not treated very well today. It had its problems with its Police and you know, Police violence, but when it came down to it, you know, there was always a niche that people could find to where they could be more fulfilling.

06:51
Joshua Bradley
And right now the problem is that unless you're fairly wealthy, it's really kind of hard to find that niche. Like if you like, around the college right now, maybe there's places that are relatively affordable now. But just wait until they get that TOD through there and wait until they, you know, put all that 80% EMI housing and tear down all the naturally occurring affordable housing.

07:18
Owen Martin
And then, you know, you're, if you're a student, you're basically going to have to live on campus or you know, or if you're a local commute from home if you want to be able to live here.

07:28
Joshua Bradley
Unless you're, you know, in on a trust fund or something the city loses from.

07:34
Owen Martin
Yeah, for sure. There's a lot less characterization of it. It's crazy that people are paying $900 to rent a room at a floor, at a base level. People are paying that much to live on off of Hillsboro and not get a parking spot with it.

07:51
Anne Franklin
E.

07:54
Owen Martin
What'S your, what's your like Raleigh cred as a worker, as a. Someone who's lived, has lived in Raleigh. How long have you been in Raleigh? What makes this your city and why do you care so much about it?

08:07
Joshua Bradley
I moved to Raleigh in 1992 to come here to college. I ran out of money, so I stopped going to college. I started working in hotels with the idea that I was going to save up money and come back to college. I Couldn't get student loans because of my parents income even though my parents were not contributing to it. But. And I just didn't want to take on the extra debt that it required to get a, you know, a student loan because they were experimenting with privatization and stuff. And I'm glad I got out of that. And then, and then I got married and had a, I had a stepchild and had to focus on work because I couldn't do both. But I worked in the hotel business for 25 years.

08:57
Joshua Bradley
Most of that time I was doing front desk, night audit, that kind of stuff, like guest facing stuff, some housekeeping, some night housemen, that kind of stuff. I did that for several years. I did. I was assistant manager at a couple of properties. Don't like managing it people necessarily that much in a business thing. And, and I work for Marriotts and Marriotts are really anti union. So like it was just awkward. It just caused awkward conversations when like I would walk into the GM's office and they would all cover their work and stuff and I'd be like, what are y' all doing? And they were like, yeah, it's anti union. And I was like, okay. And then I went into accounting. But I've been an activist in Raleigh since 2011 with Occupy Raleigh. That's what started my path to radicalization, I guess.

09:52
Joshua Bradley
I participated in the. I was the policy chair of the old Wake County Progressive Democrats for five years. In 2016 I pretty much gave up on the Democrats being able to do anything other than try tokenize people. And no offense, there are great Democrats out there. I'm not saying that if you are a Democrat that I think that you're a sellout. How do you say you've seen Raleigh change in that time? You've been here for a while. Oh, Raleigh has definitely got more expensive since then, I tell you. I mean. And it looks different, like. And it blows me away every time I come here to NC State because Hillsborough street is barely recognizable. I mean, they've replaced a lot of stuff with big, boxy, square buildings and. And there's.

10:59
Joshua Bradley
I mean, not to say that I'm going to be here and rep for like old music venues that don't exist anymore, but at least there was music.

11:01
Owen Martin
I mean, say what you want. That's what I, that's more so what I meant. Yeah.

11:08
Jonathan Melton
How do you say you've seen Raleigh.

11:10
Joshua Bradley
Change in that time You've been here for a while. Oh, Raleigh has definitely got more expensive since then, I tell you. I mean. And it looks different, like. And it blows me away every time I come here to NC State because Hillsborough street is barely recognizable. I mean, they've replaced a lot of stuff with big, boxy, square buildings and. And there's. I mean, not to say that I'm going to be here and rep for like old music venues that don't exist anymore, but at least there was music. I mean, say what you want.

11:44
Owen Martin
WKNC mourns them.

11:45
Joshua Bradley
Yeah, no, I bet they do. Because you could. Used to. There used to be several places where you could see good music on Hillsborough or go to dance or. Or do anything. And maybe they're there and I just don't know about them.

11:57
Owen Martin
There aren't.

11:58
Joshua Bradley
I mean, that was part. When I was in college, that's what we did. We went to see Joe's on weekends. You know, we would go to. Sometimes we'd go downtown to the Berkeley, but we would go to the garage, which isn't there anymore. That was, I think, where Panhana Bob's is maybe, you know. And what was the name of the place that was across from Cupa, Joe? I don't know. They were there for a while.

12:24
Owen Martin
Kings was there for a while.

12:26
Joshua Bradley
Yeah. Yeah, Kings was good. I went there downtown when they were downtown as well. I mean, and there were, you know, clubs like the Five O, you could go. They had an 80s night. They had Dollar Beer Night. Like, don't want to encourage drinking if you don't have to. But the 80s was a good era for dancing because in the 80s, people didn't know how to dance. So if you can't dance and it's a good place for. It's a good fit, you know.

12:52
Owen Martin
Ye.

12:53
Joshua Bradley
You know, and Fallout Shelter, which closed down about the first year I was here, was a good place to see like hardcore shows and punk shows. And they also had a dance night as well.

13:04
Jonathan Melton
My name is Jonathan Melton. I am currently one of the at large Raleigh City Council members. I'm running for reelection, so I will be on the ballot early. Voting starts October 20th. Election Day is November 8th. I am a Democrat. I've been endorsed by the Wake County Democratic Party, Equality North Carolina, the North Carolina AFL CIO, labor unions. I'm forgetting some endorsements. A bunch of national progressive organizations and a few others. They're all on my website.

13:31
Owen Martin
Okay, what's the AFL CIO.

13:34
Jonathan Melton
It's a bunch of labor unions. Association of labor unions, Union workers.

13:37
Owen Martin
Gotcha. How's your outreach been? How's the campaign been?

13:42
Jonathan Melton
It's been good. This is my second time running. I ran in 2019 as a first time candidate. I'm not really changing my strategy much. I'm not taking anything for granted. I'm running as though I'm an outsider trying to get a seat and not an incumbent. So I think my outreach has been good. I try to meet people where they are. That's kind of how I govern too, is if I get a request for a meeting, I'll meet you anytime, any place, whether we agree or not. And I kind of apply that same approach to campaigning as well.

14:10
Owen Martin
What have you done? I know there's a lot of reasons that the. I know there's. There's a lot of the reason. There's a lot of reasons that city council, I don't want to use the. For lack of a better terminology, extended their term. How have you guys used that time?

14:31
Jonathan Melton
Well, the issue with the election was not something we expected. I kind of look at it as another unprecedented challenge that was thrown on our laps after were elected with COVID with rioting and social justice issues and then the census delay. So there was no way an election was going to happen fall of 2021. So the only options were the midterm, sorry, the primary election in 2022, the primary election or the general midterm election. So those are the only two options that any city had. And at the time, it wasn't clear if the primary election was going to happen when it was supposed to happen anyway. It turns out it didn't. It got moved from March to May. For me, I thought it was important for voters to have certainty of when the election was going to occur.

15:13
Jonathan Melton
And so for that reason, I voted to ask the legislature to put our election on the general election ballot, which it will be on November 8th. We also kind of early on into our term, appointed a study group to look at some of these issues. The structure of Raleigh's government hasn't changed since the 1970s as well. We've grown a lot. So we had a study group look at should council be paid more? Should there be an increase in council size? Should the terms go from two years to four years? Should there be staggered terms? Should the elections move from odd year elections to even year election? They held a public process on that and they recommended moving to even year general elections too. Turnout typically in the odd year Was abysmal.

15:52
Owen Martin
Yeah.

15:53
Jonathan Melton
As far as what we've done over the past year, it kind of all bleeds together since 2019. Well, one thing over the past year is we did get the social district implemented downtown. So that's sort of the open container area downtown. We did that.

16:09
Owen Martin
How did you all decide just the boundaries for that?

16:12
Jonathan Melton
We worked with the downtown Raleigh alliance, which is one of our business alliances. So they actually are sort of their own independent agency with their own sort of tax revenue income and they do a bunch of stuff downtown, they program downtown. They've got some public safety ambassadors, some social workers and they also work with the business and residential community. So they did. They ran point all that engagement. They brought to us the options. And we're doing it right now as a pilot. And the pilot we're trying to focus mostly centered on Fayetteville street corridor. That's quite frankly the hardest to come back from. COVID Yeah. Little bit of the warehouse district is included.

16:50
Jonathan Melton
But I'm hoping after this pilot, when the data and feedback comes back, if we're looking to make tweaks to hours of the day or location, that we'll be able to expand it or put it in another place. So that was a big thing that we've done this year. You know, I post updates to my website after every meeting and so if I could scroll through those. But in general, what we've done this term is a lot of zoning reform. Trying to eliminate exclusionary zoning, trying to allow more, different, more types of housing to be built in different places. Continuing to invest in transit, trying to increase and implement frequency of buses pursuant to Wake County Transit plan. We brought back scooters. Short term rentals.

17:32
Owen Martin
Welcome back to WKNC 88.1 FM HQN Raleigh. I'm your host, Her Majesty, joined by my guest today, James Bledsoe, who is running for the at large seat on Raleigh City Council. Who are you, was your political affiliation and what are some of your endorsements?

17:50
James Bledsoe
Hi everybody, my name is James Bledsoe. I'm running for Raleigh City Council at large. My political affiliation is unaffiliated. Currently my endorsements are the Wake GOP, the Wake Libertarian Party and also the Raleigh Police Protective Association.

18:08
Owen Martin
How's your outreach been and how has the campaign been?

18:11
James Bledsoe
Outreach has been really good. I've gotten more interviews, more requests for signs, more donations than I did in the previous two campaigns. So far, everything's going excellent.

18:25
Owen Martin
What's your history with Raleigh?

18:28
James Bledsoe
Moved here in 2013 from Florida. Only lived there for about three years. That's mainly because I got out of the army or active duty side in 2009, switched over to reserves. Didn't like Florida too much, so I came up here to Raleigh. Fell in love with it immediately. Like in the middle of winter. Kind of fell in love with it. Like, it was more beautiful than Florida, in my opinion at the time. You know, I love the trees. I love going to every single State park. And living in Raleigh was, like, the perfect choice for me. Housing was cheap at the time. There was plenty of opportunity I could go. There was a hundred State parks, you know, within driving distance, and the beach is right there. So, I mean, I love Raleigh. I've lived here ever since.

19:08
James Bledsoe
I've moved around to different apartments and then finally had my house built in southeast Raleigh in 2016. Been here ever since.

19:15
Anne Franklin
I'm Anne Franklin. I'm a Democrat. I was not endorsed by Democrats this round, but I've been a very active Democrat for a long time. I was endorsed by the Sierra Club and the AFL CIO and by the Raleigh Wake Citizens Association. That's a group focused in southeast Raleigh, but with a countywide reach.

19:48
Owen Martin
Tell me a little bit more about your background and why you decided to run again.

19:52
Anne Franklin
Yeah, well, I served on city council a very long time ago, and I feel like the current group has gotten a little off track. I think that with the kind of challenges that we have in our community, we're going to need all the help we can get. And you get that by making yourself available to Citizens a lot and reaching out. And they eliminated one of the vehicles for doing that, the CACs, and have not replaced it with anything. I know Covid has been a challenge, but that's made all of us sort of tune up and realize we can communicate in some new ways. And so I'm running because there'll be at least three new people on the council, maybe more. And I think because of my experience, I'll be able to help get things done. We've got a lot on our plate.

20:39
Owen Martin
Locally where the CAC is kind of your turning point. You're kind of like where you were like, oh, I need to run again, or.

20:49
Anne Franklin
I think the turning point for me was when I began to hear as much negativity about the existing council as I was hearing. I really don't know that I'm going to have much to say about what happens at the State or national level, but I am absolutely clear that trust in our local government is very important. And when I saw that slipping and people asking Questions about the basics of our local government and people who've been involved in helping build this community. I thought we need to get things back on track. We've been a pretty nonpartisan place here when it comes to local government and there's so much partisan politics that slips us into a very paralytic State. And I just can't see that at the local level. We've just got too much to do.

21:45
Owen Martin
How's your outreach been and how's the campaign been?

21:48
Anne Franklin
Oh, I've enjoyed it immensely. It's very hard work. But you get reminded of all the connections that you've made as you've been in the community. And people are willing to help or they're willing to tell you that they can't or they want you to do something about something in particular. So it's been an excellent period of time for me. I'm glad that I decided. I did counsel with a few people before I decided to do it, but I've had great support.

22:24
Owen Martin
Then after I asked them to introduce themselves as well as give a lot of their information, I asked them where their campaign finances were from and also their interpretation of how city council works.

22:38
Joshua Bradley
Thank you.

22:38
Jonathan Melton
And you mentioned at large for the unity.

22:41
Joshua Bradley
What exactly does that mean in terms of the city council? Oh, sorry. At large is. Represents the whole city. We have five district seats and two at large seats. If you want to know the truth, I would get rid of the at large seats just because I think they're less representative. There's a higher. It's harder to get elected in an at large seat because you're having to talk to five times as six times as many people. But as of right now, I think that. I think it was the best decision. I ran in 2019 in District A, which is probably the bougiest district of the city. There are a few working class neighborhoods. I'm from one. I got 10% of the vote raised under $1,000. And so there are people out there that are interested in having representation for the non wealthy.

23:39
Owen Martin
I feel like a lot of people don't really understand the setup, especially because everywhere you go it's a little bit different. But what kind of powers do you as a. Would you as a city council person have?

23:54
Joshua Bradley
Well, the city council, it's bounded by a couple of things. First of all, Raleigh has a city manager form of government where you have a city manager that runs the day to day and a staff that is hired by the city to do stuff. And then the city council are the ones that set Policy. So as far as that goes, we have latitude and zoning. We approve zoning cases. We have the latitude on what we want the city to look at and how we want, what we want to research and what we can do to get everything, you know, the way hopefully that benefits the people of Raleigh.

24:34
Joshua Bradley
We're also bounded by another thing and that we are a Dylan rural State, which means that the General assembly has some pretty tight limits on what a municipal government can do or even a county government can do. And since 2010 we've had a pretty heart ride General Assembly. So they've taken away powers that were there before. They've. They flattened the income tax. They, they. In 2019 past. I think it was 2019, they passed the law that says that all property taxes must be uniform, which is frustrating. And it. And they also don't allow inclusionary zoning which means in order for people to be rezoned into a different development type. Like if you want to go from a. If you're zoned at residential four, which means you can get four houses on per acre and you want to change it to like 20 stories.

25:34
Joshua Bradley
Like you're asking a favor of the city council to change the zoning. Right. You can ask for conditions but you can't require conditions before the rezoning that involve like affordable housing levels and stuff like that. So that being said, some pressure needs to be put on the General assembly to change those laws. Like and I think personally one thing the city council could do is just halt all rezoning until such time as the General assembly will negotiate. Because we are the capital city. Right. I mean, and you know, we should lead on this. We shouldn't leave it to other cities to try to, you know, to fight the General assembly to get what we need to run our city. Right. It's, you know, the General assembly are from all over.

26:26
Joshua Bradley
So why should somebody from Transylvania county have a say in how Wake county or the city of Raleigh runs anything? You know, I hope that was clear. Oh yeah, for sure.

26:38
Owen Martin
Yeah. Awesome. What powers as do you have as a city council person and what can you as a city council person do you.

26:47
Jonathan Melton
That's a good question. I think a lot of folks don't understand how local government works. Even though it's the government's really closest to the people. A lot of focus gets put on State and national politics, local government. At least in Raleigh we have a part time mayor and council and a full time city staff. It's really structured like a nonprofit. The city councils, the board of directors and the City managers really like the CEO in charge of personnel. So as city council, we set big policy. We approve the budget, we set policy directives, we get to do rezonings, things like that.

27:20
Owen Martin
What can you, as a city council person, do?

27:24
Anne Franklin
Well, council in our case is made up of eight people, and we interact with our staffs. We have a city manager, and everybody reports to that manager. We have a clerk and an attorney. But primarily, if we're going to do programs, we work with the city manager's office, and we can get a lot done in a pretty concise period of time if we let individual council people take leadership. It doesn't work as well if you expect everything to be led by one person. I was fortunate to serve under a mayor that if a good idea came round, he backed us up. If we could work it out with staff and could work out the details. So what you can do depends on having a good idea that's been researched and has some people and some facts behind it.

28:24
Anne Franklin
And then you work with your staff to see if it's something that actually practically can be done. And then you work across the lines. You talk to all your other council members and your mayor, and you see how it fits. So that's one piece. I'll tell you a piece that's interesting me a lot now is how we can get Citizens involved in the budget process early as it is now. Council gets the budget in April. It's a big fat book. And what you're left with is trying to sort where those small pieces are, where you might make a difference. So if you really want to change wages or working conditions or where the city makes investments, I believe we have to get started at that really early. And there are communities that are doing sort of participatory budgeting.

29:21
Anne Franklin
I think there are some tools for that. I think that the university and university students would take an interest in how we chart going forward, and then we see if our resources are going to match it and where we might need to shift a little bit. Raleigh is very fortunate. We are a thriving community now. We're also growing, and so we're choking on some of that growth. So we've got a lot of decisions to make that relate to growth and housing and our environment. But fundamentally, I believe that Citizens can sort through those things and find out where the balance is. And that's the work of local government that I really like. It's not calling people's names. It's not standing up and shouting at each other.

30:08
Anne Franklin
It's getting to the Hard work of figuring out how you're going to spend the public resources and if the public is capable of providing the resources that you need.

30:21
Owen Martin
What are the powers of the city council?

30:25
Anne Franklin
Well, we can hire the city manager and the city clerk and the city attorney. We don't hire any other workers.

30:37
Owen Martin
What does the city clerk do?

30:39
Anne Franklin
Keeps track of all the minutes of all the meetings, of all the public records. And there are many layers of public record keeping. So the council can, in addition to hiring those people who do, and then they hire other people to do large amounts of work. Council makes policies, it listens to its advisory groups when it comes to plans that are to be endorsed or programs to be endorsed. We have a very active group of advisory groups. And our parks board, for instance, has worked really hard to bring forth a parks bond. And the council takes a look at that. But they depend heavily on the work of advisory groups.

31:36
Anne Franklin
Council also has, in my opinion, a responsibility to be out in the community a lot so that they can be listening well and they can be hearing really what they need to know about where people's needs are, what people are willing to do, know where their resources are and how we can find ways to keep going forward. That's a big job. It's an ongoing don't call me after 10:30 at night, but other than that, be completely available kind of a job.

32:07
Owen Martin
Yeah. Who are your largest donors?

32:12
Jonathan Melton
Who are my largest donors or who are your donors?

32:14
Owen Martin
How are you? How is the campaign funding getting funded?

32:19
Jonathan Melton
All sorts of sources. I ran in 19 as a first time candidate. I didn't know any other city elected officials. I didn't know developers. I didn't know anybody who typically supports city races. I put my message out there and I got a lot of support from a lot of places. I have raised a lot of money. Some of the endorsements I've got, they come with contributions. I'm a lawyer, so I have lawyer friends. They contribute. My friends, my family. I was actually looking at this the other day and my average contribution is like $200. But you know, you can take, you can accept a contribution all the way up to 5,600. So I get some 5,600 contributions and I get some $25 contributions. So I'll take it from any source, quite frankly. The alternative, we have no public financing for city council races.

33:04
Jonathan Melton
And so the alternative is you self fund and I don't have the means to do that. And I also don't think we want the only people running for office to be the ones who have the means and ability to self fund their own campaigns.

33:15
Owen Martin
Mm, I agree. Where do you get most of your campaign funds?

33:22
James Bledsoe
Most of my campaign funds are from my VA disability checks. I like to do a lot of self funding, but I do have a lot of just private, you know, Citizens, I mean Citizens of Raleigh that are donating, say $20 here, $50 there. No major donations above $500, but just a lot of Citizens that are contributing to me.

33:48
Owen Martin
Where is a lot of your campaign finance come from?

33:51
Anne Franklin
Oh, well, I have a goal of 400 people giving $100, and we're well past 200. We're not quite at 300. So I've had some people give $2,000 checks, a few, but mostly it's under that and it's the smaller contributions that's I'm looking for and that add up.

34:16
Brian Jurado
The next segment on the WKNC Eye on the Triangle election Special, Owen Martin asked the candidates about health care and reproductive rights.

34:30
Owen Martin
Yeah, but just going on. Will you make Raleigh a safe place for reproductive rights or do your best to.

34:39
Joshua Bradley
Oh, yeah, definitely. And I think reproductive rights is. It's people. There are people that try to turn it into specifically a woman's issue or specifically a white woman's issue. But like, reproductive health goes so far. I mean, it touches on trans issues, it touches on LGBT issues in general and especially for, you know, people that aren't and like, it needs to be protected because it's health care.

35:07
Owen Martin
And healthcare is a human right.

35:09
Joshua Bradley
Is a human right. And when it comes down to it, if you don't have bodily autonomy, if you don't have autonomy, if you don't have control of what happens in your body, what kind of. What kind of control do you have at all?

35:19
Owen Martin
Yeah, right.

35:21
Joshua Bradley
I think if the. The city, under the current law, can do certain things we could. Like Charlotte has an issue, a quiet zone or a noise ordinance around there. The trick is finding a way to enforce that without bringing in the Police, because the Police can decide with the antis. But it might be worth a look at trying to find city staff to enforce that hiring people. Have the city hiring enforce like the noise ordinances and work with the clinics to see what they need from the city in order to protect it.

35:53
Joshua Bradley
Another thing you could do is have on the city webpage, if they design it in a way where it's pretty easy to go through, which I'm hoping happens in the future, and I will try to make it happen in the future, is have a Place where you can look if you're interested in getting any kind of reproductive health, whether it's hormones or whether it's an abortion or any of that. Where you can search on the city sites and the city will list all places that call themselves reproductive health clinics, but it will tell them which ones are aspirational crisis pregnancy centers. You know, these people aren't doctors. They're not trying to help you. They are trying to prevent you from getting an abortion.

36:34
Owen Martin
They're trying to hand you a bible.

36:35
Joshua Bradley
Right. And then. And then have a list of the people that actually do it and make it easily accessible. I mean, you know, it's just pointing at the people at the wrong and pointing people in the right direction. Now nobody should. If nobody can say what happens in my body being a cishet white male, then why should they? Why should I have control over anybody else's body, regardless of what that is? You know, people talk about freedom and throw flags around and complain about wearing masks and all this kind of weird stuff that they get caught on. But at the same time, the conservative ethics is like, you know, we need to control women's bodies. And that just doesn't make sense considering everything else. I think for sure, accessibility is of course a really important thing.

37:21
Joshua Bradley
As someone who's benefited from Planned Parenthood hormone availability, that's.

37:24
Jonathan Melton
That's really cool that that's a focus.

37:29
Owen Martin
So obviously with the. Or not, but Roe v. Wade is a big issue right now and it's it being overturned. What are your plans to make Raleigh a safe space for reproductive rights in a post Roe world?

37:46
Jonathan Melton
Yeah, so we're a bit challenged in Raleigh. We're a Dylan State, so we only have the authority that the State government gives to us. One thing I would like to do immediately is buffer zones around our abortion and healthcare clinics. I think that would be extremely important. Noise ordinance is buffer zone. So when folks are making this health care decision, which is a healthcare decision, that they're not being heckled and harassed and harmed by folks who are trying to involve themselves in a woman and her family or just the woman's private health decision.

38:20
Owen Martin
Roe v. Wade is a very contentious issue right now. What are your plans to make Raleigh a safe space for reproductive rights?

38:28
James Bledsoe
Well, that's. I mean, folks have been barking up that tree, especially with Raleigh before the pandemic hit. Raleigh does not have a say in that whatsoever. Again, that's powers bestowed on it by the State. We can't make it a sanctuary because we just don't have that legal Authority to, as far as I'm aware, I've spoken to some lawyers about it, but you can try. Try. But I mean, that's virtue signaling. I hate virtue signaling.

38:53
Owen Martin
I don't think it's trying. If you sign a law and then the State challenges you and then the city of Raleigh fights to maintain its own rights.

39:02
James Bledsoe
Okay, but that's more tax dollars that are being spent to maintain something that is currently illegal for us to do. Like you can push something out there, but it's easier to do if it's legal. If you go before the General assembly or the Senate, the House saying, hey, we want to do this, please bestow us the power to do so, that's easier to do than to get into a long standing legal battle where the Supreme Court of North Carolina can just slap us down immediately. Where it's just gone where they said, oh, you tried to do this. Well, great. Now all these things that you just put in place, this money that you just spent, gone. So that's like the big hand slapping the other one. I want to go about things the right way. I don't want to be, you know, sneaky, underhanded.

39:48
James Bledsoe
I don't want to try and be dishonest about the way I want to go in things. I want everything to be out there in the open, transparent. Unfortunately, Raleigh doesn't have that power. And even if I wanted to fight for it or didn't want to fight for it, there has to be power in place to do so. Because if I attempt to even push for it, the Raleigh, you know, lawyers are going to, the Raleigh city council. Lawyers are going to say, hey, you can't do that. We don't have a leg to stand on, so come up with a different way to do it. And after that, I'm still just tying up city resources, city time, you know, more time for people to come before council or more work that could be done on any other projects to be done.

40:30
Owen Martin
So would you be in favor of increasing just overall mental health services both for the. Because, I mean, I think that they could be focused. That certain parts of it could be focused towards veterans and some of it could be focused towards other first responders. But do you think it would better serve the community to just make an overall push for.

40:56
James Bledsoe
Mental health awareness and response for the community and the city of Raleigh? Certainly. There's certainly some expansion that needs to be done and a lot of corrective work that needs to happen, you know, since the 1960s and, you know, 1980s but also if we can get grants or if we can get, you know, any sort of federal money to come down and, you know, help us push for mental health awareness, but also training that can be undertaken, then certainly I'd love to see that.

41:29
Owen Martin
How should Raleigh address public health and mental health care services?

41:37
Anne Franklin
Well, as you know, in Wake county and in North Carolina, the counties have primary responsibility for health services. But I'm encouraged that in recent years, the city has recognized that the interactions with not just our Police, but with other public agencies mean that we've got to be really tuned up to mental health issues for all of our Citizens. We have people whom we may see and we may instantly recognize that they've got a health issue. But what is more hidden are the families who have one or more persons who have mental health challenges, and they deal with them every single day, and they may not come to public attention. So I think we don't wait until bad things happen. We've got to be in front.

42:29
Anne Franklin
We've got to get really closely acquainted with our communities and encourage neighborhoods to get really acquainted with who their neighbors are and do all we can to create those connections, support families who have somebody who's ill with any range of illnesses. We deserve to be a healthy place. Doesn't just happen. We think that the beautiful blue skies and the day like today was beautiful and clear might be enough for some, but it's not enough for most. Most of us need connection with other people sometimes we need resources, and we need public officials that are willing to understand that solutions are not only going to be municipal, they're going to require collaboration and connections to other parts of government, other parts of the community. We care a lot about this. I serve on the Dick's Park Conservancy Board.

43:36
Anne Franklin
And as you know, Dick's park was the site of what was originally an insane asylum. There's been a need for residential care for persons with mental illnesses, sometimes short term, sometimes very long term. And that got snatched away from us. The State legislature moved it. And so that means while there are some services that have filled in, the fundamental institution was taken away. Now it has become a park. We're glad for that. We'd rather have that instead of private development there. But nevertheless, I think our community still suffers by not having that residential opportunity for persons with mental illness.

44:25
Owen Martin
Roe v. Wade is a big issue right now. What are your plans to make Raleigh a safe space for reproductive rights?

44:36
Anne Franklin
We have got to do everything we can think of to make it possible for people to come and get those services and not be harassed, both the people who need the services and the public, the health service workers who work there. Our schools have had safe zones, and I would have to explore with our attorney whether that's an opportunity for Raleigh or not. But demonstrations can be held at some distance from an actual clinic. People can still be heard, but they should not be allowed to interrupt people's access to health services. I think, you know, if we saw on all the health issues, if we saw that kind of blocking of basic services, more people would be alarmed.

45:34
Anne Franklin
But when you have to bring a pregnancy to a close or you need to be sure that your health supports a pregnancy, these are very private thoughts and conversations. And so we don't want to require that people lay all of that out, all of their needs or all of their thinking. We just want to be sure that when they confer with their doctors and their healthcare professionals, that they can be advised and take advantage of those opportunities. We hope to hold onto them. I think it's very critical.

46:19
Brian Jurado
And for the last segment of today's episode, Owen Martin asked the candidates about their plans for transportation.

46:28
Owen Martin
What differentiates your public transit plan from other candidates running because it's on almost everyone's platform.

46:38
Joshua Bradley
Well, the thing is right now we're building on. They're putting a lot of hope in this bus rapid transit. Right. Which I certainly don't oppose. Bus rapid transit. The problem is when they're zoning the transit overlay districts, they're pushing people out. And the people they're pushing out are the people that are more likely to ride buses. But that's what eventually they need to do is they need to make it.

47:09
Anne Franklin
More.

47:09
Joshua Bradley
They need to make it timelier and more cost effective to actually do public mass transit. Like, I mean, right Now, I live four miles from work. I could walk it in two hours. I could drive it in 10 minutes. I could take a bus and get there in two hours. And that was before they revised the schedule. I think what they need to do is they need to put money into hiring bus drivers and hiring enough bus drivers and paying them enough for them to want to stay so they can live in the city. Because then we need to increase the bus. We need to increase the capacity of the buses, but we need to do it based on ridership surveys. Who's going to ride the bus? That's where you start. Right.

47:53
Joshua Bradley
The problem with Charlotte, and I think a large part of the problem with the eastern line of the BRT that they're doing now is that, you know, they're building it in rapidly gentrifying areas. And I'm not saying that wealthy people don't ride the bus, but they don't ride it as much as workers do or other people.

48:14
Owen Martin
Right.

48:15
Joshua Bradley
So they're gonna build this thing and then push out the people that are gonna use it. So it's gonna look like it was a terrible idea. But you know, I don't have anything against express buses. I mean, that's fine, but what we need to be concerned about is getting more buses. We need to get more buses on the.

48:34
Owen Martin
I just think Raleigh's transportation plan that goes out to 2055 should have more than just buses on it, which it currently does.

48:43
Joshua Bradley
Right. I mean, they're talking about light rail and I don't have. Light rail is a good idea. If we can afford it. I think that it's a good idea. But the one thing I want to avoid is like we'll just put everybody on lime scooters and running around just because that's a very like walkable communities is a decent idea, but the way they're presented is walkable to who? Right?

49:10
Owen Martin
What differentiates your transit and public transportation platform?

49:16
James Bledsoe
I want to make sure that the disabled have a say. I know that council is pushing for bike lanes everywhere. You know, I used to bike ride all over the place. However, after my last deployment, it became a little bit more difficult for me to bike around. Became a little bit too stressful for my hips and my back. So, I mean, I rely on my car a lot. And there's a lot of businesses that would like to see bike lanes, but they want them to be put in a smarter way. So maybe not in front of their store or maybe use cars as the barrier or the stanchion between, you know, traffic and the bike lane itself.

49:55
James Bledsoe
You know, that look nice, little off, but I want to see bike lanes, I want to see the BRT come in, but I want to see us do it smart and not hurt businesses downtown because they are hurting right now. A lot of the walk up traffic that was in place isn't there anymore. A lot of people are still moving downtown, mind you, because we do have a housing crunch right now and people are moving there, I mean, moving into downtown, but the walking traffic is just not the same downtown as it was before. But you know, I'm all for more transit options, but I'm gonna have to rely on my car and so are a lot of other people.

50:29
Owen Martin
When you say that small businesses aren't wanting Bike lanes in front of their buildings. Where would they put. Where else would they be?

50:38
James Bledsoe
So the bike lanes can be off of the main corridors. When I think, as an engineer, when I think of a secondary or tertiary means of transportation, I don't want to put it on the main road. I want to put it on, you know, the secondary road. Like so say Person street, maybe don't have the bike lane there, maybe put it on the adjacent road going through there, where there's a lot less traffic, where parking's not more required. So you can alleviate the issue of bicyclists and car traffic interacting in a negative way by putting them on a less driven street. And you can have the parking spaces still available for, let's just say, the pizza joint or on Person street or the hot dog stand off of. I mean, not hot dog stand, but the hot dog business off of Morgan Street.

51:34
James Bledsoe
Those parking spaces were taken away during the pandemic and they had no say in it whatsoever. And those two places, for example, they rely on people to drive up and leave within five minutes, say, pick up their orders and go. Now that these bike lanes are in place in the area that they are, it's taken away from their business and it's certainly going to cut into them operating and how many people they can employ.

52:01
Owen Martin
Are you familiar with micro transit?

52:04
James Bledsoe
I can't say I've heard that term before.

52:06
Owen Martin
Okay, so it's essentially a. It's more of transit oriented towards people with disabilities. And it's sort of more of a municipal almost version of Uber and Lyft, sort of a. Just a van that is called.

52:23
James Bledsoe
Yeah, okay, so I know exactly what you're talking about. So the Go Raleigh, Go Wake, Go triangle, my girlfriend's mother uses that to get around to go to, say, hospital visits. One thing that the disabled don't want to do is give up their independence. That means being able to drive themselves somewhere, being able to get to wherever they're going. And I don't want to take that away. I mean, I certainly want to be able to drive downtown, park, get out of my vehicle and go to the business and leave. I don't want to have to be reliant on a public service. I mean, a public transportation to get there. I want that option to be available for people, but I myself don't want to be reliant on that. I want to be able to get up and go whenever I want to.

53:07
James Bledsoe
That's my independence. And I want everyone to have that, you know, whether you're, you know, as Fit as a fiddle or you're, you know, you're slightly broken like I am. I want you to be able to transit the way that you want to, whether that's scooters or micro transit or public transit.

53:26
Owen Martin
A lot of candidates are very concerned with transit and public transportation. How does your platform differ?

53:38
Anne Franklin
Well, I don't think any of us has all the answers and I think we're all pretty supportive of the direction that the city has been taking on bus rapid transit. Frequency of service is what makes transit service attractive enough for ordinary people to use all the time. And we're a long way from that kind of frequent service. We will have it when we get the bus rapid transit. Start with one line, then we'll add and keep getting it. I've worked in this realm for a long time. I worked at Triangle J Council of Governments for about five years on the regional rideshare program. So carpooling and van pooling and that remains still a part of how people get around, particularly if they're going long distances. And many people are traveling and commuting long distances.

54:37
Anne Franklin
So some years ago, I guess it's about six, we had a transit referendum and Citizens of Wake county supported attacks so that we can add to our transit services. We would like everything to be done at once, but it doesn't happen that way. And when you have federal partners and State partners, it can be even slower. So I'm a strong supporter. There's a land use side to it. I don't think that we've had enough work on how to incorporate the kind of densities that we need that support transit and provide that service for people. I think we need a lot more, not just talk, but let's get out some Legos or some models so we can start looking at what the proportions are.

55:27
Anne Franklin
What's the difference if you live in a two story house and they want to put a five story something right next to you and it might be exactly the right thing or it might not be. So to get to the actual locations and think through the scale, I think we can come up with the land use side that will complement public transit. I have said, and I will continue to work on this, that what we need because we've got some areas that are way underdeveloped. I go out Capitol Boulevard all the time, I'm out New Bern Avenue. They're profoundly auto oriented and they're big, flat, open spaces. And so I see some whole brand new communities.

56:07
Anne Franklin
And those communities can be a mix of income for housing but they've got to have access to frequent transit and they've got to have access to green space. If you put those three things together consistently, then you're going to build in a sort of quality of life that we think is a match for the sort of densities that we see coming. So that's the work that excites me a lot. I'm hoping to be working directly on all of that. Looking forward to that part. And you know, we're going to need students, we're going to need a lot of people with the expertise and who want transit to get in on how to make it all work. So we need, we're going to need a lot of NC State students, but people students and graduates.

57:04
Brian Jurado
Well, that brings to a conclusion the WKNC Eye on the Triangle Election Special. Due to the limited time, weren't able to air live the full extent of these interviews. Two larger segments discussing the candidates stances on housing zoning, cacs and food, desert as well as Police climate, the role of students and the candidates closing statements. These segments will be released on the Eye on the Triangle Podcast. The podcast is available through wknc.org podcast or whatever streaming platform you use for your podcast. I want to thank WKNC content creator Owen Martin and Raleigh City Council at Large candidates Joshua Bradley, Jonathan Melton, James Bledsoe and Anne Franklin for their time. I hope everyone has a lovely rest of their week and makes time to vote this Tuesday, November 8th. Thank you.

58:00
Brian Jurado
Music for today's episode has been Blackest Crow by Track Tribe, licensed under the YouTube audio library.