Frequently asked questions

What about schools?

I am a huge supporter of our public schools! My daughter goes to Alston Ridge Elementary, where I have been an active member of the PTA. I’m still running our Cultural Arts Program and helping with Career Day during the campaign. However, the Cary Town Council has very little control over our school system. North Carolina is considered a Dillon’s Rule state. Which means that local municipalities can only take very specific actions where they are granted power by the state. Thus, municipalities often have to get the North Carolina General Assembly to pass bills that enable them to do things that seem to follow under local jurisdictional power. So, the only policy mechanism available to the town council – which I wholeheartedly support –  is to help with  land acquisition for schools.

Additionally, we can copy other municipalities by asking our School Board to compile a letter detailing school impacts for every development, but even if we made this change, the council could not, legally, use that information to deny development projects.

We do have control over our housing stock and increasing the availability of housing for people who make middle class salaries and have jobs that are important to our community will help us hire teachers. One of the biggest issues our middle and high schools are facing is a shortage of teachers and we can address that by increasing our supply of affordable housing.

My passion for schools is part of why I got involved in local politics in North Carolina and why I support the Democratic Party. North Carolina used to have an education system famous throughout the United States, but Republicans have consistently refused to adequately fund our schools and we are now rank as one of the 10 least attractive states for teachers. While I am always willing to work with people from across the political spectrum and I want to hear everyone’s opinions, this has become a partisan issue when it should not be. Our Governor Roy Cooper has declared a state of emergency for North Carolina schools due to this lack of funding and education leaders in more than 35 school districts have spoken out about these issues. I am so proud that we have managed to elect a progressive majority to the Wake County Commissioners and they have enacted a raise for our school teachers this year and are planning more in the future. However, they should not have to do so much. The investment in our schools to make up for our state’s failures takes away from other things we could be doing to help Wake County.

Why don’t we have more early voting locations?

Cary holds municipal elections in October on years when we don’t have a national election. Though there used to be more local municipalities that held elections at the same time, we are now the only one in Wake County. That means we have to pay almost all of the cost for our municipal election. Cary pays almost $1 million for every municipal election we hold! I am a huge proponent of voting, which is why I am generally in favor of holding all elections together so the cost can be shared throughout the county, but if we want more voting locations in our current system, that is a large amount of money that has to come from somewhere else in our budget. Such a decision would still have to be ratified by the Wake County Board of Elections, who have the final say over election preparations.