Carrboro Town Council: Fred Joiner

Full name: Fred Joiner

Party affiliation: Democrat

Campaign website: www.joinerforcarrboro.com

1) In 300 words or less, please give our readers your elevator pitch: Why are you running? Why should voters entrust you with this position? What prior experience will make you an effective member of the Carrboro Town Council?

I was ins inspired by the Toni Morrison quote “This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.“
I interested in building and leaving this community and all the communities I am a member of, better than how entered them. I envision continuing to make Carrboro a more welcoming and livable place for as people and as many different kinds of people as possible.

Although I have not held public office before I have been involved in civic engagement and community development in many different capacities in my community in Washington DC and here in Orange County. This work has been primarily centered around using the arts and creativity as an engine for economic development, for community building and social change. I think the same knowledge, skills and abilities that I used in that capacity will help me serve the community in Carrboro as a Council member. 

2) What would your priorities be as a member of the Carrboro Town Council? Please identify three of the most pressing issues Carrboro currently faces and how you believe the town should address them. 

The 3 things I would like to focus on I think are already in media res and I feel that my presence and lens could bring a new set of eyes and a different energy to build on the momentum the Council has been building. I think continuing to focus on completing our Unified Development Ordinance is most pressing because it will help us clear a path for the 2 other pressing issues which are: increasing our housing supply while considering affordability particularly in the middle and lower income range; and making our best efforts to respond to the climate crisis as we build.

3) What’s the best or most important thing the Carrboro Town Council has done in the past year? Additionally, name a decision you believe the town should have handled differently. Please explain your answers.

One of the most important things that Town Council has done is beginning the rewrite process of the Land Use Ordinance, now called the Universal Development Ordinance. I think this ordnance is the first crucial step in helping us better meet our current and future neighbors’ needs in affordable housing; it will also help us to attract more businesses to make our corridors more vibrant. 

While I am glad that Town has begun this process, I think that not having done it earlier could have been a missed opportunity; but I am excited about moving forward and trying to make it easier to live and do business in Carrboro.

4) President Trump is working to ramp up deportations and curtail visas. At the same time, the state legislature has passed laws requiring agencies to cooperate with ICE. What do you think Carrboro can or should do to ensure safe, welcoming communities for immigrants in light of these policies?

I think it is important to not criminalize our neighbors. As a Council, I think we are clear that we want to exercise a public safety posture that puts humane treatment and care at the core of what we do. What that looks like in practice is including social workers, mental health professionals and other non-armed, non-uniform when those personnel are better suited for a certain type of interaction. Ultimately, I would like to see our Carrboro police officers make every effort to deescalate what is likely to a traumatic interaction.

5) The town has prioritized climate action and climate resiliency, but historic flooding from Tropical Storm Chantal shows that the town and its residents continue to be vulnerable to these disasters as climate change leads to more intense rainfall. How can Carrboro best help impacted residents and prepare for future disasters?

I think our job as elected officials is to provide as much education as possible about how be prepared for disasters and emergencies. I am confident that as we approach our Unified Development Ordinance we will also consider how and where we develop to minimize damage as well.

I also think we will have to take a strong look at residents who have challenges with elevation, stormwater and runoff to see what improvements can be made to lessen the impact or damages from flooding.

6) As with most places in the Triangle, Carrboro is grappling with a shortage of affordable housing. How effectively has the town helped address rising rents, particularly for low-income residents? How effectively has the town helped homeowners who were hit by this year’s property revaluation? What more should the town do to address housing affordability in the next few years?

Affordable housing has been a challenge for Carrboro, given our small footprint and what seems to be the ever dwindling housing supply we have our work cut out for us. That said, I do think the efforts that we are envisioning to increase our supply and to think about density and what we build will also help us meet the needs our lower—income neighbors. I also think we will have to think creatively about other strategies to help lower and middle income earners finance such as gap funding and down payment assistance programs.

7) How should the Town of Carrboro encourage more walking, biking, and public transit use?

In my work as an IT professional we always think of things from the perspective of the user and their goals given the tools at our disposal or tools that we can employ to help them meet their goals. 

This is how I think Carrboro has been and will continue to look at connectivity and transport. With the user in mind the first consideration must be safety. With the environment in mind we have to think about how to minimize our impact as we build a network of greenways, bike lanes (some protected), sidewalks and large road crossings that give our neighbors other options than jumping in their cars. Another challenge for us will be thinking about how we can increase the frequency of our buses as we modernize and electrify our fleet. Ultimately, i would like to a Carrboro, where you have more options about how to move about town or to connect with other transport as you depart from town to other location in the Triangle.

8) From cancelled grants to layoffs, federal funding cuts this year have hit the Triangle particularly hard and local government officials are having to make difficult decisions about what to fund and how. How should the town council prioritize competing funding needs? What role, if any, should the town play in supporting Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools in light of federal funding pressures?

We are fortunate in Carrboro that our operating budget does not rely on federal funding, but some of the federal grants that might have been available in the past for neighborhood projects may not be available, so we will have to find other ways to make those investments.

I think the effects that federal cuts are having and will continue to have on Carrboro and the entire region will be in the form of job loss, career transitions, under- and unemployment, which really makes our efforts to develop a more affordable housing supply that much more pressing. This related to schools in the sense that if families cannot afford to move and stay here, enrollment will continue to fall and public school system will suffer.

9) If there are other issues you want to discuss, please do so here.

I would like to continue to explore how Carrboro can use the creative economy to build our community. With festivals like The West End Poetry Festival, Carrboro Music Festival, the upcoming Carrboro Film Festival and other signature events, Carrboro has a good arts infrastructure, but I think we can do more.

I also think there are a lot of talented people in our town and I am interested in how we can make it easier for more creatives to live, work, and have their work be platformed and highlighted by the town. When I served as the Poet Laureate of Carrboro, I felt very supported by the community, I think that is part of our values and an element I would like us to expand on and use to build community, as so many other towns and cities have.

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