When Durham's newly elected City Council members are sworn in at their first meeting Dec. 3, the city will have a smaller governing body and three fresh faces at its helm.
The incoming city council is smaller than its predecessors by six members, after voters decided in 1998 to decrease the body's size from 13 to seven. The new council's members were unsure of exactly how the size reduction would affect the city, but believed that a smaller council could be beneficial.
"[The new council] will be streamlined, yet still efficient for the public to participate in," council member Thomas Stith said.
Other members dismissed worries that a smaller council would be less diverse or overburdened. Council member-elect John Best noted that the new members vary by politics, gender and race; together, they comprise four Democrats and three Republicans, five men and two women, and five black members and two white ones.
"I think it will be a closer-knit group," council member-elect Cora Cole-McFadden said. "Because of the reduction, there is a feeling there will be more work, especially for those holding ward seats, because those constituencies have increased. But I think it is an excellent opportunity for the team to work closely together and be supportive of each other."
One of the immediately visible effects of the size reduction will be the structure of the council's committee system. Currently, six of the 13 city council members sit on the finance committee and six on the public works committee, while the mayor attends both meetings. The entire council then convenes at a committee of the whole, where issues raised at the lower committee meetings are discussed. The outgoing city council has devised a preliminary plan that will essentially eliminate the former two sessions.
When the new council members, four of whom are incumbents, take office next week, they will already have spent some time familiarizing themselves with the priorities and concerns of each other and of their constituents.
To initiate lines of communication, Mayor-elect Bill Bell met informally with individual council members. "I've been meeting first with my colleagues on the City Council to try to share my vision for Durham and to hear them share their visions, what their priorities are," Bell said.
Bell has also met with city administrators, including Police Chief Teresa Chambers, and representatives from Downtown Durham, Inc., neighborhoods such as North-East Central Durham and the companies behind downtown development projects like American Tobacco and Liggett & Myers.
Members of the new city council expressed optimism about working with one another under Bell's leadership.
"[Bell is] a proven leader, and he will be an effective leader and I believe the council members will be able to work cooperatively with him," Cole-McFadden said. "I look forward to working with all of them."
Council member Lewis Cheek agreed that Bell and the council will be able to work together. "I'm sure his personality is different from the personality of [current mayor] Nick Tennyson, and that will obviously affect the way things work," he said. "But I think he is a very knowledgeable person, very intelligent, and I think he understands the issues facing Durham."
The new council members met officially at an orientation held by City Manager Marcia Conner Nov. 16. There, various city administrators briefed the members on the major issues and responsibilities within their respective departments.
"[The department heads] were going over the day-to-day routine and requirements for us as City Council members, the ins and outs and protocol," Best said. "We did more listening than anything."
The training session was also an opportunity for new and old members to get used to working with one another.
"What I came away with [was] the opportunity to learn or begin to learn personalities," Stith said.
"It's a little early to tell how everyone will come down on issues, but certainly my initial impression was that we really came across as a group that will communicate."
The council also made plans for a retreat in January, as well as training classes for new members sometime between December and February.
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