Voters in Durham reelected Bill Bell as mayor and elected Jillian Johnson, Trinity '03, Charlie Reece and incumbent Steve Schewel, Trinity '73, as City Council members Tuesday.
19,352 people voted in today’s election, an increase from 13,539 voters in Durham’s October municipal primary. Incumbent Bell was elected over challenger James Lyons with 86.8 percent of the vote. Schewel received 28.1 percent of the vote, Johnson 23.4 percent and Reece 18.1 percent. The trio will join Eddie Davis, Don Moffitt and Cora Cole-McFadden on City Council.
Bell is entering his eighth two-year term as mayor, which he previously said will be his last. First elected in 2001, Bell, a Democrat, campaigned on a platform emphasizing violent crime reduction and neighborhood revitalization during his final term as mayor.
“It’s not so much what I’ll be able to accomplish but what our whole City Council will be able to accomplish,” said Bell, executive vice president and chief operating officer of UDI Community Development Corporation. “As the downtown revitalization is continuing, the momentum is there, we’re staying focused on that. But I think the more important thing is to get out to our neighborhoods and continue the revitalization of our inner-city neighborhoods, getting affordable housing, reducing poverty."
Schewel—a visiting assistant professor of public policy at Duke—campaigned on keeping Durham’s “small town feel” and improving transportation and other infrastructure. Reece, an attorney for Rho, Inc. and treasurer for the North Carolina Democratic Party, emphasized affordable housing and limiting violent crime. Johnson, who is a community organizer and operations director for the Southern Vision Alliance, identified affordable housing, police accountability and racial justice as her key issues.
“I’m really excited about building power in communities that have been left out of the process and working with those folks to adjust the needs of those communities through the city," Johnson said.
Johnson attended Duke as an undergraduate, studying public policy and women's studies. She hosted a party for supporters at The Vault near East Campus Tuesday night after her win.
“We built a really strong campaign, and I’m very excited to move forward and really keep building this movement,” she said. “We’re going to be trying to pull together some town hall meetings with folks in different communities in Durham around some of the issues people are facing, and try to get a lot of citizen input so that I’m going in there with a really clear idea of what people need from the city.”
According to preliminary election data from the North Carolina State Board of Elections, approximately 11 percent of the city’s 180,465 registered voters participated Tuesday.
The three victors of the City Council elections—Johnson, Reece and Schewel—participated in a forum on Duke's campus Oct. 15. They defeated Michael Shiflett, Ricky Hart and Robert Stephens, who captured 13.8, 10.9 and 5.4 percent of the vote, respectively.
Elections for City Council and mayor are held every two years. After deciding the council's three at-large seats Tuesday, voters will select three ward seats in 2017—three of the six seats are ward seats to provide “representation from different areas of the city,” according to the City of Durham’s website.
3,751 people voted early between October 22 and October 31, according to the Durham County Board of Elections website. The next City Council meeting will be held Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. in City Hall.
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