Amanda Benbow Lunn: 0:09

Hello, my friends. Welcome to the latest edition of the NC Deep Dive Podcast. I am your host, Amanda Benbow Lunn, and we are in the thick of primary election season. Early voting starts February 12th, signs are going out, questionnaires are being released, and forums are being held. We ourselves have released our 2026 Voters' Guide for Southern Wake County, noting that some races and information apply state and countywide as well. You may find our Voters' Guide pinned to our Facebook page and in most episodes' show notes on our website at ncdeepdive.com. As you may be aware, we switched things up slightly this year and offered to accept audio clips and or candidate forum invites to try and amplify candidates' voices so that you all may make your most informed decision. Today's episode is part two of the Western Wake Dems Forum. It is moderated by their chair, Rachel Jordan. In part one, we covered the U.S. House of Representatives race for District 4, and I'm slated to cover the District 13 candidates in a couple of weeks. In this segment, you will hear from five of the seven candidates running for the Wake County Board of Commissioners. Please keep in mind that this is the only race where you will be able to vote for two candidates. Mona Singh, Steve Rao, Robert Mitchner Jr., Jonathan Lambert-Melton, and Christine Kushner were in attendance. Marguerite Creel and Kimberly McGhee were not able to attend. All seven of these candidates, however, did participate in our 2026 Voters' Guide. Following the Wake County Commissioners was supposed to be the candidates running for Wake County District Attorney at this forum. Unfortunately, Melanie Shekita had an emergency on the way, and Wiley Nickel was only able to send someone to speak on his behalf. Sherita Walton was a good sport though and answered questions for those in attendance. I have included that just in case it's helpful for you. As a special note, I do want to mention I had to really edit some of the forum guest questions as they were super lengthy and didn't pick up well with the microphone. Luckily, I was able to preserve the questions, just not all of the lead up. Lastly, because there were so many candidates included within this forum for Wake County Commissioner, I feared it might be difficult for you to understand or remember who was speaking as they switched who answered each question first, and they only introduced themselves during the first question. Live or video formats tend to be easier to make the connections. For this episode, I copied them saying their names during their introduction and inserted them each time they answered a question. I'd love your feedback on whether this was helpful or necessary. In the meantime, I felt it was better to be safe than sorry. Again, keep in mind, those choosing a Democratic ballot during this primary will have these races and that you will get to vote for one candidate for Wake County District Attorney and two candidates for Wake County Commissioner. Without further ado, my friends, let's dive in.

Rachel Jordan, Western Wake Dems Chair: 3:19

We can give our commissioner candidates here a little more time. This is our timekeeper Trish, who's our vice chair. You will have two minutes to answer questions and she will start waving at you. And then I'll let all of you introduce yourselves and take two to three minutes for your opening statement. We have two current county commissioners here tonight. Both of them are running unopposed in their primaries. Actually, once we had your opening statements, we will be starting with a question from each of them. Since they have done this job, I thought they might be some of the best people here to ask questions that are really relevant to the commissioner's work. So I think to start off, we can start here with you, Mona. And as I said, just two to three minutes for your introductions. Hello everyone.

Mona Singh: 4:09

I'm Mona Singh. Sing as and sing a song. And I'm running for Wake County Commissioner. I've been a lot of you know me here in this room. I've been a volunteer for the Democratic Party for a very long time. I've gone through several chairs. I think I'm on my fifth Wake County Democratic Party chair right now. I've been a volunteer for getting people out to vote. I've also been a volunteer working with the homeless and also with the refugees. And I know a lot of people in this room have now joined those efforts as well. That's my weekend job. But in my day job, I've been a technology person. I have a PhD, I worked 30 years in AI. And when I say AI, of course I understand what's under the hood, but I've been responsible for understanding what people really want so we can build what they want. I'm the user-centered product person, determining what exactly should we build. That's my expertise. And having volunteered with a lot of these causes, I think I've spent a lot of time understanding what those people, everybody in our community, needs. And I want to take all of that experience, my ex technical expertise plus my volunteering expertise to the county commission and make sure that we get efficiencies in our county commission, just like what I've done in technology companies. I have 134 US patents. Actually, I got my 135th yesterday. Just shows goes to show that I can think outside the box. I'm also a hardworking person because there was nobody else around me who actually got anywhere close to that number. But I've also worked in business, I've led large teams to build those products that we thought about that we thought would answer or be valuable to people. I've led businesses, I've been responsible for one billion in revenue, and I increase the revenue by 33% in one year. That's the expertise that I think we would balance out our wonderful commissioners currently. We have a lot of good expertise there, but there's nobody with a technology background, and that's what I want to bring to elevate all of Wake County. Thank you.

Jonathan Lambert-Melton: 6:24

My name's Jonathan Lambert Melton. I am currently an at-large member of the Raleigh City Council. I have been on the Raleigh City Council serving in an at-large seat since 2019. In my day job, I'm a lawyer and mediator, but I've had the privilege of serving the city of the Raleigh. I'm on my third term right now. I previously served as mayor pro tem last term. I know some of you in the room, and I'm looking forward to getting to know the rest of you. My name might be familiar because I have been endorsed by the Wake County Democratic Party in my city council races. Those are nonpartisan races, the party endorses in them. And so my name has been on the slate card that has been handed out at the polls the last several elections. But now I will actually be on your ballot. I'm running for a few reasons. First, I have worked with all of the county commissioners. They are fantastic people. We've been able to do some good work in Raleigh and countywide. We worked together to pass a comprehensive non-discrimination ordinance that all the towns and cities could join. Wake County passed it on Monday, Raleigh ratified it on Tuesday, and then I worked with the quality and see to try to get the other towns to join. The only holdout was Holly Springs, and I've heard that they may be joining now too after the recent election. So that's great. We also worked with the county to stand up an alternative response unit to supplement our police officers, it's called Raleigh Cares. Most people don't know this, but the county has the health department, the cities and towns do not. So if we need assistance with mental health resources or transporting folks, we have to rely on their resources there. So we are able to get Raleigh Cares up and running. The things that I care a lot about are housing. We have a housing shortage, obviously in Raleigh and countywide. It's going to continue to be really expensive for folks to live here if we don't increase our housing supply. I've worked on those issues in Raleigh where I think they're most acute, and I'd like to bring some of that work to the county level. Transportation is really important. Voters passed the Wade County Transit Plan. We need to make sure it's actually implemented and funded. My husband and I have one car. I took it here tonight because I can't take my scooter this far. It would be great if we could get around the county in ways that don't require vehicles. And then access to parks and open spaces. I see the aunt. I'll sit down. I'm excited to answer your questions this evening.

Robert Mitchner, Jr.: 8:23

Good evening. My name is Robert Mitch. Now, first I want to start off uh giving my mentor, Lim Barney, ex-NFL Hall of Famer. Without him, my career wouldn't have never started. I'm born and raised right here in Raleigh. I'm a native here. I grew up in Southeast Raleigh. And I don't have the background and the experience that my candidates here have. Now, what I do have is over 30 years of law enforcement. I was a sheriff deputy. I retired in September of 2022. I did 30 years, seven months with the Wake County Sheriff's Department. In that sheriff's department, I was a school resource officer, which I had to learn the school system and see the cafeteria people, the bus drivers, and all of these people. I worked around these people. I went from there to the warrant squad. I went from the warrant squad to patrol. So it's not a part of Wake County, a street or a neighborhood that I have not been on. When I retired, they moved me off of patrol to the SWAT team. So when I retired, I retired off of the SWAT team. We faced different challenges. And some of these challenges that none of my colleagues hear, they would never see. And I have to make a split decision. And that decision could cost me my life. All of the people around me. Now, some of my co-workers have gotten shot and we had to deal with that. But if I can make that quick decision over 30 something years, and I'm here to tell you about it, I think I can make some decisions that would help Wake County. Other thing is that we talk about affordable housing. We talk about with affordable housing, I was that guy that came to your house and padlocked the door, asked you to leave the house until you look a person in his eyes and tell his family that you can no longer come back into this house. If you do, this is considered trespass. So I want to put things in place that instead of going to your house to tell you to leave and padlock it, I want to help you take this voucher. Take oh I'm sorry. I'm Robert Mitchell thank you.

Christine Kushner: 10:45

Good evening, Western Wake Dems. It's great to be here this evening and tell you about our campaigns. My name is Christine Kushner, and I'm one of the wonderful Dems running for one of these two open seats on the Wake County Commission. And I am taking back, I'm going back into elected politics because I'm very concerned. I'm running for this county commission seat because I'm concerned about the chaos and cruelty that's coming from national government. Many of you may know me from my time on the school board. I served 11 years on the school board. I will be a fierce advocate for our public schools. I served as chair as well as vice chair, and we worked with a $2 billion budget that was the, I would say, the most complex in the state, as far as we didn't have taxing authority and we had shortcomings from the state and have had to work with our county commissioners to make sure we're advocating for our schools. The last four years I've been on the Wake County Health and Human Service Board, so I come with deep experience from this board that's been overseeing public health and social services in Wake County. Between public education, public health, and social services, that's 65% of what the Wake County Commission funds. And I have dealt with $2 billion budgets and will be able to work with our colleagues and work with community and stakeholders to make sure that our budget reflects our shared values and our priorities. I'm originally from Fayetteville, I'm a native of North Carolina, the daughter of Greek immigrants who came looking for the American dream. So the state of our nation right now, with that dream turning into a nightmare, is what's driving me to come back and seek elected office so we can serve Wake County. You can go to my website, ChristineForWake.com, and find out more about my campaign. I've honored endorsements from both state and local and House leaders, and I would love to work collaboratively with you as our Democratic Party to make sure we get two strong Democrats emerging from the primary so that we can take this race to November. We can make sure Safiyah Jackson wins her seat in her contested race because it's going to be from here to November, all hands on deck, unified Democratic Party, so that we can take our vision for North Carolina and the county forward. Thank you.

Steve Rao: 12:54

Good evening, everybody. Louder for me. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Steve Rao. I'm a former council member in Morrisville for the past 14 years. December 9th was my last meeting, it was one of the greatest chapters of my life. And there's three letters in my name, and they represent the three reasons why I'm wanting to be one of the next commissioners. R is for results. If you don't believe me, I want you to go to Morrisville tomorrow and drive through what I call modern-day Morrisville in All-America City. And as Mayor TJ, one of my colleagues reminded me, it's not about me, it's about us, it's about the team. We did great things. We've got Church Creek Park, the Creek Cup in the U.S. We brought the Carolina Hurricanes to train in Morrisville at the Wake Company Center. Over $100 million of DOT funding in roads. And I worked a lot when I was mayor for town with both the Corey and the Cooper administrations to bring those dollars in. We worked on $20 million of parks and greenways, housing, transit, award-winning smart city technology, and today the town's using AI in ways that no city in Wake County was doing. I could go on and on. But the bottom line, for a job like this, results matter. And I have a proven record of 14 years of experience. A is for action. It didn't happen by accident. I worked with residents, I worked with my colleagues around the council. For 12 out of the 14 years, two I was mayor of Coat Town. For 12 out of those 14, I served as a delegate to the Central Pie Regional Council. Where I worked with elected officials across every local jurisdiction. That's why I know some of the people here like Councilmember Melton and others on this council and around the town. And when you add opportunity, action upon us, what do you get? Oh opportunity. So I'm asking for promotion to bring RAO around to the Wake County Commissioners. Because for me, it's not an object training. I've been in a Wake County official for 14 years, and I'm ready to get the job done now. And some of the things I want to do is I want to work with the commissioners and my colleagues to strengthen, to continue to invest in our world-class school system. I'm trying to be the parent of a daughter who's a New York Times journalist who started reading at three years old. I want to expand affordable housing, transit, technology, jobs, innovation, and I want to make Wake County the best place to live, work, and play in America, the new Silicon Valley of the East. And with your help, we can do it. RAO for Wright County Commissioner and a spaghetti sauce is named after me. Thank you very much.

Rachel Jordan, Western Wake Dems Chair: 15:21

Okay, now I'd like to recognize County Commissioner Safiya Jackson.

Safiyah Jackson: 15:26

Hi, everybody. Hi everyone. Just want to correct the record for a moment. I am the only county commissioner with a competitive race. Once we get through the primaries, I'm the only one with a real Republican Party, but we'll talk about that later. Okay, it is an honor, a true honor to be here with all of these candidates to ask you one question. And I just want to also thank everyone that supported me in the House District 37 race last year. And I can tell you that serving on county commissioner, there are so many things that we need to take care of and think about. So here's my question regarding the breadth of responsibility. The counties are the closest form of government to the people with a portfolio that spans from public health and social services to land use and education funding? No single person is expected to be an expert in every single strategic priority. Here's a question. Which specific area of the county's vast responsibility do you feel most prepared and experienced to contribute to immediately? And in which specific area do you anticipate having the steepest learning curve? We'll start with Steve and we'll work our way back.

Steve Rao: 16:40

Well, more as well, we got it all right. So this is going to be our question. But I would say that I would have the greatest experience today going in with schools. I had the honor of leading the efforts with my colleagues to bring two new public schools. Well, when I was elected in 2011, we had only two elementary schools. We worked with the school board and the county commissioners to get parts at elementary, we got partside middle, Wake Tech YTP, and there's the Wake County Information School of Early Lifescience, early career high school. So I feel like I would be an advocate for public schools on day one because they're cutting the funding, the legislature, and every year we've got to get more money. I think they're operating over 700 million, 41 million this year. So I would get on day one to fight for schools. And I tie that into jobs because I've had a lot of success in my experience. I recruited a lot of companies to More School with my team. So I think education goes hand in hand, and I think that I have a tremendous amount of experience having done that at More School. My steepest learning curve, I would say, I have a lot of experience in all the areas of White County Commission, which is why I want to be worth counting commissioners. But one area is health care. You know, if the Obamacare subsidies do expire, and the guy in the White House I probably will, 25% of North Carolinians will have no health care. So one thing I've been trying to learn more about is well, how will this affect the county? I've been trying to do my homework. I still can't find out like how we can do it, but because the county commissioners do manage public health. So this is going to affect, and we also have other crazy guys at DHHS, RFK, so like vaccinations and stuff like that. So those are two areas. I guess the one area that I have to keep is learning call curve, along with expanding EMS service. But that was a great question, great tough. Probably didn't get it right, but thank you for asking. Commissioner, who will be re-elected?

Christine Kushner: 18:32

My name is Christine Kushner. Thank you for that question. I think with my 11 years on the school board, I can safely say I know a lot about the public school system and advocating not only for the operational budget supplements that come from the county commission, but also the capital program. The billion plus dollars that we work with the county, with the school board and the county commission work together to do all of the school construction renovation that happens in Way County. So I feel like I bring that experience, important experience to the board. And the steepest learning curve, I'd have to pick between land use and zoning and what an ETJ is. I think I figured that part out for the abbreviation only. But also the fire districts, the fact that we have consolidated EMS in this county, and I think that's been a big leap forward. But fire districts being segmented is something I would need to learn about.

Robert Mitchner, Jr.: 19:27

My name is Robert Mitchner. Well, part of my job now, when I retire from the Wake County Sheriff's Department, I took a job now. I worked with the state capital police officers, and I had the opportunity to meet the monks this weekend because I provided the security. I also am the security for the Court of Appeals. And I was able to talk to them and speak to them and the monks. And one of my steepest is basically throughout my career is mental health. When they tore down Dorothea Dix, and when they tore down Dorothea Dix Hospital, the residents there either went three places to the streets, to the jail, or to another facility, mental health facility out of the county. But yours truly was the person that had to pick them up and transport them. What I've learned is not locking them away, putting them away or transporting them. Get them help, get them the people that they need to talk to to help their mentality, their mind. The medication, they're not getting their medication. A lot of these mental health people, these residents, they are lacking in the medication and they get paychecks. They get checks, but they don't know what to do with it. Okay? So it's not locking them away. I was that guy that had to put them in a jail facility. I'm tired of that. Now let's fix that. And the other thing for me to fix is public safety. I'm born and raised right here in Wake County, Southeast Raleigh, where my mom and dad house is still over there. We called the police one time and it took two hours for them to even respond. So police response time, that's one of my big news. Thank you. Talk to you.

Jonathan Lambert-Melton: 21:28

Jonathan Lambert- Melton. So I serve on the Raleigh City Council, and probably the biggest thing we deal with in Raleigh is land use. And so that would be something I feel very comfortable with. Certainly understand the ETJ can help you there, Christine. And honestly, quite frankly, one of the reasons why I'm excited to not be on a city council moving forward is I need a little break from land use issues. Folks have very strong opinions about townhouses, trust me, and ready for a little break from that. There are actually two areas where I think I need some more information. So I'm telling on myself a little, but I'm already doing the work. We don't have a health department in the city, but I'm a member of. Of the Wake Med Community Advisory Board, so I'm already sort of dipping my feet into those issues. And then obviously, public education. We don't handle public education at the city level, but I was a member of the State Hunt Policy Fellows Program. So for an entire semester, we did policy and education work. My mom's a public educator, so it's something I care about deeply. But I would say those are the two that I will lean on my colleagues a lot, at least initially to get caught up on.

Mona Singh: 22:29

I have a slightly non-traditional response to this. As I mentioned, I do a lot of volunteer work with the homeless and refugees. And one thing I've learned is that we really can't think about these things in isolation. We can't think about housing, affordable housing, and not think about healthcare, mental health, transportation. I think we need to change the way we think about things and think about the people and think about how all of these have to come together to make people flourish. So if we are building homes in Zebulon or Rolesville, we want to make sure we're providing transportation to the people so people can get to homes. A lot of people like Jonathan, 30% of households in Wake County have access to only one vehicle. Now, if there's two people working, how does the second person even get to their job? So we really need to think about people, so little kids coming to the homeless shelters. They, you know, if we we want to make sure they get good education, but are they can they get a good education if they don't have a stable living environment, if they don't have a home? Do they get a good education if vaccines are being cut and they don't get vaccines? They don't get other preventative care. So I really want to take the, you know, use my skills in building these connections between the traditional pillars, so to speak, and use technology to break down a lot of those silos. And really, what I want to do is build communities, make people flourish, and make sure that they're we're catering to all of their needs. I have a lot of learning curve, of course. I worked in healthcare, I'm familiar with education, but I'm a quick learner. And I think housing, yeah, and especially I've spent a lot of time within this past year talking to a lot of experts about housing. In fact, I was at the City Builder meeting this morning as well, and some of the acronyms they were using are something I need to pick up on. So I would say housing is going to be where I need a little bit of help.

Safiyah Jackson: 24:36

It is wonderful to be able to ask you a question, and I look forward to working with any one of you all because Democrats must win.

Rachel Jordan, Western Wake Dems Chair: 24:50

So now I'm going to call Commissioner Cheryl Stallings to ask a question, and this time we will start with you, Jonathan, and then we'll go to Mona and wrap around.

Cheryl Stallings: 24:59

Good evening, everyone, and I also want to thank you for showing up. And as has already been said, this is about Democrats coming together. And yes, and let you shine Democrats up and down the ballot for 2026. So this question in true commissioner fashion is also a little bit long. And first of all, I wanted to say I represent District 3, which is part of Western Wake, so parts of Southern Morrisville, West Cary, and West Apex. And I am I'm gonna be on your ballot, but I'm running unopposed, so I'm already amazing to do. And I also chair the Health and Human Services Committee, so I have my ears and eyes on all health and human services issues throughout the county, and that's and I'm also a mental health professional, so mental health and all kinds of health and human service issues are very important to me. But to our candidates, here we go. So this question is about navigating state and federal bills and for chaos. As a county commissioner, you are on the front lines of implementing state and federal legislation. Often you are tasked with delivering positive results even when those bills are underfunded or run counter to the needs of our local community. Looking ahead to the next year, what specific state or federal policy impacts do you anticipate dealing with most urgently as a county commissioner? And how might you mitigate those impacts, those negative potential impacts on Wake County residents?

Jonathan Lambert-Melton: 26:31

My name's Jonathan Lambert Melton. Well, I mean, so we're very familiar with that on the city of Raleigh, and we have to do a multitude of things to try to bend and contort ourselves to the will of really the state government on our part. You know, they I guess criminalized our DEI programs and they just hold our city manager and our mayor down to Jones Street to do hearing about that, and so we've had to figure out how we can still accomplish the work in a different way. But to answer your question, the immediate thing that came to mind was access to SNAP benefits. I think there's going to be a lot of folks that are going to be really struggling. We have a lot of really great organizations that are doing the work in Wade County, and so I think one way we can help is getting resources to the folks that are already serving the residents and the most vulnerable residents. And so that would be something I would be interested in doing, is making sure that we can take our resources and allocate them where they can do the most good to the folks that are already doing the work in the community.

Mona Singh: 27:25

I'm Mona Singh. I think the most important thing that I'm worried about is education, is the millions of dollars that the legislature is actually giving in private school vouchers, giving away, and that's really hurting us already. That's at the top of my mind. I think we need to make sure we can educate our children because time lost, even six months out of a child's life, if they don't have the special education they need or any other thing that they need, it's going to hurt them for the rest of their life, and that's not acceptable. The other thing that also comes to my mind is that the legislature is currently thinking about making changes to property taxes. So they our hands are tied. I mean, the commission's hands are tied right now in what they can do with property taxes. They are re-evaluating that, and I'm quite worried that nothing good will come out of it. They probably make life hard for everyone because even when they go in with good intentions or declared good intentions, the results of the Republican legislature are not good. So that's what I'm keeping an eye on, and I'm really worried about what they'll come out with as a result of the discussion.

Steve Rao: 28:33

My name is Steve Rao. Thank you for the question. As it relates to federal, I would say that my biggest concern would be the reduction in SNAP benefits, which would be reduced by about 20%. Today we have 1.4 million killing these that get snapped. A lot of that costs just to the county. So I can't even imagine what County Manager Ellis is going through. So I think that's going to really have an immediate impact. Talked about health care as well. I think we've got to keep our eyes on that as well. The bottom care subsidies may expire, but we're going to do it all very uninsured in Wake County. It's going to hit us hard. From the state, I would say I continue to be concerned about education. The legislature continues to cut funding unless we get Sydney Batch and it's minority leader and Robert Reeves, and we're going to make that happen to be our speaker, then we won't be in such a position where playing defense. So I would say it's not really bills, but that's what the state is doing. It has the greatest impact. I'm also concerned about property taxes one, but I'm also concerned about those like Senate Bill 382, which forced our recount sheriffs and sheriffs who work with ICE. And when I'm a commissioner, I'm going to work with you all, whoever I work with, to call out President Trump. When you're a former council member, and Indian Americans and other Asians are calling, saying, What kind of documentation do I take as work? Can someone come and shoot me in the car? Murder and fear is no way to have an immigration policy. We have these congressional candidates here. That's gonna stop. But I think we're gonna see more of this nonsense because we have a legislature, including that's why you've got to get Roy Cooper in the Senate, because you know, Senator Budd's promoting, well, everything's fine, but we're gonna get more of the state. So that's what I would say. I mean, there's so many things, so but those are like the main things from the federal and state. Thank you for the question, Commissioner.

Christine Kushner: 30:08

My name is Christine Kushner. As a creature of the state, the county's hands are tied in many, many ways, and the state only allows the county to actually do its work. But I am increasingly concerned about that the federal level, the abolishment of the Department of Education, our most vulnerable children are and our educators who take care of them are dependent on that federal money for our special education services as well as Title I services. So these horrible changes at the federal level are impacting Wake County schools in terrible ways. And we're having burnout, there's a lot of turnover in our special education classrooms, and it's not sustainable. So that would be one immediate issue, day one, that I would want to meet with what we can do to help support the school system serving these very vulnerable children. And that also though I totally agree with Mona that the voucher system is bleeding money away from our public schools and is really a tax payer scam of this money going to private schools. So I would want to use our bully pulpit to push back on that program absolutely. Also at the local level, homelessness is rising, and I am very concerned about the social safety net, whether it's SNAP benefits with being undermined by both state and federal folks. So that would also be an immediate concern from day one. So it's going to be a really difficult year, and we've got to be supporting our shared values as Democrats to make sure we move the needle on the legislative races and protect our local government with these county races. Thank you.

Robert Mitchner, Jr.: 31:39

My name is Robert Mitchner. Wow. I want to piggyback on Mona who stay. I think that's some good answers. But education to me, we don't realize that we create our own criminals. Let me explain by that. What I'm saying is there's a lot of funding with this lottery system that's not touching base to these teachers. When a child leaves your home, you are the parent. You're molding that child, but they also get molded into a proper person in school. And the teachers need the proper pay, proper salary, okay? Not just the teachers, but the cafeteria workers. Not just the cafeteria workers, but the janitors. Not just the janitors, but the bus drivers. All of them need the proper pay. I think that we need to revamp this thing with this lottery system and find out where's this money going to. It's supposed to go towards the education. So let's give the people the right amount of money to help so this county can thrive. That we won't have overcrowding in the jail system where the inmates are sleeping on the floor. Let's get them out of there. Let's not have them there. So I think it starts with the education. And I'm gonna rest at that, but it's also mental health. Mental health is a big part. But the kids, the kids, their babies, let's find some money for them. And we have it through the lottery system.

Rachel Jordan, Western Wake Dems Chair: 33:12

Thank you so much. I had some questions that people sent in, but I also know if people were want to ask some questions. So I'm gonna say if you have a question you would like to ask, if you could come and stand right there, and I will ask you guys to kind of be able to give me, depending on how many people we have, like a five-second description for.

Forum Guest 1: 33:34

So my question is to each of you: what makes you most proud to be a Wake County resident, and how would you protect or strengthen that as a commissioner?

Christine Kushner: 33:43

My name is Christine Kushner. One of the things I'm most proud of is our beautiful open spaces and green canopy. We come into Raleigh to see all the trees, and that and as a county commissioner, I want to commit to protecting our open spaces, making sure that I support the strategic plan that's pushing density into where there's already infrastructure and keeping water clean, extending the life of the landfill that we just protect our environment here in Wake County.

Robert Mitchner, Jr.: 34:09

My name is Robert Mitchner. My reason is I'm born and raised here, native here. And my career, I've seen what's needed in Wake County. I mean, my heart and soul at night driving these streets at night, two and three o'clock in the morning, holidays, weekends. I've seen the homelessness. I've seen the mental health. I've seen it. My heart and soul is in it. I want to help. I want to change some of these things. I think by just having that experience, I know what's needed to make a difference. Thank you.

Jonathan Lambert-Melton: 34:46

My name's Jonathan Lambert Melton. I agree with all the answers that preceded me, so I'm going to answer differently. You know, I came to Wake County to go to NC State and graduated and decided to stay here. My husband moved here from New York and we got married and we're building our family here. And I think that taking care of our community and remaining a really open and welcoming place is super important. Before I got elected to City Council, I did a lot of nonprofit work. I started a nonprofit called Stone wall Sports. It's an LGBTQ Philanthropic Sports League. So just creating that safe space in community is really important. I am a gay man, obviously I have a husband. I would be the only gay person on the Wake County Commission. I think that representation is important, and I'd like to bring that voice forward and make sure that we continue to advance policies in a community that is welcoming everyone.

Mona Singh: 35:30

I'm Mona Singh. What I like the most about Wake County is the diversity. When I first came here 30 years ago, it was not as diverse as it is today. So I've seen the changes and I really, really appreciate that. I think there's a lot of beauty in diversity. However, I also see that we have communities that are very isolated. In my mind, I still see silos. And what I want to change is bring people together. People from different parts of the world move here. We need to bring them together in meaningful ways and make them become a part of the social fabric of all of Wake County. That's my goal and my hope for Wake County.

Steve Rao: 36:13

My name is Steve Rao. Well, I think we got one of the best county commissions in the state, Wake County Commission. Let's give them a round of applause because it's a Democrat-led commission, and I've gone to over 16 meetings over the last four years. I know in Boston sometimes ago, I've been speaking about Morrisville stuff, but I've seen firsthand how hard they work, and I really want to thank them for all they do. I guess what I'm proud of is our Wake County school system. And we have a former chair here, Kushner, but when you look at the schools and the parent of Way County kids, and when I look at these teachers and how great they are, how great they are, they're like college professors ahead. They're young, they're energetic, they're passionate, and we got to make sure that we're investing in our schools because we are doing it, but we're playing defense. So we have to continue to look at new revenue sources to fund our schools in addition to taxes. I think one way could be looking at economic development and seeing if there's a way we can incentivize these companies to come in and actually say, okay, you want to put your headquarters here, put in something in a school, like a school fund that we can get into. You know, if we have the educational lottery, I don't know, something like that in Have a Way County. When I was in More School, we started a parkland payment loop fund for apartments, where every time they put an apartment, we bring in money. And 250 apartment complex, you bring in about $800,000 for a park. So that's what I would do. I think we've got to get out of the box with a fight for schools and fight for more teacher pay, and I'm getting the way I've got to go. Thank you for the great question. I wish I had about five more minutes.

Forum Guest 2: 37:39

Good evening, everyone. My name is Anika Golda. Daniel's a blogger, resident for West Cary. One of my questions is what would you do for the public safety of these kids? We have 6,000 kids at our technology schools. Second, what are we going to do about affordable housing where the building has taken away from all these case we don't do public schools? So within six months, they have been asked to vacate. So let me come to the commissioner. What would you do for these families and children?

Robert Mitchner, Jr.: 38:06

My name is Robert Mitchner. The public safety thing that I want to address that first is basically what I would do is it starts at home first. And all of us have to be an officer ourselves before the child gets to school. And once that child is in school, as far as the safety in the school system, I think that the safety that I hate to say it because in each school they might have gains. Some of these school systems have gains, and sometimes they are sneaking in weapons. So I think that we should provide each child. We have the surgery before they enter into the school.

Forum Guest 2: 38:48

I'm talking specifically about road safety, like kids walking to the school.

Robert Mitchner, Jr.: 38:52

Oh, okay. I'm sorry.

Forum Guest 2: 38:53

I'll give you a little more specific. It was making it.

Robert Mitchner, Jr.: 38:56

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm thinking about the school safety within the school. But well, road safety, then we need more officers standing out on the curve, uh, on the and helping these kids walk to school. We need to start carpooling and teaming up with some of these parents and kids that's not taking the bus. If they're walking, maybe the neighbor could help them out and they carpool together. The safety, we need more officers on the street, like in New York City. They stand on each corner, watch pedestrians walk across the street. So I think about that's basically safety, patrol safety on the streets for the kids. I hope that happens.

Jonathan Lambert-Melton: 39:34

My name is Jonathan Lambert Melton. Thank you for clarifying. I was doing like mental gymnastics. So both of those kind of would fall more to the town council in the area of the school because they handle most of their infrastructure, their crosswalks, their sidewalks. They would also handle all their land use. But to the extent that there is an opportunity for the county, maybe it's in an unincorporated area, we would certainly want to work with the school system on implementing infrastructure projects. What we do in Raleigh is we have a safe routes to school program and we work with our Vision Zero Coordinator. Our Vision Zero Coordinator is focused in our transportation department on achieving zero pedestrian incidents or deaths due to cars. And so we work very closely with the school system on crosswalks, on protected bike lanes, on sidewalks to connect people who live in walking area of their school to be able to get there safely. Obviously, what school you go to would be the Wake County Public School Systems school assignment, and they have their own policies for that. And then certainly land use decisions on what will be built around schools would fall to the local town or city council as well. But I think as a county commission, you can sort of thread all those points together.

Mona Singh: 40:42

I'm Mona Singh. Thank you for the question again, and thank you for clarifying. So, of course, like Jonathan just said, a lot of things fall under different, you know, the county commission does not control schools. NC Department of Transportation is actually responsible for a lot of the decisions that get made. However, being a commissioner doesn't stop anyone from being an activist. And I think we have to keep working with everybody involved to make sure that the issues that people have are being addressed. So just because it's not something that I'm directly responsible for on the commission doesn't mean that I don't stand up for the people. You still build relationships, you try and get the work done, and that's what I'll continue to do because that's in my blood.

Steve Rao: 41:29

My name is Steve Rao. The first thing I would do is you know encourage more walk to school days, which we have in Morrisville and a number that I went with my colleagues, which is great, so the commissioners can do that. I would leverage my extensive contacts with uh the DOT, working with the secretaries and deputies to see if there's any unincorporated areas where we can get more funding for sidewalks and crosswalks. Um, I've had experience with that in Morrisville when I worked with both the McCrory and Cooper administrations. We brought in the DOT secretaries to look at our town and we're able to, our representative at Campo to secure more funding, and we were able to be successful with getting more crosswalks. I think sidewalks are important. I think that there's cars arriving too fast. I run a lot in Morrisville. People always see me running, and when I run on Morrisville Parkway, I'm just like, my god, I'm glad to, you know, if I go on the road, I'm just gonna get hit. Someone almost killed me the other day, you know, just went through a stop sign. But um, so I think of the kids near those schools. So I think that's what we have to do. And then your housing question, I think we just have to keep fighting for more housing solutions, no kitchen if you're just gonna keep fund housing.

Forum Guest 2: 42:34

Thank you. Thank you.

Christine Kushner: 42:36

Okay, and uh my name is Christine Kushner. Um, there is a safe route to schools that's that's at the county level as well, and I think it's important to continue to work with municipalities to address issues when they rise. And for housing, you know, housing stability is school stability, it's workforce stability, it's opportunity. So at the county level, we do need to work our housing department and the staff that has been added work with our municipalities to preserve housing, to make sure that we're working to have more affordable housing, low-income housing, as far as also workforce housing, and that's just got to be a countywide of full court press because that is a survey concern that rises to the top, and every time the county is putting out surveys about community concerns, whether it's through Live Well Wake or other requise. So that's on top of mind with a lot of residents, and it and I think we need to work collaboratively with our 12 municipalities to address it.

Forum Guest 5: 43:33

Thank you. Thank you. A tough question, but it should be fairly short in answer. As a 30 year resident of Wake County and a retired educator, I saw, like everybody else, my property taxes go up significantly, and I do understand the reason for that. However, I would like each of you to think about a way that you can protect our retired citizens who have put so many decades of effort and money into. To the expansion and support of Wayne County and is a great place to live. But once you're retired, you don't get that 30% increase in your retirement benefits. Like we saw in my house, a 30% increase in my property taxes. That's not the kind of thing that you plan for when you're planning for retirement. I think that an option might be considered this. I actually don't need answers for this. Something that you consider is happening for retired people.

Christine Kushner: 44:29

My name's Christine Kushner, and that is a top of mind as I'm campaigning. A lot of folks are concerned about the increases and the evaluations. I know that there's very limited assistance right now at the county level for folks on fixed incomes. I would like to investigate whether we can expand those programs that can help, especially seniors who are on fixed incomes that have been in their homes for a long time. And I would want it to be means tested. And I know we are an aging community here in Wake County, and this is our biggest asset, fiscal asset is our home. So protecting that is going to be top of mind. But also I would want it to be means tested that we can give help to vulnerable people.

Steve Rao: 45:09

My name is Steve Rao. You give me a lot to think about, thank you, but I'm concerned about product tax rising. So I would propose some kind of a cap on seniors, whether we could explore that, whether that could be done legislatively because they are on fixed incomes. I think we have to get a new, we need to get the Democrats to take over the House and the Senate because what's pushing the tax increases is the revenue that they don't have to make up for the shortfalls. So we gotta get properties from the speaker to ask them what the remote's gonna be. And then I think just looking at innovative ways of creating new funding models because the legislature probably I'll say is we have an opportunity for the revenues are just going down every year for our local government. But the mandates I think that we're trying to do the cities and counties as well. So this is the biggest problem we have. But I think that's what's pushing us to raise taxes because there's no other revenue source in the year. So I would I would support a count or some kind of a discount for taxes.

Mona Singh: 46:10

Yeah, that's an excellent question. I've actually thought a lot about property taxes, and I've heard that from residents that they cannot make their, especially retired people in Big County, cannot make they'll be homeless if they have to pay property taxes. So there's several things we can do. I mean, ideally, we want progressive income taxes in North Carolina, that's the best way to get money. The second corporate taxes, that's what our legislature is not doing. So we I'll fight for those as much as I can. And of course, we need to elect Democrats to our legislature so we can get that. We don't want 0% corporate taxes, that's what's hurting us. So continue to fight for those property taxes for seniors. Then there might be other sort of creative things we have to do. I know people who are building six billion dollar homes in Wayne County, and there's others struggling. But there's some features that these six billion dollar homes have that are that are not included in the property tax. You might see huge outdoor patios or other kinds of things that are not in, because they're not heated, they're not included in the taxes. That's another thing that we can try and do. Of course, the legislature doesn't want us to do any of that.

Jonathan Lambert-Melton: 47:22

My name's Jonathan Lambert Melton. I agree with a lot of what I've heard. Uh, primary issue here is the counties are being asked to fund things that are responsibilities of the state government. And so you're getting your paying your state taxes and then your county property taxes, you're getting taxed twice for half the service. And in the meantime, the part of the reason why your bills going up is the cost of housing is going up. And so your assessment goes up because we have a scarcity of housing, so everybody's valuations are increasing, so your tax bill increases. So, one thing we can directly do is work with our municipalities to increase our housing supply to help stabilize and reduce costs. A long-term goal that I would like to see accomplished is working with the state government on the better tax relief programs. There's two right now that they maintain, they're pretty limited in scope. You have to qualify by age, you have to be permanently physically disabled, and you have to qualify by income. I would do everything I can to advocate for additional tools, including the cap that you suggested. And so I think we can pull every lever that we have available. But until we get some Democrats elected in the majority on Jones Street, we're going to continue to have to find ways to take care of our residents and still meet our expenses.

Robert Mitchner, Jr.: 48:24

My name is Robert Mitchner. I agree with everyone. I agree with the CAP. But also, three months ago, I said in a meeting with the men of Southeast Raleigh. That's an organization that they are already on ground on wheels now, helping senior citizens with this property taxes, and they are having very, very good luck. And so what I'm saying is basically, I think that we don't reinvent the wheel, get behind the wheel that's already turning and working. So I think more organizations like the men of Southeast Raleigh need to step up. And we as county commissioners help these organizations with these property taxes because the men of Southeast Raleigh has made some changes. That's all thank you.

Rachel Jordan, Western Wake Dems Chair: 49:17

Thank you all so much. Sadly, we have run out of time. We have so many amazing candidates here, and I want to thank you all for coming and being here. Both of you would give opening statements, and then I think if you would like to take questions.

Sherita Walton: 49:34

Okay, one minute. All right. Well, good evening, everyone. My name is Sharia Walton, and I am seeking to be the next VA here in this county. I have been an attorney for over 20 years, as mentioned, for the last four and a half years that have served as in-house counsel to the Raleigh Police Department. I work on behalf of the city, as you can imagine. The police department is a high liability department. And so literally they have attorneys in-house supervise day in and day out counsel. In fact, I'm on call tonight. So if you hear my phone ring, I may have to take a pause as it relates to that. I did work as a prosecutor in the Wake County DA's office for almost five years under the current DA, Ms. Freeman. Prior to that, I worked in the Manhattan DA's office for eight years, and I had tried and handled cases from as minor as speeding tickets to as serious as homicides. Before that, I worked in the private sector doing white collar criminal investigations, so I had experience with the defense. So I am looking to be DA to bring that broad, diverse perspective to the role of DA, the most powerful, in my opinion, person in our criminal justice system so that we have a very inequality system.

Riga Sudini: 50:48

Good evening, everyone. I'm obviously not Wiley Nickel. My name is Riga Sudini. I work as Wiley's field director, and Wiley wanted to apologize for not being able to be here today. He was double booked, but I'm going to read a statement on his behalf. Hello everyone, I'm Congressman Wiley Nickel, and I'm sorry I couldn't be there in person, but I'm excited to still be able to talk about my platform with you all. I want to start off by addressing everything we've been seeing with ICE and make it clear that ICE will not get a free pass when I'm district attorney. As district attorney, I'll use the full weight of my office to hold any federal agent who breaks the law in Way County accountable. I'm running for Wake County District Attorney because the stakes for our community and our democracy have never been higher. We need a justice system that keeps our community safe while treating everyone fairly. We need accountability, compassion, and a commitment to equal justice under the law. I'm running a campaign focused on a positive, forward-looking vision for real public safety. I'm running to finish the work I started in Congress and to make sure our justice system works for the people it's supposed to serve. I'll give time for Sharita to go ahead and answer questions, but I'll be hanging around, so definitely come find me. Yeah, Wally's running for Wake County District Attorney, and thank you so much for your time.

Rachel Jordan, Western Wake Dems Chair: 52:07

Ms. Walton has offered to stick around. Obviously, as Ms. Sudini said, certainly some of the questions we got our Wake County approach to ICE and immigration enforcement did show up in several people's concerns. So maybe you want to start with that?

Sherita Walton: 52:22

Okay, so let's start up with the first thing. No one is above the law, right? No one is above the law. Whether not you wear the bag, whether not you're elected in pension, whether or not you're out in the street and you commit a crime, no one is above the law. So if something like that happened in our jurisdiction as DA, I would handle it. I would investigate that matter, look at it from a use of force perspective and any other criminal crime that relates to that, and address the matter. What I do want to speak to is the experience to do that. So, as you can imagine, as DA, you actually do have to have knowledge about how to prosecute cases to bring forth a strong, prosecutable case. And the way we do that is based off of the experience. Two of the candidates from the three of us actually have experience as a prosecutor. As you know, I was a prosecutor in both the Wake County DA's office and in the Manhattan DA's office. Why does that matter? Because again, you actually know how to build strong cases. People start off as prosecutors, baby prosecutors, where you're not even handling the more serious stuff. So you imagine when someone is actually injured and killed in connection with law enforcement activity, that is a pretty serious case. So you want to make sure that the person who is making these decisions about how to move forward or what charges to bring and how to even tell people what it is that you're doing and having them understand all the circumstances of the law around that, you need to have that experience, including prosecutorial experience. Again, two of the three of us actually had that. In addition to just prosecutorial experience, I have experience working and advising law enforcement. So part of what I do, in fact, is look at use of force cases. I understand what goes into the analysis when an officer is allowed and permitted to use deadly force or physical force. I have done that for the last four and a half years. So I have even more experience in the area of evaluating use of force, permissible uses for law enforcement. So experience matters, and it particularly matters when you're looking to prosecute the more serious cases, the ones that are going to have the most notoriety.

Forum Guest 2: 54:45

So I don't really understand what your role is in the police department. So is it because I see ICE agents and you know they all have great lawyers that I'm quite sure are going to try to beat the rap, so to speak.

Sherita Walton: 54:57

And I can you explain a little bit? Absolutely. So again, I work with the city of Raleigh. So what that means, given that the police department is one of the highest liability areas, they have attorneys, sort of like in-house counsel, who provide just the legal guidance. Think about you have an adult child, and you can't necessarily tell that adult child what to do, but you can advise about what that person should do on a day in and day out. Now take that and compare it to an actual lawyer for that adult child. That lawyer would actually go before bodies, a judge, a court, and actually defend that child as that person's representative. So when you have in-house counsel, my job is not to go and defend any particular officer, it is to provide that day in and day out guidance. And that was actually very important to me as I evaluated even taking this role. I thought I was going to be a career prosecutor. By the point before I took this role in 2021, I'd been a prosecutor for over about 13 years at that point. But then 2020 happened. George Floyd murder, COVID, I lost my mother that year, and I knew that I was just sitting in a place where I'm looking at actual files, and there was so much stuff going on in the street, and that is where I needed to be. And I know a lot of people talked about defunding the police. It was important to me to make sure that they are better. I come from an inner city background, humble beginnings. I needed to see the police where I live. It was very dangerous. And so for me, it was important that we had a police that knew the law, understood the constitutional requirements of their jobs. So for me, I needed to pivot and go work in the department to provide that day in and day out advice to them regarding all the things, constitutional law. I provide advice regarding, I taught arrest search and seizure, juvenile law, all the different types of law blocks for law enforcement to get certified.

Forum Guest 2: 56:52

Thank you very much. You're welcome.

Forum Guest 3: 56:57

Two quick questions. One, we know that our jails are overflowing people, and that a lot of those people that are in there are in there because they couldn't afford to pay the ticket that they got because they had a tail line out, and they get found nine months later, they get arrested, they get put in jail where they can't afford to get out. How do you foresee trying to help the people that need the help so that we don't have that? And the other for me is kind of works together in the sense of a lot of people don't know what the DA does. Yes. How do you get out so that the public knows the problems that we have and the solutions that we're working on?

Sherita Walton: 57:31

I'm going to start with your the latter part of that question, okay? You're right. As I have gone through this process for the last eight months, a lot of people don't understand the rule. The district attorney just kind of seems like this word, this phrase. And the way I like to explain it, you are the people's attorney. You represent the people's consciousness as it relates to criminal matters. You get to dictate whether or not collectively the people believe this is an appropriate use of resources to charge someone. And you're making those decisions at the top level, and you're certainly making sure that you're supervising those individuals who are making them in the trenches, like I was, both in that office as well as outside of that office. So I like the people to understand that you are the people's attorney. You are seeking to advance the public's interests. And that's why diversity of a person's experience is so important because we are a growing and evolving and diverse community. And it's important that we reflect the people who are making these decisions, have a basis to understand all the different perspectives that are part of making these decisions on behalf of the people to reflect their consciousness. Now, as it relates to the former part of your question regarding what are we going to do about people who are just in jail, number one, the jail's a crafting. Okay. And one of the things that I want to do when you're focusing on safety, then ask yourself, is that really making us more safe about this person being incarcerated? If not, then we need to pivot. We need to be thinking outside of the box and making changes on how we pursue prosecution in these particular cases. We need to make sure that there is not a threat to safety, that these people, that we're addressing the underlying root causes of why people engage in criminal conduct in the first place. Because ultimately, if only we do that, that is the only way we're going to actually be safe. We have to address these matters. So for matters that are nonviolent, minor offenses, I need to find out what's the issue, what's the barrier, and let's tackle that. One of the great things I love about Wade County is the resources. And by resources, I mean all the different organizations who literally flood with, hey, this is what we have to offer, this is what we can do. We need to tap into them. Everybody's act really works, in my opinion, in silos. We need to pull those together. So we literally have a menu of options. So when people are coming into our courtroom, we have a menu of options okay, this is what's going on with you, this is what we can recommend. And as a DA, you have the ability to do that. You have an immense amount of discretion. It's just important for us to be using this discretion responsibly and smart because not everything needs to be locked up, you know, or everybody needs to be locked up. This we have lived in a punitive system for far too long.

Forum Guest 6: 1:00:28

What is the reason it inspired you to run as a DA? And the second question I have is if you come in office, what is the first thing you do as a DA?

Sherita Walton: 1:00:37

So the reason I will, I've said this publicly so many times. I had no idea I was going to run for anything. I have always just figured out this is where I need to be to make change that I thought I could make as a first-generation everything. I never even imagined that running for office was even a possibility for someone who has already broken a lot of barriers, but it just never seemed to be something that was attainable. It was truly when your my former boss, not even my current one, comes to me and says, Hey, I'm not going to run, and looked at me and said, But you should. You know, I honestly, I was eating something, it might have fallen out, I don't know. But I was in shock. And I thought it would take me a long time to come to a decision. But when I came home and I thought I was going to tell my husband, like, this is the funny thing that Lauren said today, but it didn't. It weighed on me in a way that nothing ever has. And truly, when I thought about it, I thought that every single thing that I have done, my work on the defense side, my work as a prosecutor in Manhattan to come to Wake County and implement any things that work there that we can use here. And now working in law enforcement, we need all of those perspectives. These, every piece of that, it is so important to the survival of our justice system. I want a DA who, if I'm a victim of a crime, or my son or daughter is a victim of a crime, or my son and daughter is falsely accused of a crime. I want them to have a person like that, a person with that kind of perspective, to be in that seat. Because we just don't know. Life is so unpredictable, we have no clue if a person is going to wake up and be falsely accused, or like what's going on with ICE. We just don't know. We don't need someone who has a very narrow view of how things are. We need someone who has seen more and has done more. And quite frankly, that is what I've done. And that is why I'm stepping up and doing this. It's not about me. It's about our justice system and making sure it is the best version of itself. And the only way I know how to do that is based off of my experience and so many important aspects of our justice system.

Forum Guest 6: 1:03:07

You remember, thank you.

Sherita Walton: 1:03:08

I do remember. Honestly, the first thing I said I was going to do really is I need to make sure that the people there who there day in and day out understand that I am a person who knows what they go through. So it'll be really important to me to reconnect with the folks that are doing the day in and day out job. So the first thing I want to do is make sure that those relationships are firmed up. A number of people who I was working there with are still there, but there are not a lot of fresh faces. And they need to see me. They need to see me in their courtroom. They need to see me next to them, basically willing to say, Hey, you want me to take this question, or do you want me to take this case? Because I can do that and I don't have a problem doing that. Again, I come from humble beginnings. You will see me work as hard as anybody out here. It doesn't matter from BA or ADA or where I'm working right now, I will always win the hand. And they need to see that. They need to be able to say, you know what, this person I respect. This person I know that they can do what I am doing. And that's why experience matters. And I know that because I have been in different environments. I've had different bosses. I know what it feels to be excluded, and I know what it feels like to be included. So I want to make sure that do that right. That's one of the first things I want to do when I get into the office.

Forum Guest 4: 1:04:26

Yes, sir. Hi, my name is Jim Butell. This is political. Again, I'm a person that's involved in politics all the time. And one of your opponents had mentioned something about when that person does become the district attorney, he's going to go after people that have violated, for example, campaign rules in terms of political funding. And so my thing is that if you follow the money, you can find the people that you need to prosecute. And I would like for you to hopefully, you know, that you are the candidate, because I see your background, and you are the person that would not look at that political candidate as to whether he's blue or red and prosecute for campaign violations. The reason why I bring this up is, for example, you said you working at Manhattan, okay, and you know what happened in Manhattan. You know, one big bad old guy, got 43 violations, okay, and somebody's from that. What if that happens in our country? You know, what if that same person or another person who happens to be a bad candidate, who are you fire up, you know, politicians? Politicians, you know, they switch from one thing to the other thing to the other thing to stay in power. I don't think you are the person that is political. So what I have a question for you is that how are you going to handle people that may be coming from red or blue and be in our country and making sure that they play a fair game in politics?

Sherita Walton: 1:05:53

So, what I would say is do I look scared. I'm not, I am not going to be your traditional candidate, your traditional politician. I'm gonna tell you that now because that's just not who I am. I can only be who I have been trained to be. And that is a person who knows the law, a person who has background in prosecuting cases, a person who literally works in chaos all day long working with law enforcement. It's like you put out fires every minute of the day, it feels like. So essentially, what I'm saying is that you need to be strong, you need to be morally courageous. And I think, if nothing else, my life should show that. I was very comfortable at the DA's office before coming and working with law enforcement. When a lot of people who look like me, a lot of people leaving at my kitchen table, said, Why are you gonna go work with the police after everything that's going on? It takes courage to do that because I'm about doing what's right. I don't care what political side you're affiliated with. If you do something wrong and rises the criminal liability, I'm going and address it. Period. And I'm not escaping.

Rachel Jordan, Western Wake Dems Chair: 1:07:09

Thank you so much.

Amanda Benbow Lunn: 1:07:11

This concludes part two of the Western Wake Dems Candidate Forum, featuring five of the seven candidates running for the Wake County Board of Commissioners, and one of the three candidates plus a fill-in for the Wake County District Attorney's Race. Again, those who will be on the Democratic ballot for Wake County Commissioner are Marguerite Creel, Mona Singh, Steve Rao, Robert Mitchner Jr., Kimberly McGhee, Jonathan Lambert Milton, and Christine Kushner. The three candidates running for Wake County District Attorney are Sherita Walton, Melanie Shekita, and Wiley Nickel. If you are registered Democrat or unaffiliated, which some refer to as independent, you may be able to vote for the candidates in these races. Those unaffiliated will have their choice of filling out either a Republican ballot or a Democratic ballot. Those registered under a specific party can only vote in that party's ballot. The only two parties with ballots in this primary election are the Republicans and the Democrats. Early voting starts February 12th and goes through the 28th, with election day being Tuesday, March 3rd. Those who win their primaries will move on to the election in November. Please keep us in mind, if you know of other candidate forums you'd like us to capture, you or they could also send us an audio file and we would be happy to try to make an episode about it. As always, if you have any thoughts or topics you'd like to share, you may do so through social media or emailing ncdeepdive at gmail.com. If you found value in today's episode, we'd love for you to subscribe, give a review, and share it with others who might find the information helpful. Be on the lookout for more primary election coverage over the next month. In the upcoming episodes, I will be going over each race, who's running, what their websites say, and any other relevant information I can find. They will be available on our website, ncedeepdive.com, along with helpful links to candidate and election information, or wherever you listen to podcasts like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Audible. Until next time, my friends, Namaste. The Love and Light in Me sees and honors the love and light in you.