Nelson, a veteran of 16 years of elective office, starting with the Carrboro Board of Aldermen and Carrboro mayor's seat, understands from experience what it takes to mount a successful campaign. It's a demanding crucible of tremendous organizing, volunteer recruitment, fund-raising and face time with voters. For that reason, he wanted to make his announcement now to give anyone interested in running for his vacant seat ample time to prepare.
Compare that to Chapel Hill Town Councilman Bill Strom's disappearing act earlier this year. He slipped out of town only to announce after the filing deadline for this year's Town Council races that he was resigning. That bizarre act deprived voters of the chance to elect the person to fill his vacant seat. Town Council now has the obligation of choosing Strom's successor.
Strom's seemingly overt political act was met with rounds of disapproval from the electorate. Mayor Kevin Foy must be tone deaf to that chorus of disenchantment from the voters, or unconcerned with what they think since he, too, decided not to run for re-election this year.
Foy wants the sitting council to choose Strom's successor before the newly elected council is seated. That's precisely the political motivation voters decried about Strom's departure -- that it was timed to allow sitting council members to choose a like-minded clone to perpetuate their hold on power. And the elected class, amazingly, wonders why the electorate has lost confidence in the system.
