AJ Williams, candidate for Durham City Council, Ward 3

The Ward 3 candidates, A.J. Williams and Leonardo Williams, will not appear on ballots in October because they are are only two candidates in the race. Both candidates, who are seeking the seat currently held by Pierce Freelon, will automatically proceed to the November election. Freelon, who was appointed to fill a council vacancy, is not running.

Early voting in the non-partisan Oct 5 primary for mayor and the City Council races in Wards 1 and 2 begins Sept. 16 and runs through Oct. 2. The top two finishers will face each other in the Nov. 2 general election.

To find polling places and full details on early voting, visit www.dcovotes.com or contact the Board of Elections at 919-560-0700 or elections@dconc.gov

Name: AJ Williams

Age: 34

Residence: Durham

Occupation: Southern Vision Alliance, Ideation and& Incubation lab director

Education: I attended Durham Public Schools K-12. I went to Atlanta Art Institute for college but had to drop out for financial reasons. Through employment professional development opportunities, I completed the following relevant studies: Certified Nonprofit Accounting Professional designation with Fiscal Management Associates. University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business’ Philanthropy U, Certificate in Social Sector Leadership.

Political or civic experience: Participatory Budgeting Steering Committee, serving my second term

Campaign website: www.ajfordurham.com

What is the city doing right, and wrong, on gun violence?

Every murder in Durham breaks my heart, especially children caught in the crossfire. As a City Council member, I will fight to fully fund root-cause solutions to gun violence like affordable housing and equitable economics. The new Department of Community Safety, along with the city’s $1M pledge to fund the Community Safety and Wellness Taskforce, emerged from work I helped lead with Durham Beyond Policing.

I applaud the city’s efforts to address gun violence, and we still have a long way to go. The expanded Bull City United Violence Interrupters program is now housed in the Department of Community Safety. Council expanded their commitment to We Are The Ones, a violence interruption fund on which I serve, from $78K to the full request of $250K.

The pain and grief we feel about gun violence is real. True solutions will require buy-in and participation of community members, elected officials, faith leaders, community organizers and families to holistically change how we’re addressing safety.

If elected, what would your two or three priorities be during your first year in office?

Addressing violence: My first priority will be to support the hiring of qualified unarmed, skilled crisis responders, and administrative personnel to staff the Department of Community Safety and work with the Community Safety and Wellness Task Force to develop hiring criteria for new staff. I’d also like to introduce a proposal for a city-funded initiative and training program to hire Durham residents from impacted neighborhoods to be Care Responders in the Department of Community Safety to strengthen community engagement and build restorative responses to harm between residents. This would include developing alternative options that don’t rely on law enforcement officers for resident emergencies to handle mental health situations and quality of life calls and provide holistic, skilled, care-based responses to certain 911 calls for service.

Our city needs a more thoughtful approach to being in conversation and relationship with communities impacted by cycles of violence, interpersonal harm, and criminalized behavior. People are hurting, and young people are dying. We need more intentional interventions that aren’t purely reactionary, but taking action focused on the lived experiences of those who live every day in the crossfire.

Equitable Economic Opportunity and Growth: We can’t have a real conversation about gun violence, and other criminalized behavior like theft or robbery unless we’re also talking about the root causes, which include children not having options to expand their horizons and perspective because they can’t explore beyond the 300 foot radius of their block. Criminalized behavior is correlated to poverty. I will work to reduce the wage gap, increase city-funded vocational and trade certifications to lower income residents, and offer supportive services to ensure success and completion of those programs.

Culturally Relevant Youth Leadership Development: We need stronger youth programming that prioritizes the short-term and long-term leadership development of Durham’s youth. I’ll be working on longer term investments in pilots for violence interruption and addressing interpersonal conflict through restorative justice models. We need to seek out leaders from impacted communities who have the respect, history, voice, and presence to influence change in a real way. City elected officials often have the power to convene people around issues. I am prepared to be in conversations, and in active listening so that we can make the interventions, and interrupt the cycles of violence before they happen.

Durham voters strongly supported the $95 million Affordable Housing Bond, the largest housing bond in North Carolina history, and created a fund to preserve and develop affordable housing units, in combination with $65 million of local and federal funds to address homelessness and evictions. Many Durham Housing Authority properties are being renovated to be made more livable and up to code. I would work hard to ensure that residents are provided rent stabilization, with long-term protections for tenants and more notice before evictions on RAD (Rental Assistance Demonstration) conversion units and units subsidized by the city, with lower thresholds on AMI for lower to mid income residents. I’d ensure that there are open lines of communication between DHA and tenants, so that no one is falling through the cracks, and that residents are given first right of return as a guarantee after renovations are complete.

I want to work with our state delegates to get state preemptive laws such as the ban on inclusionary zoning and rent control overturned so that more affordable housing units are available for lower to medium income residents who are being priced out by rising rents. I believe we must implement a city-wide eviction moratorium pursuant to the city’s emergency powers, as we are still in a pandemic and our lowest wealth communities are in a serious state of emergency. Poor and working class people should not be penalized for failed public health crisis management from the top. I want to introduce a proposal to create a Developer Accountability and Oversight Committee led by neighborhood association leaders, housing organizers and activists to create standards by which developers are held accountable when investing in our city. I will push for community land trusts and protections for historically Black neighborhoods and districts. I will advocate for small area planning, recognizing that Durham residents are the best equipped to envision, honor, and improve their neighborhoods, in dialogue with their neighbors.

What unique skills or life perspective would you bring to city governance?

Most of my career experience has been in community organizing, social justice finance, and nonprofit management. For the past four years I’ve worked for Southern Vision Alliance, a nonprofit grassroots intermediary that supports youth leadership pipelines, BIPOC-led local community organizing, and fiscally sponsored projects. I am currently serving a second cycle as an appointed member of Durham’s Participatory Budgeting Steering Committee.

My local organizing experience includes policing abolition work with Durham Beyond Policing; Southerners on New Ground’s (SONG) Black Mama’s Bail Out campaign; We Are the Ones Fund, an intervention to end gun violence in Durham, aimed to fund community-authored solutions; and the Durham chapter of Black Youth Project 100’s (BYP100) She Safe We Safe Campaign.

I hold a Certified Nonprofit Accounting Professional designation with Fiscal Management Associates. I participated in the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business’ Philanthropy U, earning a Certificate in Social Sector Leadership & Global Entrepreneurship.

I serve as a member on the movement board of The Cypress Fund, a Black, femme-led philanthropic entity, funding projects through a lens of reparations.

This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 8:04 PM with the headline "AJ Williams, candidate for Durham City Council, Ward 3."