Raleigh in partnership with ETC Institute is conducting a survey on city council make up. The City of Raleigh has grown significantly over the past 10 years. As a result, a group of citizens petitioned the Raleigh City Council to appoint a study group to consider modernizing how the City elects and compensates the Mayor and City Council. A 10-member study group was created to evaluate the following:
- Should Raleigh City Councilors serve two-year or four-year terms?
- Should Raleigh City Councilors serve staggered terms?
- Should Raleigh City Councilor compensation be adjusted?
- Are there ways to increase voter engagement and participation in local elections?
- Should the size of Raleigh City Council be increased?
The Study Groups came back after 15 meetings and more than 30 hours of discussion with the following recommendations:
- Transition from 2-year to 4-year terms;
- Adopt staggered terms whereby all District City Councilors are elected on one side of the cycle and the Mayor and all At-Large City Councilors are elected on the other side of the cycle;
- Increase total compensation for the Mayor and City Council;
- Direct staff to develop and implement a comprehensive voter engagement program; and,
- Increase City Council size to nine members by adding an additional district seat.
City Council responded to the study groups recommendation by directing staff to develop and implement a voter engagement program and adjusted the compensation the Mayor and City Council receive.
Now City Council is seeking feedback on the other recommendations. The ETC Institute is conducting a survey on behalf of City Council to find out the community’s desire to increase the number of City Council members. This can be accomplished by adding additional at-large member(s) or by adding district seat(s). The addition of new district seat(s) will require the districts to be redrawn, and the voting precinct of residents may change. The other topic under consideration is the length of City Council terms. The study group recommends that the terms be extended from 2 years to 4 years.
The Office of Community Engagement is waiting to receive 1000 responses from the 7000 homes that were selected via the random sample. The survey results will be presented to Council following their December break.