{"id":20261,"date":"2013-09-13T14:00:20","date_gmt":"2013-09-13T18:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=20261"},"modified":"2013-09-13T08:39:04","modified_gmt":"2013-09-13T12:39:04","slug":"mayor-nancy-mcfarlane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/voter-guide-2013\/2013\/09\/13\/mayor-nancy-mcfarlane\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor: Nancy McFarlane"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

 <\/p>\n

Nancy McFarlane<\/strong><\/center>
\n\"NancyMcFarlane\"<\/a>
\nDistrict: Mayor
\nAge: 57
\nOccupation: Pharmacist, owner of MedproRx
\nCity of Residence: Raleigh
\nIncumbent: Yes, 2 years, plus two terms on City Council
\nFacebook<\/a>
\nWebsite<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What do you see the role of the mayor as in Raleigh city government and how would you be the most effective mayor?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well the role of mayor in Raleigh city government is to really pull all those pieces together. I\u00a0think the mayor is the most recognizable person in city government. Our Council of 8, we all\u00a0vote. A lot of people don\u2019t understand that we have a council-manager form of government. It\u2019s\u00a0not like some states or cities where they have what\u2019s called a strong mayor where the mayor\u00a0really is like the manager. All the department heads report to the mayor. Here that\u2019s different.\u00a0We make policy as a Council and direct the manager to implement that policy. But I think the\u00a0mayor really does set the tone for the council, how we work, how we move forward. It\u2019s
\nimportant to have a recognizable but approachable face to the city. I think it\u2019s important for\u00a0citizens to know that their mayor is involved in a lot of issues and accessible to them.<\/p>\n

Many issues taken up by the state legislature have a direct impact on Raleigh. How can Councilors work better with the state legislature on those issues?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This year I was the chair of the metro mayors coalition, which is the 28 largest cities in the state. And we as a coalition really did try to look at the different bills, although some of them came very quickly and we almost didn\u2019t have time to react to a lot of them, but there really were that affected cities and we did repeatedly say we would love to have a seat at the table and work in partnership with you. You know what I would like to see, maybe in the future a stronger, a way\u00a0to unite the wake delegation and those municipalities in Wake. It\u2019s a big county, we have 12\u00a0municipalities and we have a pretty large delegation. I think more communication and more back and forth in the past operate on a municipal level and on a state level and on a county\u00a0level, there\u2019s so much advantage to working together on things.<\/p>\n

Raleigh continues to grow at a good pace, which affects everything from our water quantity to our infrastructure. How do you feel Raleigh can become more proactive about managing that projected growth?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Plan, plan, plan. We have to have a plan. I mean, look at where Raleigh is now. We didn\u2019t get\u00a0here by accident. We are continually ranked No. 1 because we continue to do a really good job\u00a0planning. We are going to see more unprecedented growth and I think one of our biggest issues\u00a0is going to be transportation. It\u2019s not just Raleigh, it\u2019s Raleigh and Wake County. It\u2019s also the\u00a0Triangle. Not everyone who lives in Raleigh works in Raleigh. A lot of people live in Raleigh and\u00a0work in the Park or might work at UNC-Chapel Hill. I think we really need to think and plan more\u00a0as a region going forward.<\/p>\n

What do you think are the best and worst decisions made by the Council these last two years?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well the past few years, clearly our worst one ever was the garbage disposal, but the good thing\u00a0about that was we learned a lot from it, we went back and changed our minds. I think that was\u00a0one of the first things I voted on when I first got on Council, but it really was a big lesson in\u00a0doing a lot of homework. I know I as a Councilor learned a lot from that. It\u2019s interesting because\u00a0sometimes, the good decisions are the big ones, the ones that really move us forward. I\u2019m\u00a0thrilled to see the growth of arts and culture of this city that\u2019s a huge economic driver, it\u2019s a big piece of who we are.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of the main reasons why people are moving here. I love the fact that I got the ordinance\u00a0passed that you couldn\u2019t chain your dog. I had to take my dog to the emergency vet and they\u00a0had a big sign about it and It was kind of like, \u201cI did that.\u201d It is a combination of those big\u00a0encompassing pieces, but also the decisions that might seem small but really impact\u00a0somebody\u2019s life. Fixing somebody\u2019s stormwater problem. I think one of the best things we did\u00a0was tighten up the restrictions on construction sites when it came to stormwater runoff. It wasn\u2019t\u00a0just the amount of water, but the quality of water. The silt that was coming off was really\u00a0impacting neighbors and neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

Raleigh voters will decide whether to approve bonds for a transportation plan. Do you support the bond? If so, what would be your priorities?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is really important. This is very confusing. We have a transportation bond this fall on the\u00a0ballot. That transportation bond, it\u2019s repairing roads, it\u2019s finishing roads, it\u2019s widening roads, it looks a lot at construction. It finishes some pieces that haven\u2019t quite been finished yet. That is very different than the transit referendum that is still waiting for the County Commissioners to OK. I think we\u2019re going to work very hard during this period to make people understand this\u00a0bond is really about roads and maintaining the infrastructure that we have and trying to help with\u00a0some of the congestion problems we have.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Nancy McFarlane District: Mayor Age: 57 Occupation: Pharmacist, owner of MedproRx City of Residence: Raleigh Incumbent: Yes, 2 years, plus two terms on City Council Facebook Website What do you see the role of the mayor as in Raleigh city government and how would you be the most effective mayor? Well the role of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24029,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1389],"tags":[1862,310,193,894],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20261"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24029"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}