{"id":6600,"date":"2011-04-26T11:04:57","date_gmt":"2011-04-26T15:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=6600"},"modified":"2011-04-27T10:49:49","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T14:49:49","slug":"mayor-will-not-run-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2011\/04\/26\/mayor-will-not-run-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor will not run again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Longtime Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker will not run for re-election this fall. Meeker made the announcement at a Tuesday morning press conference, creating an open field for this fall\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

Meeker has served as Raleigh\u2019s mayor for a decade. He said he has no plans to run for another office, but instead will return to practicing law full time with Parker, Poe, Adams & Berstein.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/right><\/p>\n

Meeker said he didn\u2019t step down two years ago because of the state of the economy in 2008.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings are better this year, though not as good as we would like,\u201d Meeker said.<\/p>\n

Looking back at the past 10 years, Meeker said he is proud of the level of citizen involvement, the ever-expanding greenway and parks system, the city\u2019s sustainability initiatives, and the revitalization of downtown.<\/p>\n

Pointing at the successful downtown initiatives, Meeker said those were the most controversial, \u201cand this is what I will be known for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not in any way a goodbye,\u201d he told reporters and city employees and council members gathered in his city hall office Tuesday. He said he and his wife plan to stay in Raleigh and remain involved \u201cfor decades to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meeker will remain in office until the end of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI intend to be very active over those next seven months,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said there is still a budget to be approved. He said he plans to continue working to secure the Dorothea Dix property as a city park and continue the downtown initiatives that have marked his tenure as mayor.<\/p>\n

He said the biggest challenges for him during the last decade have not been political; it\u2019s been the weather. He pointed to the two severe droughts in recent years and the April 16 tornado.<\/p>\n

Meeker\u2019s advice for the next mayor: He said the position is a \u201cteam job\u201d and the mayor needs to \u201clisten to the people, not just the well-to-do people,\u201d and plan ahead.<\/p>\n

Raleigh voters can expect to start hearing announcements soon as potential mayoral contenders begin to test the waters before the Oct. 11 election.<\/p>\n

Candidate filing for the Raleigh City Council begins July 25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Longtime Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker will not run for re-election this fall. Meeker made the announcement at a Tuesday morning press conference, creating an open field for this fall\u2019s election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[189,100],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6600"}],"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\/24002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6600\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}