Joe Cuccurullo: 2025 Holly Springs Town Council Candidate

Episode Transcript
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Amanda Benbow Lunn (00:09):
Hello friends, welcome back to the NC
Deep Dive podcast.
I am your host, Amanda BenbowLunn, and today I am honored to
be speaking with Joe Cuccurulloas part of our 2025 Municipal
Election Candidate Conversations.
Joe is running for thefour-year seat on the Holly
Springs Town Council.
For this race, Joe will berunning against Kara Foster, Tim

(00:32):
Forrest, Annie Drees, JoshPrizer and Sarah Larson.
These races are nonpartisan, sothere will not be any party
affiliation, like an R or a Dnext to their name on your
ballot.
You will be eligible to votefor up to three of these
candidates for this seat on yourballot.
In this election, the top threevote getters will join Holly

(00:54):
Springs Town Council membersDanielle Hewetson and Chris
DeShazor to make up itsfive-member body.
In these candidateconversations, each candidate
will be asked the same questionsformulated by our constituent
survey, observing communitymembers in person and online,
and fine-tuning with AI to keepthem as fair, unbiased and

(01:16):
open-ended as possible.
Without further ado, my friends, let's dive in.
Well.
Thank you, Joe Cuccurullo, forhopping on the North Carolina
Deep Dive podcast If you want totake a few moments and tell us
about yourself, how long you'velived in the area and what's
inspired you to run for office.

Joe Cuccurullo (01:35):
Sure, well, first of all, thank you so much
for having me, Amanda.
I really appreciate theopportunity to sit down and
speak with you and give thevoters an understanding of who I
am and where I came from.
In regards to your question,I've been here for a little over
five years.
I moved down here in the middleof the pandemic, left New York
City during the heat ofeverything, moved here and
started my business, which wealready had going in New York,

(01:55):
but moved one of our locationsdown here to Holly Springs.
It took us about 10 monthsafter moving here to get rented
and open our doors and start toget to know members of the
community, the businesscommunity that is.
Within a few months of beinghere, I had really recognized
immediately the type ofcommunity that I moved to and
loved every moment of it.
I got to start to frequent someof the local restaurants around

(02:18):
my subdivision, got to know alot of people and it's amazing
that so much of the earlysuccesses that we had actually
came from those chance meetingsof sort of myself getting
involved in the community and soa lot of things really came
together for us when we movedhere.
The way that I got here was thatmy uncle, who lives in Holly
Springs, had been here forseveral years, and I called him
during the pandemic and said youknow what is it like where you

(02:40):
live?
I know a lot of people aremoving to North Carolina, and I
came down in June of 2020, tooka look at some neighborhoods and
some subdivisions, was just inawe at the beauty of the
subdivisions in the sense of howthey were laid out, how they
were built, the adjacency to theschools which I had a
three-turning four-year-old sonat the time and who was about to
be turning school age, and sothat was extremely attractive to

(03:01):
us.
Immediately, I noticed thecleanliness, I noticed it
smelled nice, I loved the treecanopy, the blue skies and,
obviously, the temperate climateWell, temperate most of the
year.
We all know what June throughAugust is like here the price
you pay, though, for those mildwinters.
But we immediately fell in lovewith the town and saw it in
June of 2020, purchased in Julyof 2020, moved between September

(03:22):
and December of 2020.
And then we had our businessopen within 10 months after that
, and then the rest was history.

Wow, I also hail from New York, but Western
New York, and so when we movedhere, it was amazing to see the
sunshine more than 11 days outof the year, yeah, so I noticed
that immediately when you livenear the water.

It's an amazing thing.
I lived around the water mostof my life being Staten Island,
and I lived in three of the fiveboroughs, so I lived in Staten
Island, brooklyn and Manhattanfor most of my time.
While I was in New York, I alsolived in DC, which was my first
sort of entrance below theMason-Dixon and into what people
refer to as the South, and Inoticed the difference in the
sky in DC and Arlington areaversus New York City.

(04:01):
And then when I came here I wasjust loved, loved that that
blew you every day and sort oflifted my mood and kind of
elevated everything, and so Iagree with you on that it was a
big difference from up north.

So what has inspired you to run for town
council?

So when I moved down here I didn't have any
intention of becoming political.
I wanted to rebuild my business.
That was my main focus.
We had suffered some serioussetbacks as a result of the
pandemic, with our businessbeing education-based.
When schools are shut and testsare postponed when I take tests
particularly, I'm talking likeSATs and ACTs, which are a big
part of a private tutoringbusiness the main focus was to

(04:38):
get back on track and figure outhow we were going to adapt
post-pandemic and then alsounderstand the school system
here.
I had zero intention of runningfor public office.
I had been involved politicallypreviously.
When I moved here, my main focuswas to rebuild the business,
understand the community and toprovide a service to the people
of this town that I knew theyneeded, which was a place for

(05:01):
students to be educated fromkindergarten all the way through
12th grade and then just theway the school schedule is down
here with year round, whichdoesn't really exist up north,
certainly doesn't exist in NewYork City.
We had this whole opportunityfor trackout camps, so that
became a focus of ours and so wereally invested very heavily in
the small business communityand getting to know the families
and the schools.
So there was no initialinterest in running for office,

(05:24):
but what happened was wasthrough learning about the
community and understanding thepeople that I met, all the
different families, all thedifferent business networks that
I was involved in, seeing allthe different stories of people
that were coming here forvarious reasons, and everyone
sort of shared this one thing,which was this love for the town
and this idea and sense ofcommunity, and it mattered to a

(05:44):
lot of people.
No matter where you came fromwhether you came from New
Hampshire, you came fromCalifornia, you came from
Western New York, you came fromLong Island, you came from New
York City it didn't matter whereyou came from.
People immediately recognizedcommunity, which is sort of what
I opened with when I talkedabout just going right to my
local spot and starting to get asense of community.
In fact, if you look at not themost recent issue of Suburban
but the one I believe it was thelast issue, I did an article in
Suburban Magazine and one ofthe things that I highlighted in

(06:06):
that article was the sense ofcommunity to me was apparent
immediately and the way in whichpeople got together every week
and hung out and I see it evennow just been in my neighborhood
and subdivision.
So other people that arelistening to this podcast who
live in Holly Springs will knowthat a beautiful fall night
generally doesn't mean where dowe get in the car and go to
Raleigh.
A beautiful fall night meanswho's in their driveway.
Did anybody break out a firepit?

(06:27):
I feel like I can smell it andwhat are we going to do and
where are the kids going to goand how are we all going to hang
out together?
And so I see that frequently.
So understanding that sense ofcommunity very quickly and then
noticing how many other peoplenotice that sense of community
made me feel that I was part ofsomething really special.
And then it turned into well,how do we protect this?
How do we keep this the waythat it is?
How do we make sure thatoutside forces of all different

(06:50):
types and interests whetherthere's a million that you could
list don't come in and sellthis for a bunch of really happy
, well-adjusted people who enjoybeing around each other and
enjoy the sense of community,enjoy raising their kids and
being with their families andgoing about their business and
traveling on the weekends, insome cases right, the beach is
two hours away, the mountains istwo hours away, and so I
started thinking, well, how canwe protect this?

(07:11):
And then one day I had a chancemeeting through some friends,
and I met Dan Berry, who was onthe town council.
He was a friend of mutualfriends of mine.
And so when I met him, I startedto ask him some questions about
the town.
My whole life I've been aroundpeople who are in politics and
government and I lived inWashington DC and I've lived in
New York City and whenever Imeet someone who's in politics,
I always tend to ask questionsin a very open way.

(07:32):
I say why is this like that?
Or.
I never try to ask leadingquestions.
I always try to ask actual,legitimate questions and learn
about why things are the waythey are.
And so I started to do that withdad and we had some great
conversations and I told him mystory about why I left New York
and how difficult it was in thepandemic when we were shut down,
and we were shut down for sixmonths, yet our bills persisted
and it put us in a real bind.

(07:52):
And we had that conversation andwe started to develop a
professional relationship wherewe would chat when we crossed
paths, when we would talk aboutthe town and when I started to
really look how the town wasdeveloping, when I drive around
the town I started to seedevelopment pop up here,
development pop up there, andthe one that really caught my
eye it was before it was built,but when it was approved was the
Main Street Vista projectbehind Mama Bird's at the corner

(08:16):
of Holly Springs Road and MainStreet.
I did a video about this on myFacebook but it was a 277-unit
building, mixed use withcommercial, on the bottom right
at the corner of Main and HollySprings Road, and I said, well,
that's really big and that'sright here and traffic is really
tough here.
It's tough at rush hour, it'stough at peak hours, and how
does this fit?
And why did this happen?

(08:36):
Who approved it and why.
And so when I say that, I meanthat not with any sort of anger
or frustration.
When, essentially, and Istarted to ask questions about
the project and started tounderstand it and Dan had said
to me he goes, you really areinterested in these things and
why they happen, he said youreally should think about
getting on planning board, he'slike, because planning board is
really where a lot of thesedecisions start before they get
to council.

(08:56):
And so over time I got onplanning board and then I got
into planning board and startedto really understand the
complexity of zoning anddevelopment and how much goes
into it and how much regularpeople who are not planners,
zoners or developers need tolearn in order to do that job
effectively.
And so for the last two years Ispent a lot of time learning,
asking questions, askingquestions of staff, asking
questions of developers, askingquestions of town council

(09:17):
members, and I've started tosort of formulate my own vision
for how I think the town needsto move forward.
And that vision is based notonly on my own experiences as a
planning board member and theconversations that I've had, but
also, I think, being in touchwith the residents through all
the various ways in which I meetwith people throughout this
community, primarily through mybusiness.
I see a lot of the generalpublic throughout my business,

(09:39):
but I'm also very active in thecommunity in other ways and I'm
the kind of person that loves tohave conversations about what's
going on in the town.
So if I'm sitting at baseballfor my son, I happen to be
talking to a parent and theymake a comment about the
baseball schedule and why we'reat this field one week and why
we're at this field another week, and I turn around and I say oh
well, good news is we have anew park opening up on the other

(09:59):
side of 55 and that Siegel'slanding and it's going to
alleviate a lot of the stressorsthat Parks and Rec is currently
facing.
And they sort of look at me andthey kind of tilt their head,
they start asking me questionsand I'm knowledgeable about it
because I've been involved in itfor the past couple of years,
and so I love talking about thetown and I love understanding
what's going on, and so for meit became the next logical best
step, which was to move into aposition that's a legislative

(10:19):
role, to have a little bit moreof an impact on sort of how we
move forward and the decisionsthat are made and how they are
made.

Okay, have you been an active voter,
including in the local elections?

Yes, I have.
I voted in all the electionssince I've been here.

What do you feel is the role of a town
council member?

It's a great question, and I think that
there's no one answer to that.
I think that there's manydifferent people in town council
, different personalities thatall serve differently and have
different visions and all servea purpose.
And so I think, if you look atthe town council, it's a five
member body.
I think the current makeup is avery good representation of our
town, and I believe that a towncouncil member should be

(10:59):
authentic.
I believe that they should bein touch with their community.
I believe that they should havea vision for where the town
needs to go.
Planning board's an advisorybody, so you can vote and you
can voice your opinion, but allit is is advice to the town
council, and they can choosewhether or not they want to
accept that advice or they wantto ignore that advice.
There have been many instancesthroughout my last two years

(11:19):
where we at planning board havemade votes as a body that have
been overruled or have gone theopposite direction when it's
gone to council.
So town council members need tohave a vision of where they
believe the town needs to go,because it takes many, many
years for the decisions thatthey make to be implemented and
realized, and so you must be along-term thinker, so I think
that's a really important aspectof town council.
And finally, I think for towncouncil you need to have the

(11:42):
ability to communicate well withthe people that you are
representing, and so if you takeall of those factors together,
I think they make a good councilmember.
I don't think that there's anyone way to be a good council
member.
I think that there's somepeople that are very analytical
and very finance focused andthey do a really good job of
understanding sort of the fiscalaspects of the job.
And then there's other peoplethat are really good

(12:03):
communicators and there's peoplethat have different strengths
and it's the collectiveness ofthose strengths together that
make a really well-functioningbody.
But if you have a councilmember that is essentially
understanding of the town,understanding of the needs and
wants of the residents,effectively able to communicate
and has a vision for the future,I think if you have all four of
those things together, thenyou're going to have a really

(12:24):
great council member.

Excellent.
What is your involvement withinthe community and town
government and whatqualifications make you prepared
for this role?

So within the community, obviously I'm a small
business owner.
I own Resource Room LearningCenter with my wife, sam, and
through that have been veryinvolved in several business
networks.
We are involved in the HollySprings Small Business Network,
hssbn the Holly Springs Chamberof Commerce.
We've been involved in thatsince 2021.
We are active in the communitythrough various donations and

(12:55):
supports.
Many PTAs reach out to us.
We wish we could support everysingle one.
We support as many as we canthroughout the year, so we have
a lot of inroads and connectionsto many different schools and
community functions through ourPTA support.
We're big supporters of theHolly Springs Food Cupboard.
A lot of that has come throughbeing members of the Chamber of
Commerce.
We've been involved with GreatGrains and Giving for several

(13:16):
years and we've been sponsors ofdifferent chamber events like
First Responders for many years.
Since that event started, thebusiness has created many
channels for us to be active inthe community and the small
business community.
As far as the personal sideoutside of the business, I'm a
youth sports coach for my son,which no one likes to put on
their resume, but it's honestlysomething I love doing because

(13:36):
it's time I get to spend with myson and as an educator who's
around children often, it'snatural for me, when there's a
group of children together, forme to sort of jump in and want
to, you know, help, provide somestructure and some order.
And I'm not the greatestathlete of all time, I can
assure you of that but I amreally good at working with kids
and so I've been an assistantcoach on several teams and very

(13:57):
good at cheerleading on the kidsand watching some of the
coaches who've been lifelongbasketball players or lifelong
baseball players, you know, dosome of the technical stuff.
What sports?
My son's in basketball andbaseball here and he plays those
through the town and has beenfor several seasons, and so we
really enjoy that.
So on a personal side, we'reconnected that way.
And as far as my history goes,as far as what qualifies me for

(14:17):
this position, I work inpolitics for a really long time.
As a young person I startedinterning with political figures
throughout New York City asearly as my freshman year of
high school, and that persistedfor the better part of a decade
through college and into myearly 20s.
Eventually I ended up as a paidprofessional campaign staffer.
After that I was in WashingtonDC for a while and I worked for
the federal government.

(14:38):
I got a master's in publicadministration.
I worked for the NationalInstitute of Health and it was a
wonderful job.
It gave me a lot of experience,learned a lot of acronyms, but
it really didn't have some ofthe vitality of the fast-paced
job that I was looking for.
That suits my personality and Ialways had this idea that I
would grow up to be a teacher.
But I always dismissed thatidea because I felt like I was

(14:58):
supposed to do maybe somethingmore than just being a teacher.
I was supposed to be a lawyeror a doctor.
This was told so much by somany people.
But I love teaching and I lovethe interpersonal aspect of it,
and so I became a teacher andthen from teacher I became a
small business owner within thatprofession.
So I've had a lot of differentpaths, but all have been sort of
public service oriented, frompolitics to government, to small

(15:18):
business owner, and sort ofcircled back to government as a
member of the planning board andsome of the other various
committees that the town hasthat I've been on.
So I've been on this trajectoryfor quite some time, sometimes
intentional, sometimes not.
But I think if you take all ofthose things together, I have a
career that has spanned 20 years, and it's almost exclusively
been in public service.

You mentioned some of the town's
committees and you had mentionedthe advisory board.
What other committees have youbeen on?

So planning board is my primary function and
through planning board there'sa planning board representative
that goes to differentcommittees.
I started on the tree advisorycommittee as a representative
from the planning board, learneda lot about Tree City USA
designation that we have, whichI really love.
I love the green, I love thebuffers that we put in place
around developments and I lovethat when you drive you see a
lot of green and contrast itwith that beautiful blue sky
that we talked about.
I think it adds to the PetresseDivision.
That was how we springed right.
The blue skies it was deepgreen, it was tall pines.

(16:11):
So I really liked the TreeAdvisory Committee.
It didn't meet often, it was aquarterly meeting but I did get
to really understand the treecity designation, keeping the
tree-lined streets.
The Tree Advisory Committeeworks with tree replacements
every year.
So if you have a tree that isdying or diseased, every year
the town will go through andwork with neighborhoods to try
to replace those.

(16:31):
Because that beautifultree-lined streets in Holly
Springs it's part of thecharacter and fabric of the
beauty of Holly Springs.
I think it makes people feelgood and I think it's obviously
good for our environment and soI loved being a part of that,
even though I think most peopledon't ask me about that, so I
appreciate the opportunity totalk about that for a few
minutes.
Currently, I sit on the LandUse Advisory Committee, which is
also known as LUAC, again as arepresentative from the planning

(16:53):
board, and that body is meantto work to help decide how
undeveloped land should be used,whether it should be rezoned
and what the future direction ofundeveloped plots should be.

How long have
you been on that committee?

Well, I was appointed to that committee in
February and that committeeactually has not met since I
have been appointed to it.
It usually does.
So for full transparency, thatcommittee usually meets
semi-frequently but has not metsince I have been appointed to
it.
One might say that's a signthat growth is not unchecked,
because that committee has nothad much business of late.

(17:29):
But that is something that I aminterested to understand why
that committee has not met.
But I am appointed to it andthat is a function.

Very good.
What's your long-term visionfor the future of Holly Springs?

I think there's a lot of things that we need to
look at.
I think some of those thingsrequire a lot of thought and
understanding of theinterconnectedness of the many
issues that we're facing, and sothis could be a particularly
long answer, but I'll try to domy best to at least give the
short version first, and if youwant to ask me some questions
and make me deep dive on some ofthese things, I'm happy to
expand.
But, in short, the town isdoing quite well.

(18:04):
So, if you look at the surveysthat residents provide, the last
one that I referenced recentlywas the 2023 survey, where 92%
of residents rated the town asgood or excellent overall, and
so residents are happy, and sothat's good, and so we have to
make sure that we maintain that,and we have to do that through
various means One, making surethat we maintain the level of
services that they've come toexpect.
Two, expanding services wherewe can and need to scale them up

(18:31):
.
For example, my neighborhood isone of the older neighborhoods
and we have a very large treecanopy and our backyards were
not clear cut when the houseswere built.
So I have several 90 foot pinesin my backyard and we produce an
extraordinary amount of leaveseach year, and when the town
switched over to the brown yardwaste bins, the fall is
extraordinarily difficult for us, and we still have the leaf

(18:51):
vacuums that come around in thefall, but they pile up real high
, and so a lot of residents inour neighborhood are concerned
about the fact that the leafvacuums don't come around as
often as they used to, andthat's a level of service that
they are used to having.
This is a relatively small issuein comparison to some of the
issues that we're going to face,but it's one that's very
tangible and easy for people tosee, because you can physically
see large leaf files when you'regoing down the street in the

(19:13):
fall, and so it's somethingthat's readily on people's minds
, and someone talked about thisat town council recently, and so
that's a service that has beenscaled back, that essentially
needs to probably be scaled up abit, and so, in regards to
looking at services not onlymaking sure that we maintain
them, but scale them where theyneed to scale we need to make
sure that, as a town, wepreserve the community sense
that we all enjoy and that comesfrom making sure that we don't

(19:35):
overdevelop and that we aremaking sure that we put in place
all of the infrastructure thatneeds to be put in place as the
town does grow, develop andchange, and that also means
making sure that we're preparedto start to repair some of that
infrastructure that was put inplace 30 years ago, that is
going to start to age and mightneed to be, at some point,

(19:56):
within the next decade or so,reinvested in.
And, finally, we need to makesure that we maintain that sense
of safety that has brought somany people here.
So I'm a big proponent ofmaking sure that we keep our
police and our fire well-funded,well-supported through
technology and investment,because, if you ask many people
why they move here, they havefamilies, they enjoy the safety,
they enjoy the security, theyenjoy that it's clean, that it

(20:18):
is a place that people can feelsecure and raise their families
without general threat or worry,and I think that's a really
important thing as well.
And so, when we look at it, inshort, we want to make sure that
we protect that charm, balance,that development and
infrastructure, and maintainthat sense of security and
safety through our police andour fire.

What are your top three priorities for
our community if elected?

So, as a function of town council, much
of what they do is zoning anddevelopment, so we want to make
sure that we deal with thezoning development issues
properly, and so that is a toppriority of mine, and it's one
of the reasons why I firmlybelieve that my planning board
experience is exceedinglyimportant in becoming a town
council member, because it takessome time to learn and

(21:01):
understand the complexity of howall of these projects come to
fruition, the different playerswithin these spaces and also the
needs that we have as a townthat development is trying to
meet, and so we have to makesure that we balance zoning and
development properly.
The number one thing thatresidents voice their opinions

(21:21):
on is traffic congestion, and Iwill say that I read a lot of
Facebook posts and I engage withmany residents, and there are
aspects of traffic andcongestion and zoning and
development that residents arespot on about.
And then there are some areasthat may be not as spot on about
, and so what we need to do iswe need to be able to
effectively communicate topeople what it is that we are

(21:44):
trying to do in our long-termvision, and we need to be as
transparent as we can about thezoning and development needs of
the town as it moves forward,and we need to make sure that
people understand why some ofthe decisions that are being
made are being made, and so weneed to do our best to try to
communicate that as we gothrough and make those decisions
.
So top priority is definitelygoing to be balancing
development and I've used thisterm a lot in my campaign

(22:05):
balance because, at the end ofthe day, the demand that there
is to be in this county, in thiscommunity, is extraordinarily
high.
You're going to hear thisnumber a lot throughout the
campaign season 66 people perday net migration into the
county.
So that means after deaths,after people moving out, there's
still 66 people a day netpopulation increase.

I feel like the networking meetings that I
was in 10-ish years ago.
It was between like 61 to 66people per day, and so it's been
consistent for a very long time.

Yes, it is, it's consistent, there's no two ways
about it.
And so when you have that highlevel of demand of people
wanting to be here, you have tofind ways to balance that demand
with the community's needs.
And so that is why a theme ofthis campaign has been about
balance, because the truth is,you cannot simply stop
development.
You cannot, you cannot from alegal standpoint.
Carrie did this, by the way, adecade ago they tried to

(22:59):
essentially what was amoratorium on development?
That development just pushedout to Apex and Holly Springs.
And not only that.
Not only is it proven to not besuccessful, complete moratorium
, but it's also something that,from a legal standpoint, is
going to raise a lot ofchallenges, because development
is a function of themulti-layered governmental
system that we have.
So we have municipal government, which is what Holly Springs

(23:20):
Town Council is, and you havethe county government, then you
have the state government andthen you have the federal
government.
So from a county and stateperspective, we do not have full
and complete control overdevelopment.
So there's some layers ofcomplexity there that I think
some people don't necessarilyunderstand if they don't dig
deep into it.
So we have to make sure that webalance development properly to
manage this demand.
That's happening.
Well.
Why is this demand happening?
Well, it's happening for a lotof reasons, and I think about it

(23:42):
often.
One you have people moving fromother states that are high tax
or maybe have become undesirableto them for some reason,
whether it be potentiallyclimate we have a very nice
climate here.
We don't get a lot of snow,right, it's wonderful not to
have to shovel all winter.
That's important for a lot ofpeople.
You have high taxes in otherstates that, in comparison even
though the county has raised ourtaxes quite significantly and

(24:04):
that's a topic we can touch onlater if we need to are still
comparatively lower to otherareas.
You have really amazing collegesand universities in this area,
and so that's very attractivefor people with families and
kids who are going to be goingto college and maybe want really
amazing university options atlow in-state tuition rates.
Not only do those universitiesbring education, but those
universities bring jobs.

(24:24):
You have a low corporate taxrate in North Carolina, which
was intentionally done toattract businesses and so your
large corporations.
Look at the research triangle,look at RTP, right, why did that
develop the way it did?
Well, we had favorablecorporate tax rates, and so that
continues, and so companiescome, and when companies come,
they bring workers, and whenworkers come, they need houses,
and so you have a number offactors that are pulling people

(24:47):
to this area, have for some timeand continue to do so today,
and so that is why it isimportant that we understand as
a community that the pathforward for development is
balance, and we can dig intosome more specifics of ideas on
that, but you asked me my topthree priorities, so balance on
development, number two.
I would like to see us continueto have a strong, thriving

(25:08):
community a well-centeredcommunity, and one of the ways
that I would like to do that isby closing a gap that I believe
exists, which is teenentertainment.
I thought about this recentlywhen I was leaving an ice cream
shop and I saw a bunch of highschool kids hanging out and just
sitting outside and justtalking.
They don't have many places togo to socialize in town, and so

(25:28):
I would like to see that gap getfilled, and that can get filled
, by the way, through zoning anddevelopment, so that's
something that I would like tosee accomplished.
Now that we have the new parkopening, we have kind of filled
that hole, and so I think thenext hole really now is teen
entertainment and also justlarge-scale community events
that I'd like to see be expanded.
The two large-scale communityevents that we have every year

(25:49):
that most people are aware ofare Winterfest and Springsfest.
Winterfest used to be the treetrail that was run by the town
and now the Chamber of Commerceruns it, and it's essentially
the same thing where people goand take a look at the different
trees that are decorated bybusinesses this has been
expanded to have vendors andsuch trees that are decorated by
businesses.
This has been expanded to havevendors and such, and I can tell
you for someone who's a sponsorof both of these events for my
business, springs Fest is by farthe largest of the events and

(26:11):
the number of people that we seecome through and those large
scale community events peoplereally like.
It's a sense of community.
It brings people together inthe same place doing the same
thing and it creates a sense ofunity and community and I want
to see more of that.
I went to the Everclear concertat Ting Park when they came
through.
Yeah, it was great.
So sold out 2,600 people, whichwas sold out and I thought that

(26:32):
was absolutely amazing becauseyou saw how many people just
love having this venue used inthat way.
It was great the way they setit up.
They had the stage on the fieldand they had a whole bunch of
people that could kind of hangout on the field as seating and
then you had the regular stadiumseats being used.

(26:52):
So I would love to see Ting beutilized for more entertainment
and so that's something that Iwould like to be involved in.
From a mid-tier priority, thirdlevel priority that I have.
That is something that's reallyimportant to me is I'm set on
wanting Holly Springs to be amulti-generational town, and
with being a multi-generationaltown, that means that we're
going to have more seniors thanwe did previously, and so I
would like to see more seniorservices and I'd like to see

(27:13):
things that are more gearedtowards our seniors, and I think
this is true for people whohave been longtime residents,
people who are going to age hereas residents, and then also for
the parents that are comingdown to follow their children
that are moving here and theirgrandchildren that are moving
here.
And so that's a third levelpriority that I have as well,
and maybe looking at whether itbe funding for more senior
centers or looking attransportation.

(27:34):
We do have the microtransitstarting.
I would love to make sure thatwe have paratransit, so if
you're someone who's in awheelchair or has limited
mobility particularly wheelchair, because wheelchair you really
need a specific lift and avehicle to be able to do that.
Anyone who's from New York willremember the white and blue
accessorized vans, and so Ithink that's something that is
important for us to make surethat we have as a town and

(27:55):
making sure that we have carefor our seniors as they age, and
so that would be my third levelpriority Perfect.

What is working well in the town today
and where do you see room forimprovement?

What's working well in the town has been the
fiscal side of things.
I can tell you that from theconversations I've engaged on
Facebook, there are many peoplethat think that the large
biopharma life sciences hub thatwe've built has not been a
positive to the community and Ihear those concerns.
But they, at the end of the day, pay large amounts of property
taxes and even with incentivesthat were given as part of the

(28:26):
EDAs our Economic DevelopmentAgreements the amount of money
that comes in from thoseproperty taxes to the town is
significant and that hasprovided a stable revenue stream
that has allowed the town tokeep their municipal taxes low.
So when we pay our taxes everyyear, a large portion of our
property taxes go to the county.
About 60-something cents perdollar goes to the county and

(28:48):
30-something cents of the dollargo to the county.
About 60 something cents perdollar goes to the county and 30
something cents of the dollargoes to the municipality.
And the county taxes haveincreased significantly but the
municipal taxes have stayed low.
We did have an increase twoyears ago but that was the first
increase in a while and theprojection is that those taxes
will remain stable and low andwe are the second lowest in the

(29:08):
county right now and we willsoon be the first in the county
as far as lowest municipal taxes.
So that's working well.
We need to make sure that wekeep municipal taxes low, and
one of the reasons for that isand I want to explain this
because I don't know if we'regoing to circle back Sure when
we talk about property taxes andwhy it's important to keep them
low.
It's not just for the residentsthat is extremely important,

(29:28):
especially our seniors who areon fixed incomes.
It's very important that wehave stable taxes for them and
other people as well, who mayhave limited means to adapt to
significant property taxincreases.
But more importantly than that,something that I think a lot of
people don't understand whenproperty taxes go up county,
municipal, both one doesn'tmatter those increases run

(29:49):
through every single businessthat you frequent, because every
business who rents theirbuildings even if you don't own
the building, you're just arenter portion of every
business's lease is called theTICAM your rent, your base rent
plus your TICAM taxes, insurance, common area maintenance.
So when your property taxes goup for the business that you're
renting, that goes right intoyour leases, that goes right

(30:11):
into your monthly rent payment.
And so if you have theseconsistent property tax
increases, not only does itaffect the residents directly in
their homes, but it alsoaffects every single business
that you frequent.
So what happens when businessesget increases in their costs?
Well, they have to offset thosecosts.
Maybe they can absorb them forsome period of time.
You're going to hear everybusiness that said this with
inflation over the last fiveyears that they've done their

(30:31):
best to absorb costs, butthey've just got to a point
where they simply can't absorbthose costs anymore and they
have to pass it on to theconsumers.
And so that's why I think it'sextremely important that our
property taxes stay low and thatthey don't get out of control,
and so that's why I think thefiscal responsibility aspect of
the town has done well.
Areas of improvement Idefinitely think can happen in
the zoning and development realm.

(30:52):
We have to look at the processof zoning and development.
I hear a lot of concerns fromsmall and medium-sized
developers who feel that they'recompletely priced out of the
process, and anytime you haveany group of people that feel
that they are priced out, thatlowers competition, and lowering
competition is never good.
So small and medium-sizeddevelopers have some legitimate
concerns, and it's somethingthat I would like to look into

(31:14):
and address.
How we do our zoning and how wedo our development is a really
complicated process, butessentially, most of the land
needs to be rezoned before itcan be developed, and so I think
there are probably some ways,if we look at our comprehensive
plan and our UDO, that we canstreamline some of the processes
to make it a little bit moremanageable for small and

(31:34):
medium-sized developers.
Now that doesn't mean that wemove into unchecked, unregulated
development, and that means I'mpromoting unchecked,
unregulated development.
So I want to make sure thatpeople who are listening don't
think that's what I'm saying.
What I am saying is that zoningand development is going to
continue.
We already talked about thiswith the net migrations.
It's not something that caneasily be stopped, but it can be
managed and it can be balanced,and one of the things that we

(31:54):
can do is make sure that we arehaving a level playing field for
people who want to do things inthis town.
So when people call foraffordable housing, when they
call for workforce housing inorder for us to do some things,
where we're going to look at howwe can provide more housing
options or even more commercialoptions.
If you're a business owner inthis town, you know rents are
high.
Well, why are rents high?
Rents are high because there'snot a lot of commercial space

(32:17):
and, by the way, when commercialspace does become available, it
gets rented very quickly.
Why there's high demand?
There's high income here.
So if you're a corporation, alarge corporation, forget mom
and pops.
If you're a corporation, alarge corporation, forget mom
and pops.
If you're a chain, nationalchain corporation, this is an
area you want to be in becausethere's a high average median
income, and so you're not onlyhaving small businesses, mom and
pops, that are wanting to rentspaces here.

(32:38):
You also have a lot of largenational corporations that want
to rent here.
So we need to make sure that weare providing the appropriate
commercial spaces, theappropriate housing options, and
looking at how we're doingzoning and development is really
important.
The downtown development plan,the comprehensive plan those are
things that I would like tolook at and think that need some
revamping.
They need to be done, probablya little bit more often than

(32:59):
they've been done, but I thinkwe're certainly due for that now
and it's something that Iintend to call for if I'm
elected.

All right.
Do you support the current townbudget?
Where would you advocatechanges, including any
adjustments to taxes or spendingpriorities, if needed for
fiscal responsibility?

Yeah, so our current budget right now is
about $117 million per year.
What we cannot do is we cannotgo into deficit spending.
We don't have the ability bylaw to do that.
So if a municipality wants todo a big project, they must take
out a bond, which is why we hadthe parks bond a few years ago,
while we had the transportationbond a few years before that.
So, when it comes to the townbudget, I've watched all the

(33:35):
budget meetings that towncouncil has that are open
meetings, they watch online, andthere's been a lot of really
great discussions amongstcouncil members of how we can
manage this.
When you look at the budgetright now, we have prioritized
public safety.
We have prioritized police andfire.
I think that was really welldone and that was a conversation
in the 2024 budget workshop,and support for public safety

(33:56):
prevailed and that was reallyimportant.
When it comes to cutting, that'salways a difficult thing to do,
right, because once a towndepartment has a certain
operating budget, it becomesvery difficult to pull it back.
It's especially difficult topull it back once you're growing
, and I think most or all thetown council members are aware
of that.
They looked at areas that theycould potentially cut and there
was not much alignment on areasthat could be cut.

(34:18):
So I'm inclined to believe thatthere is not a lot of waste or
abuse that needs to be pulledout of our budget.
So that is a good thing andthat's something that I have not
seen town council members callfor.
If I'm elected and I get in andI see some things that I think
could be kind of trimmed orstreamlined from a private
sector eyes looking at a publicsector budget, it's certainly
something that I'm willing tokeep my eyes open for.

(34:38):
When it comes to expanding thebudget, that's going to happen
naturally with the money that'scoming in from the life sciences
.
So we are going to see morerevenue that is going to come in
over the next several yearsfrom those life sciences
agreements and we have to figureout how we're going to
prioritize those monies.
You're going to see somemembers that are going to call
for use of those funds forgreater infrastructure and road

(35:00):
improvements.
That would not be my number onechoice for the money, because
if you look at how expensive itis to build roads and if you
look at the fact that if youhave to move a utility line, go
ahead and add another zerobecause it's going to be even
more expensive.
And so, when it comes toinvestments in infrastructure,
there are ways that we can do itby not necessarily just

(35:20):
building or expanding roads.
That has to be done withpartnership from NCDOT and
continuing to use grants and thelike to do that, which,
unfortunately, is a slowerprocess.
So, if you are going to takedirect taxpayer money from town
budget to build roads, you aregoing to have a more immediate
impact, but you are going toexhaust that budget very quickly
and you're probably going toonly have minimal impact.

(35:41):
Now, if you want to focus onparticular infrastructure
projects that are smaller scaleand specific like, for example,
fixing an intersection orrevamping an intersection that
is something that potentiallycould be done using taxpayer
funds from the municipality,from our town budget.
It's specific, it's isolatedand it's potentially manageable
from a budgetary perspective.
If you want to talk abouttaking a road that's two lanes

(36:03):
and making it four for severalmiles, that is not going to be
something that's going to happenwithin our current municipal
budget, unless we were to takeout an additional transportation
bond.
Where I would like to see someof the money spent is on scaling
services that our residents areaccustomed to and are starting
to feel stretched or pinched in.
So, for example, parks and Recis something that is very
important to many families inthis community and they want to

(36:25):
make sure that they havecontinued to have access to
their youth sports and all theservices provided by Parks and
Rec.
That's a great area to use ourmoney as it comes in from the
life sciences.
I'm an advocate, along withcouncil member Tim Forrest, for
putting a crossing guard programin place in some of our high
traffic, high density areas thatneed to be monitored when kids

(36:45):
are walking to school, and sothat's a really good project
that we could do.
That would be reasonable from abudgetary perspective to do and
would have a tangible impactthat people could see, feel and
touch.
I don't expect to see massiveinjections of town funds, absent
DOT or absent state grants forinfrastructure improvement the
infrastructure improvement whichis on everyone's mind,

(37:07):
particularly road expansion.
So when I say infrastructureimprovement, which is on
everyone's mind, forparticularly road expansion, so
when I say infrastructure,infrastructure is a large bucket
.
It's sewers, it's stormwater,it's many different things.
A lot of the infrastructureimprovements that we have are
developer funded.
I can tell you that manydevelopers complain about how
developer funded they are.
I hear it all the times inmeetings.
So developers complain oftenabout how expensive it is to
build in Halley Springs, and oneof the reasons is is because a

(37:28):
lot of our infrastructure sewers, stormwater, expansions, et
cetera, side paths, greenwaysare done through developer
investment, and so, when itcomes to how we use our money
the things that I mentioned I'dlike to see a crossing guard
program.
I'd like to see scaling ofservices that are meaningful to
people.
I'd like to see that our taxesstay low.
What I would also want to be anadvocate for is not necessarily

(37:49):
spending all of the money thatcomes in and not overextending
us from a liability perspectiveand saddling ourselves into a
very difficult position in thefuture if we have economic
slowdowns and now we have allthese liabilities and we don't
have the money coming in and oh,by the way, we don't have the
ability to borrow money.
We can't deficit spend unless wetake out a bond and we have to

(38:09):
send that to the voters to dothat.
So fiscal discipline, fiscalresponsibility, scaling up
services, making sure that ourresidents have what they need,
doing targeted infrastructureimprovements within a reasonable
budgetary perspective, ofthings that are of immediate
need, but making sure that wedon't overextend ourselves for
the future and wind up goingfrom what is currently a good
fiscal position to potentially abad fiscal situation if we

(38:32):
overextend ourselves from aliability perspective.

Oftentimes it feels like government waits
until a specific need iscritical before taking action.
Do you support being moreproactive?
How and in what wayspecifically?
If so, so.

I think that government moves extraordinarily
slow way, specifically, if so.
So I think that governmentmoves extraordinarily slow, and
so if you talk to anyone whogets into government from the
private sector, they areactually surprised at how slow
things move.
So I think there are some timeswhere governments, bureaucrats,
politicians look at and havechallenging problems that they
don't address as quickly andimmediately as they should.
I also think there are timeswhen the perception is such, but

(39:06):
the reality is that governmenthas moved exceedingly slow and
has not kept up with what itneeds to.
In our area, the one thing thatmost residents claim about
moving slow is infrastructuredevelopment and road
improvements, and so that ispartially correct.
Ncdot came to town council.
It was early in the summer, Ibelieve, this year, and NCDOT

(39:28):
came and every single towncouncil member, to their credit,
was like so when are these roadimprovements coming?
And they're like oh, 23rd 2032is our timeline.
And then town council pressedthem.
All the members did, ncdot went.
Yeah, we hear you, that's thetimeline.
Thanks so much for asking.
And so that's essentially how itwent, and so I think in some
levels there is potentially someareas that could be addressed

(39:50):
more quickly, and I think thatsometimes there is just the
level of coordination that isnecessary with all the different
government agencies andentities is extraordinarily
complicated and takes a reallylong time, and so from a
resident's perspective it'staking extraordinarily long time
.
But then when you talk tostakeholders and power brokers
at the state level or countylevel, it's moving relatively

(40:10):
quickly based on how thegovernment moves, and so it's a
little bit about perspective onthat.
The one thing that I would notwant us to is to be deaf to the
residents and not understand andhear their concerns.
And so, if we know thatinfrastructure improvements,
particularly road improvements,which we're very dependent on
NCDOT for because they own andcontrol vast majority of the

(40:31):
roads, 90% of the roads we needto make sure that we are
balancing our development in away where we are not
overdeveloping too quickly.
Many people are going to listento this podcast and say we're
already doing that.
I can hear their criticismscoming through, and this hasn't
even aired yet.
I can assure you we are notOnly 20% of projects get through

(40:52):
development, but what we can dois make sure that we are
looking at development from aperspective of what is it that
we need, where is it that weneed it and what gaps do we have
that we must fill.
And so that is the first thingthat I would like to do if I was
elected is really taking a lookat where there are holes in our
services that need to be filledfrom private sector sort of

(41:15):
development.
Housing is obviously a hugeissue.
There is an unbelievable demandfor housing, but people have to
understand that.
I often have conversationssometimes where people are
telling me that housing is anunbelievable need.
We need to have more housing,and they're also sometimes the
same people that are complainingto me about traffic and losing
the community charm, and wedon't have as many trees as we

(41:35):
used to have, and that's verybothersome to them, and so
sometimes those two thingsaren't compatible, and so we
have to really take a look atwhat it is that we need and what
is the best way forward tobalance all of the different
interests that are out there.
Maintaining community charm,managing our density, so that we
don't have these megadevelopments that people look
and say that just doesn't fitthe character and charm of our
area.
I don't love the Main StreetVista project.

(41:57):
I said that earlier.
It was my impetus for gettingon the planning board.
It was right.
In our downtown area, if you diginto what the downtown
development plan is, it callsfor density in that area.
The downtown development planthat is currently in existence
calls for density in that area.
You also have two five-storyapartment buildings that have
been approved adjacent to TingPark, that have just been

(42:17):
recently approved but have notyet broken ground, that are
going to have mixed use.
It's going to have a rooftopbar.
You're going to have a lot moreapartments in the area, but I
think there's going to be a lotof people that are going to say,
well, this is ridiculous.
Well, guess what it's?
The downtown development plancalls for density, and so that's
something that's already inplace.
So we have to look at where itis that we want to have density,
where it is that we don't wantto have density, and how we're

(42:38):
going to preserve the thingsthat we want to preserve, and so
it's going to take, like what Isaid before, a really good look
into the comprehensive plan,the downtown development plan.
I didn't love the Main StreetVista project, but the Main
Street Vista project is therebecause that has been identified
as an area where density shouldbe, and so we have to take a
look at what it is that we wantto do from an economic

(42:58):
development standpoint, and weneed to take a look and see
where these high densitydevelopments can go in the
future and maybe where it's justnot a great idea to put them
From a downtown developmentperspective.
I think we have to look at thedowntown development plan
because we now have the density,but I'm not entirely sure where
else we're going to putcommercial.
If you look at Main Street, youhave all the business condos

(43:20):
which are not going anywhere.
They are privately owned bymany businesses.
I was at a ribbon cutting justthe other day of someone who
purchased one of those condosand did an unbelievably
beautiful investment inredevelopment of the interior of
one.
Those aren't going anywhere.
You have the church and youhave the cemetery.
That doesn't seem like that'sgoing anywhere anytime soon.
Nor am I suggesting that itshould, but you look at the one
side of Main Street and there'snot really much room to develop,

(43:42):
with the exception of where thecar wash was.
That can be something, but thatone side of Main Street doesn't
really look like the other sideof Main Street.
But now we have a lot ofapproved density there, which
was meant to support thatdowntown area.
So what exactly is the downtownplan?
What are we going to put there?
There's talks about a festivalstreet.
There is some undeveloped landover there Not much, but there
is some.
So what exactly are we going todo now?

(44:03):
And so I think that's reallyimportant to take a look at.

What new initiatives or attractions would
you champion to boost revenueand community pride?

Well, I mentioned this before, I'm
definitely interested in lookingat teen entertainment, and so I
do envision an entertainmentcomplex that would have broad
appeal, not just to teens but tofamilies.
Something like trampoline-typeparks right, that people
frequent Urban Air is one ofthem.
Like with those companies Defyright that we have.
Urban Air is one of them.
Like with those companies Defyright that we have, but they're

(44:32):
not in Holly Springs.
Something like that, I think,is really good for young people
to get their energy out and havea safe place to go.
I would love to see somethinglike McWally's that has
developed in Fuquay bowlingarcade right, we don't have
anything like that.
We could use something likethat.
Right, we need some sort ofteen family entertainment
complex that would allowfamilies and teens to have a
space to really play, eat shopand have a good time.
So that's something that Ireally envision, that I think is

(44:54):
necessary and would be verygood for the town, you know,
from a financial perspective,with the commerce that would
come with that.
Okay.

You've already mentioned this a little
bit, but have you ever disagreedpublicly with a current town
decision or policy?
What was it and how would youhandle a?

similar situation in office.
I didn't love Main Street Vista.
Still don't love it.
I'm going to try to bereasonable and sit back and
determine how that project playsout from a traffic and
development perspective for thedowntown.
I've already mentioned thatthere have been issues that I've
seen where I have voted onthings in planning board that
when the project made it tocouncil I felt like I found out
information that I didn'tnecessarily have and might have

(45:32):
changed my vote if I did have it.
Could that be from staff Insome cases?
Could it be from residents?
Also, in some cases I've seenresidents go and do public
comment at town council onspecific projects and not come
to planning board.
And had they come to planningboard and made some of those
comments or pointed out some ofthe problems, it might have
swayed my vote and changed it,particularly the Reagan vote

(45:53):
that just took place recently.
That's a large development inthe ETJ area that was going to
be kind of duplexes, quadplexesand it was going to develop over
by the late.
That was a project that Iinitially voted for in Planning
Board and again, remember,planning board's an advisory
body.
So I want everyone to know thatand I think it's again it's
important that you have thatexperience, because that's a

(46:13):
vote I wish I could take backand that's a vote that I think
if I could do it again, I woulddo it differently.
And I'm glad that I was in anadvisory role there, right,
Because I think when you'regoing were some residents that
came and voiced some concernsand some issues that I was not
aware of.
They did not come to planningboard and could you say that
maybe there was something that Imissed in the staff packet or

(46:34):
wasn't included in the staffpacket potentially.
But I will tell you that fromthat situation I learned there
are certain questions in thefuture that I need to ask that I
was not asking previously, andso I think it's good that when
you're in an advisory role, youlearn this process and you
figure out some of the thingsthat you need to ask and think
about so that when you are inthat decider role, that
legislative role, you're moreprepared to do so.

(46:56):
And I feel that now I have mysea legs under me in that sense
and it really makes me ready tobe in this position.
But that is another one that Idid not necessarily agree with.
It was rezoned by town counciland I think that maybe, looking
at it, I might have looked at itdifferently.
On planning board now.

Sure when you hear smart growth.
What does that mean for ourtown in practical terms?

I think it means managing the density.
So, if you ask me to make thisvery simple for people, it means
managing density.
So if we just build apartments,we're going to have a lot of
density, which is going to bringa lot of cars and a lot of
bodies, and a lot of bodies alsorequires a lot of services.
So your police services, yourfire services, your trash
services residents require amuch higher level of service

(47:38):
than commercial does.
Okay, so from that aspect, ifwe're looking at one thing that
we could really identify from asmart growth perspective, it's
managing density.
Well, how do you manage density?
Well, it could be making surethat you're building single
family homes instead of justbuilding duplexes and quadplexes
and apartments.
It could be managing the amountof commercial that you bring in
and using the commercial baseas a balance to some of the

(48:00):
residential base.
But that, specifically, is whatsmart growth means to me.
It means managing the densityappropriately, because if your
density gets too high and itgets too high on the residential
side, not only are you going tofeel that impact from a traffic
perspective and from acongestion perspective, you're
also going to feel it from thefinancial perspective and the
services perspective that itrequires to manage that, and so

(48:23):
I do not want to expense ourcurrent residents for future
residents.
I want to make sure that wetake care of our current
residents first and that ourfuture residents walk into a
situation that's ready for them.

How would you ensure new development
maintains our town's characterwhile remaining affordable for
residents?

So it's not affordable currently if you ask
a lot of people.
And one of the reasons it's notaffordable right now has
everything to do with the factthat land is becoming scarce.
I did a video about thisrecently.
The more scarce the landbecomes, the more expensive the
land becomes.
Not only that, but a lot of theland that's left is what many
developers would consider to beless desirable than land that
once was available.

(49:01):
So now maybe you havetopography that's more
challenging and that's why thoseplots are left.
You've got a stream runningthrough it, you've got a lot of
hills, you've got a lot ofelevation issues.
The land that was flat and hadno stream and no pond, that's
gone.
That's been developed.
That's a target right now.
That's a pizza shop, now that'san ice cream store.
Now, insert whatever you wantto insert now.

(49:22):
So now the land that's left isnot only scarce, so it's more
expensive.
It's also more expensive todevelop because it potentially
is topographically undesirable.
Oh, and then we're expensive tobuild here.
Holly Springs is expensiveplace to build.
Well, why is it expensive tobuild?
Well, you could argue thatHolly Springs shouldn't be so
expensive to build it, but againthis goes back to my term of
balance.
If we're not expensive, thatmeans we're not requiring

(49:43):
developer-led infrastructure.
So the money that comes inpeople would say it's expensive
to build here and I'm making airquotes for our listeners is
that developers have to paytheir fair share, so they have
to invest in our infrastructure.
That means greenways, that meansside paths, that means
infrastructure improvements atroad widenings along the
frontage, making sure that ourbuffers are maintained.
Buffers are the 10 or 20 footareas of trees that separate a

(50:08):
development from the road orseparate a development from the
adjacent development.
So those have to be either keptintact or, if they're not able
to be kept intact during theinitial clearing, then they have
to be replanted.
And so when you look at howexpensive it is to build here is
because we are keeping thecharacter through having high
development standards.
And so when you look ataffordable, it's currently not

(50:29):
affordable for the masses.
It is becoming more and moreexpensive and that is partially
because of policy, partiallybecause of scarcity, partially
because of the complexity of theland in Holly Springs proper.
That's left.
Now when you start talking aboutthe ETJ, there's a whole host
of other issues that exist there.
You don't have any of theutility infrastructure in ETJ
that would be necessary for itto be on sewer, and so that if

(50:53):
you're looking at ETJ and you'relooking at developing an ETJ,
well, maybe the land might be alittle less expensive because
there's more of it.
Right, it hasn't been as fullydeveloped, but it is going to be
challenging to extend all ofthose utilities out to those
areas, and so that would be putinto the development costs as
well.
So when you look at howdevelopment is likely to proceed

(51:14):
, if there's not good mitigationby town council, it's going to
be expensive, because it's goingto be expensive for the
developers to develop, and soit's currently not very
affordable.
And I know affordable housing isa big topic.
But the only way thataffordable housing or workforce
housing because those things areseparate but similar in their
approach is going to be throughsome sort of subsidization.

(51:35):
You have to either subsidizeusing taxpayer money or you need
to bring in outside money,which can come from various
different sources.
It could come from grants, itcould come from nonprofits,
public-private partnerships andcome from a lot of different
ways, but it's currently notwhat many people would consider
to be affordable, based on anumber of different metrics.
It is becoming more and moreexpensive, and everyone who's
listening to this knows this,because if you move to here

(51:56):
within the last five years, yourhouse value has doubled.
I bought in 2020, I bought inthe threes.
My house is in the sixes now,and I think that's the case for
a lot of people.
Take whatever number theystarted at and probably you're
up 80, 90, 100 percent, and soyou feel it.
You don't just see it.

Our town is growing rapidly, putting
pressure on infrastructure likewater and roads, public safety,
parks and recreation and housingaffordability.
If you had to prioritize onlyone of these areas this year,
due to limited funding, whichwould you choose and how would
you communicate that decision toresidents?

All right.
So I'm going to put publicsafety.
I'm going to put public safetynumber one.
And I'm going to put publicsafety number one not just for a
talking point, but I'm going toexplain why.
One of the reasons why thistown is so desirable and the
value of the land has increasedso much and the value of
people's houses has increased somuch is because people want to
live here.
It is typical supply and demand.

(52:47):
And one of the reasons whypeople want to live here is
because public safety is strong.
When you walk down the streetyou're not harassed.
That's wonderful.
When you walk into a Walgreens,you can pull something off the
shelf without having to asksomeone to unlock it.
That is a wonderful thing.
That is a quality of life issue.
So when you ask people why theymove here and why businesses
come here, it's because it'ssafe.
And when it's safe it's alsoeconomically thriving.

(53:09):
So those things are allinterconnected.
So number one has to be publicsafety.
I give great credit toCouncilwoman Danielle Ewartson
who, during a budget meeting,said I don't care how many roads
we have if I'm not safe onthose roads.
And so public safety is numberone.
I want to give credit toCouncilwoman Ewartson for that
quote.
So public safety number one.

(53:32):
Number two is water, butprobably should be co-number one
, because without good, soundwater infrastructure we are not
going to have a town right.
Everyone knows water is thelifeline for every single one of
us.
So, building out and developingand ensuring that water
infrastructure remains paramount.
The good news is the towncouncil has been exceedingly
effective in doing that, intheir partnerships with
surrounding municipalities andsourcing our water from many
different places and making surethat we have a good roadmap and

(53:54):
a very robust water managementpolicy.
There are many people that haveconcerns and criticisms of the
town when it comes to water, butI can assure you they have a
very robust water managementpolicy and as soon as
development is in the pipeline,we start accounting for that
water resource, even if thatdevelopment has not broken
ground.
So that would be two, butreally code number one Parks and
rec and housing affordability.

(54:15):
So let's unpack both those.
So parks and rec is a reallyimportant quality of life aspect
for many of our families andresidents and if you look
recently they had a post up.
They're going to do more eventsfor seniors.
So parks and rec isn't just thelittle kids playing t-ball,
it's also our seniors as well.
And when the Eagles LandingPark is developed, you're going
to have an all wheel skate parkand you're going to have an
entire new beautiful center forpeople to frequent.

(54:35):
So that's a real quality of lifeissue.
So I'm going to put that one.
Next Fourth, I'm going to putaffordable housing, and not
because I don't like affordablehousing or because I don't think
that housing should beavailable to people.
But if I have to rank, I'mranking in order.
Of course, public safety,number one, because we have to
make sure that the place remainssafe and desirable.
Water is paramount to all of ourlives.
Parks and rec is quality oflife issues to our current
residents.

(54:55):
Affordable housing benefitsfuture residents.
So that's why, if I have torank from this list that I'm
giving, that's why I'm placingit there, because affordable
housing benefits futureresidents, not current residents
.
Now that doesn't mean that wedon't have to take a look at how
we provide more housing optionsfor people we do.
It's a need.
You can't just bring in largescale companies into your area
and say they're gonna bring15,000 jobs or 5,000 jobs or 700

(55:19):
jobs or 250 jobs, and then nothave a plan to house those
people who are gonna work thosejobs.
So that is something that I amkeenly aware of as an issue.
Do you feel we alreadyadequately meet the needs of any
of these infrastructure publicsafety, parks and recreation or
housing affordability?

(55:40):
I think we do a really good job and I think that
the surveys that go out speakto that.
I don't think you have to takemy opinion on that.
If you go back and look at the2023 survey, it wasn't just the
quality of life.
We were ranking over 90% inmany different areas.
So I think current residentsfeel that many decisions that
are being made are adequate orat least meeting or, if not
exceeding, their expectations.

Okay, as the population grows, what
strategies would you prioritizeto address roads, utilities and
other infrastructure challenges?

Manage the density.
If you manage the density,you're going to have a big
impact.
Let me tell a story.
When I grew up in Staten Island, New York, there was still land
to be purchased, so StatenIsland was always the most
suburban of the five boroughs.
And back in like the 80s and90s I remember going with my mom
and looking for lots of landthat we could buy, potentially
build a house.
By the mid 90s that was allgone and when the land became

(56:28):
super scarce, developers wentfrom building one single family
home to duplexes, or what theycall six over sixes, which is
someone owns the bottom, someoneowns the top.
I'd rather own the right sideor the left side than the bottom
or the top, but that's just me.
But six over sixes and duplexes, it became a thing.
Then it became four houses andthen two became four and then if
they had a decent size plot ofland that they could get,
because they could either buy itand they could buy the

(56:50):
surrounding areas and knock somethings down Now you've got a
fleet of townhomes that were allput together.
Where there may have been inthe past eight or 10 single
family homes, Now there's 30townhomes.
So when the land gets scarce,it gets expensive.
When it gets expensive,developers find ways to manage
that.
Generally, it's through density.
So we have to manage density.
That is the number one priority.
I'm not saying that we don'tbuild anything new.

(57:21):
What I'm saying is we put a lotof care and thought into how we
build what we build, where webuild it, when we build it.
That's number one.
When it comes to managing theroads and the infrastructure,
again, a lot of theinfrastructure improvements that
we currently enjoy are donethrough developer-led financing.
They're done in not only inwhat they have to do throughout
the construction process, butthey're also done in fees in
lieu.
So they have to give money toParks and Rec, or they have to
give money for this or thatwhile they're doing the
development process.
So that's important as well.
That has to continue, but ithas to be managed appropriately.

(57:46):
When you look at how all of thisdensity together creates these
issues.
We have to make sure that whenwe are making our long-term
plans, that we don't putourselves in a position where we
don't account for this, wherewe don't understand that, as
things are more and more scarce,it becomes more and more likely
that developers are going topush for high density.
So if we manage our densityfirst and foremost, then we are
going to be in a much betterposition.
Because when Staten Islandreally started to feel congested

(58:07):
, most people you take from here, you put them in Staten Island
at any point in the 80s or 90s,you're going to say it was
congested, but when it really asa resident for myself felt like
, wow, we have reached the pointof no return.
That was when, if there wassomething that could be built
and it used to be one, now it'sfour and it got away from us
very, very quickly, and that'swhat I don't want to see happen
here.
I want to make sure that wehave an understanding of the
economics of development so thatwe don't overdevelop.

(58:30):
Overdevelop doesn't just meancutting down too many trees.
Overdevelopment also meansputting too many people in too
small of a space, and that'sreally important to me.

Holly Springs has focused on bringing
in biomedical and science-basedbusinesses.
How would you balancesupporting these businesses and
garnering more with some publicsentiment that may be skeptical
of science and vaccinescurrently?

Well, I think we have to sometimes separate what
might be our personal beliefsfrom economic realities, and
when we had Securus that came inhere 10 years ago or more, it
became the starting point forthe desire for stakeholders to
push for a larger life sciencesindustry focus here.
And so I think, regardless ofhow people may feel individually

(59:16):
about drug companies orvaccines, the economic reality
is that these are businesses inthe biomedical field that are
not going away.
In fact, even if I held beliefsthat might be contrary to some
of the production, they areindustries that are not going
away and so, from an economicperspective, this is not

(59:37):
something that I would look at.
From an economic perspective,this is not something that I
would look at and say, well,this is an industry that's
really concerning to me, that wemight have like a downturn in.
I would think that these areprobably one of the safer
industries to have within ourborders, and I also think that
not everything that a companynecessarily produces is bad and
not everything that a companynecessarily produces is good,
but it's the responsibility ofthe market and it's the

(59:57):
responsibility of the regulators, which is far outside of our
municipal control, to determinesafety and efficacy, and so I
would say that, understandingthe economic reality that these
industries are not going away,understanding the economic
reality that these are probablyvery safe industries and are
probably more immune to economicdownturn than other industries,
and then understanding thatthere's an entire layer of

(01:00:18):
regulatory bodies that exist tomonitor this and a market that
exists, a capitalist market thatexists to accept or reject
those products, I would say thatif you put all those things
together, I'm comfortable withthe fact that we have life
sciences here from an economicperspective, from an employment
perspective and from just apublic health standpoint.
All right.

Amanda Benbow Lunn (01:00:37):
As our town grows, farmland faces pressure
from development and someresidents struggle to access
fresh food.
How would you support localfarmers, protect farmland and
help ensure everyone has accessto healthy, affordable food?

Joe Cuccurullo (01:00:50):
So there's really not much from a municipal
perspective that we can do forprotecting farmlands and
supporting farmers.
For farmers, they need supportand subsidies that does not come
from the municipality.
So just to be clear I love thefarmer's market, I love having
access to fresh food.
If there's a strawberry standthat's growing and selling local
strawberries every spring,we're first there to grab our

(01:01:13):
buckets.
From a municipal perspective,understanding the roles of town
councils is really important.
We do not have any control overthat.
You also have the issue withproperty rights, where a lot of
farmers have this land that it'snot as economically viable to
farm on anymore and the lastcrop is coming in and that is
the acreages of land that theyown and they have the right, if

(01:01:35):
they so choose, to sell todevelopers.
There's nothing we can do tostop that.
So oftentimes people feel thatfarmland is disappearing and
there's something that can bedone.
Well, if the farmers themselvesor the landowners themselves
say I don't want this landanymore and the maintenance of
it and the property taxes of it,et cetera, et cetera, et cetera
, I'm going to sell it, Thenthat is their right and so they

(01:01:56):
have that right to do that, butfrom a subsidy perspective to
support farmers.
It is very difficult from amunicipal perspective to do that
.
I would say I'm going to haveto kick that up to our state
officials and to decide how theywould help our farmers.
Listen, I enjoy driving throughparts of North Carolina, seeing
beautiful red barns and openland.
I really enjoy that.
I come from the city.
I moved away from the city.

(01:02:17):
I don't want to just drivethrough and constantly see
nothing but development.
But sometimes these choices arenot within our control.
They are up to the landownersand I think that's really
important for people to remember.
I think it's something thatsometimes gets lost within these
.
Now, if you say we have farmersthat are feeling pressured to
sell and they feel that the areais not supportive anymore for

(01:02:38):
agriculture, I can understandthat criticism.
But at the end of the day.
there's a lot of developmentthat's happening here, a lot of
people moving here, and you havea lot of problems with
agriculture that go far outsideof what municipalities can
govern.
That's something that'shappening everywhere throughout
the country, and so I think it'simportant for people to
remember that.
But, I would love to live nearmore farms.
I really mean that sincerely.

Our police sometimes receive requests from
outside agencies while alsoaddressing local needs?
How would you set prioritiesfor public safety with limited
resources?

The short answer for you is we have to always
make sure that we care for ourcurrent residents, and so if our
taxpayers are funding ourpolice department, which they do
from our municipal budget, weneed to make sure that our first
responders are available forour residents and making sure
that our residents' needs aremet first and foremost.
When it comes to extraordinarycatastrophes or something of
that sort, obviously we couldtake a look to see where we

(01:03:32):
could be of assistance.
We should always help where wecan and how we can, as part of
who we are as North Carolinians,as part of who we are as
members of one community and asmembers of the human community
and doing the right thing forother people.
But we want to always make surethat we prioritize our current
residents first, and I'll neverbe bashful about saying that.

Okay.
How can the town better supportsmall businesses and connect
with their needs?

So this is a great question.
As a small business owner, Ilove this question.
I'm having a small businessroundtable coming up soon, so
I'm looking forward to hearingsome of the needs of other small
businesses.
From a municipal perspective, Ican tell you one of the areas
that a lot of small businessowners want some help is in the
area of navigating thedevelopment process.
So, for example, if you're asmall business let's say, gross

(01:04:22):
revenue under a million or even1.5 million and you have a
pretty successful business andyou want to open a second
location, you want to expand orrenovate your current location,
maybe take over the store nextto you, or you want to
potentially look at stoppingrenting and building your own
building and keeping yourbusiness here in Holly Springs,
it's extraordinarily difficultto go through the development
process.
So in this podcast a lot wetalked about developer funded
infrastructure improvements.
Well, guess what?

(01:04:42):
That doesn't just apply to TollBrothers and MI Homes, it also
applies to anybody who's tryingto build in this town.
So if you're a mom and poprestaurant and you have a really
successful business and now youwant to build your own building
or you want to build a secondrestaurant and you got a plot of
land to do it.
You are held to the samestandards as Toll Brothers is
right when they're building a 60, 70, 80, 90, 150 home

(01:05:03):
development, and so that'sreally hard and really
challenging for some of oursmall businesses, and so we need
to take a look at how westreamline the process for our
small businesses from adevelopment side perspective.
That is something that I have aplan for that it's on my

(01:05:24):
website.
I would like to either look atcreating or restructuring a town
staff position to become adedicated liaison for small
businesses to work directly withdevelopment services.
One of the areas that I've seenis small businesses go to
development services and theysay I would like to do X, and
development services says, okay,they want to do X.
How do we help small businessdo X?
What, really, if they had askedthe question differently, if
they had said, well, I'm lookinginto the idea of doing an

(01:05:45):
expansion, or how would it bebest for me to do what it is
that I'm trying to achieve?
And then maybe, developmentservices well, listen, if you
try to open a second locationnext to the location that you're
in, it's going to create awhole host of requirements that
you're going to need to fulfilland it's going to cost you all
this money and permits andexpansion costs, and you're
going to need to put in this andyou need to put in that.

(01:06:06):
Well, if you had just said howdo I expand my current location
and just focused in thatdirection, it might be a much
simpler, more streamlinedprocess.
There's a particular instancethat I have in my mind and I'm
trying to speak in general termsbecause I don't want to talk
about anyone's particularbusiness but I can tell you that
what I'm saying is based onreal situations.
I've heard and that if smallbusinesses who had less means

(01:06:28):
meaning they maybe don't haveaccess to the same architects or
access to the same attorneysand such that often do business
with the town, if we had sort ofa dedicated person within the
town staff that was a liaison toour small businesses and helped
our small businesses formulateways in which they expand, they
renovate, they add or build inthis town, I think that would be
very, very supporting for a lotof people.

(01:06:49):
There's a lot of the smallbusiness complaints that I hear
are directly connected todevelopment services.
When it comes to supportingthrough grants, the ones that
we've had have been relativelyunderutilized.
The criteria has been verynarrow.
I would like to see us have theability to provide more support
for new businesses that are inneed or businesses that are
looking to expand within thetown, through more opportunities

(01:07:11):
to apply for and utilize thosegrants.

Okay.
What approaches would you taketo foster understanding and
collaboration amongst residentswith differing perspectives?

I think that everyone is united by more than
what divides us.
So at the end of the day, Ithink that we are a community of
people that truly enjoy ourfamilies, that truly enjoy our
safety, that truly enjoyeconomic prosperity and
opportunities in education, andso we live in a world where
there's always going to bevarying and differing

(01:07:41):
perspectives.
We need to continue to maintainand foster an environment where
we are respectful of people'sindividual choices and their
desires to live their life asthey should, but I think that I
would always, as a publicservant, remind people to focus
and center on the core valuesthat unite us first, before we
focus on the differences ofthings that divide us.

Okay, how will you ensure diverse voices
and those most impacted are notonly included, but truly
embraced in decision-making?

I think the town currently, when I'm speaking
from a municipal perspective isvery responsive to the residents
, and I think that one of thethings that is really important
to me is that people always havea forum to voice those concerns
, and so I would encouragepeople to utilize the public
comment portion of town councilmeetings if they have concerns
and to continue to communicatewith their legislators if they

(01:08:32):
have concerns, Because I dobelieve and feel, just from my
own experiences, that our localgovernment is very responsive to
the needs and concerns of thecitizens, and so I would
continue to encourage people tocommunicate that and I know
there's always been some talkabout whether or not the public
comment period of town councilshould be moved to the front or
to the end, but I think that's asilly argument to have.

(01:08:53):
The fact that the public commentperiod exists is all that
matters and people, if they havea problem or an issue or a
concern, they should utilizethat, because I think that
people listen.

Okay.
Do you support anon-discrimination ordinance or
policy?
Why or why not?

So, in particular with the NDO that was
discussed previously.
I've kept up on how effectiveit has been in adjudicating
issues and the number of issuesthat have gone before it, and
the most recent numbers that Isaw were extremely low.
There was less than a handfulof incidences that were actually
adjudicated using that approachand I'm a firm believer of the

(01:09:28):
state and federal laws that arein place to handle much of what
that NDO does.
This is an issue that was acampaign issue of serious
concern in the last election.
I don't think that it is asignificant issue now, nor do I
think it should be based on thenumbers that are publicly
available and how it has beenutilized.
The town council did sign anon-discrimination resolution

(01:09:51):
basically saying that they wouldbe supportive of anyone
utilizing state and federal lawsto adjudicate any issues, but I
do know that one of the majorconcerns from some people that
were in opposition to this whenthis was a really heated debate
a couple of years ago was thatthe manner in which the language
was structured would make itexceedingly challenging for

(01:10:11):
small businesses and would add atremendous expense to small
businesses in terms of theirlegal costs and not even if they
were accused of doing somethingwrong, of just the compliance
to it, and so, as a smallbusiness owner, that's something
I would definitely be sensitiveto.
I don't think that this is amajor issue in our town and I
don't think it should be aprimary campaign issue this year
.
I think this has been throughthe court of public opinion

(01:10:33):
already and if you look at thenumbers of how it has been used
throughout the county, it'sexceedingly low.

Okay.
Have you gained anyendorsements thus far and if you
gain more, where might votersfind that information?

By the time this airs, I think you'll see a
number of endorsements that willcome out, and you can go ahead
and just check my website forthose.
Those will be announced there.

Okay, and where can listeners connect with
you and learn more about yourplatform, upcoming events and
ways to get involved?

I'm really active on Facebook.
I would love for people tofollow me on Facebook.
I do a lot of just directcommunication with constituents
and plan to do that if I'melected consistently as well, so
I would love to see peoplefollow me on Facebook I mean a
lot of people use Instagram andthey love Instagram, but I don't
have the ability to write andbe as verbose as I like to be
and dive as deep as I would liketo.

(01:11:20):
Facebook provides me the bestplatform to do that.
And then, obviously, my website,joe for Holly Springs dot com

Is that the number four or for spelled out
for?

for, for
Ok, and what is your Facebookpage called?
Also, Joe for Holly Springs as well.

Do you have any final thoughts you'd like to
share with those voting in theupcoming election?

I think this is a really wonderful community and
I don't believe that this is achange election, and what I
don't want to see is, from amunicipal perspective, which we
have very limited control overthings that we can do, but the
things that we can do have areally big impact on everyone's
everyday life.
I don't want to see, just forthe sake of political momentum,
people trying to create issuesthat aren't necessarily there,
just to create that momentum topotentially gain attention and

(01:12:02):
get elected.
And I'm not saying that anyone'sdoing that right now, but it's
just a general statement.
I would like us to rememberthat we are in a highly
desirable area and we areneighbors first and a community
first, and we need to figure outa way to manage all of the
interests that want a piece ofwhat we already have.
So, sometimes, when we complainabout traffic and we complain

(01:12:24):
about development, they arelegitimate concerns, but we are
also in a highly desirable areawith a lot of great services and
amenities.
And when I walk aroundrestaurants, sometimes just to
introduce myself as a candidate.
You will be stunned to find outhow many people are in our
restaurants that are not fromour town.
And it has happenedville or inthe ETJ area, and they're here

(01:12:45):
maybe doing business, so they'rehaving dinner before they go
home.
We have a thriving economy andso many of the issues that we
talked about today and have area result of that high
desirability and that reallythriving economy.

(01:13:07):
So I want to make sure that,even in the intensity of the
political season that we have,people recognize that we have a
really great community.
I'm running to protect that,preserve it.
You know, one of my slogans is,I always say, is protect the
progress while preparing for thefuture.
And so let's not, even in theheat of political campaigns,
start to become divided, becausewhat we're really all trying to

(01:13:28):
do is maintain something that'sreally great and that, even if
we have different ideas of howwe get there, everyone's working
to do the same thing, which isto really do our best as
informed citizens some of us whoare now running for public
office and putting ourselves inthat position to preserve a
community that is really doinggreat.
And I think we would be best toremember that, at the end of
the day, we have somethingthat's wonderful and we should

(01:13:50):
all work together to protect it.

Al right, Now we have the lightning round.
So not political, not to donecessarily with Holly Springs,
but just to get to know you alittle bit better.
Bring some humanity to theconversation.
What's something you do thathelps you to recharge?

I like to go to the gym and I like to go to my
favorite restaurants, and I havea bunch of people that I will
see on certain nights in certainplaces and spend some quality
time talking and relaxing withthose people.

Awesome.
What's a hobby, talent or funfact about you that most people
don't know?

Absolutely love Star Wars big Star Wars fan and
I have a really amazinglightsaber collection.

Fun.
What's something that isdifficult for you?

Managing my time and all of the different things
that I'm involved in.

What book, podcast or TV show are you
enjoying right now?

The North Carolina Deep Dive podcast.

Who is your favorite superhero?

Superman

What's the best piece of advice you've ever
been given?

That's a great question I really like that one.
Best piece of advice I was evergiven was not to take myself
too seriously.

There you go .
What's one guilty pleasure?
You secretly enjoy Darkchocolate.
I love that answer.
What's a simple thing thatalways makes you laugh or smile?

My son.

Coffee or tea?

coffee

Morning person or night owl?

night

Mountains or beach?

Mountains.

Book or podcast?

Podcast

Dogs or cats ?

dogs

Awesome.
Well, thank you so much, Joe.
I appreciate you taking thetime to be part of the North
Carolina Deep Dive podcast andour candidate conversations.
I wish you all the best in yourelection.

Thank you so much for having me.
I appreciate it.

Yeah, absolutely.
Local elections are wheredemocracy lives closest to home.
The decisions and actions ofour mayors, the Holly Springs
Town Council and theFuquay-Varina Board of
Commissioners influence theservices we rely on each day,

(01:15:49):
the safety of our streets, thecharacter of our neighborhoods
and even the future direction ofour communities.
Democracy is at the heart ofall we hold dear.
Our local governments setpriorities that touch everyday
life.
They pass ordinances, fund ourfire and police departments, set
property tax structures andshape the look and feel of our
towns.
Because turnout is often lowerin municipal elections, every
ballot cast carries even greaterweight.

(01:16:11):
Here's what you need to knowfor 2025.
The voter registration deadlineis October 10th, unless you
register at an early voting site.
Early voting begins October16th at the Wake County Board of
Elections office in Raleigh.
Additional sites open onOctober 25th, including the John
M Brown Community Center inApex and the Avery Street

(01:16:31):
Recreation Center in Garner.
Those two will be the closestto us in Holly Springs and
Fuquay Varina.
Early voting concludes onSaturday, November 1st.
Please note that this year onlyincludes two Saturdays, October
25th and November 1st, and one,Sunday, October 26th.
The last day to request amail-in absentee ballot is
October 21st and election dayitself is Tuesday, November 4th,

(01:16:55):
where you'll need to cast yourvote at your assigned precinct.
Please remember you will need avalid ID to vote.
That wraps up another NC DeepDive candidate conversation.
You can find all of our 2025municipal election interviews at
www.
ncdeepdive.
com, as well as on Spotify,apple Podcasts, audible or

(01:17:17):
wherever you currently listen topodcasts.
Show notes will include linksto candidates, voter resources
and election information.
If you find these conversationshelpful, please subscribe,
share them with friends orfamily and consider leaving a
rating or review.
Spreading the word in yourlocal spaces helps strengthen
informed participation acrossour communities.

(01:17:37):
If you have thoughts or topicsyou'd like us to explore, reach
out on social media or email usanytime at ncdeepdive@ gmai l.
com.
I'm grateful you spent this timewith me today.
Staying informed is how weshape communities worth calling
home.
Your choices matter, yourperspective matters and you
matter.
Your ballot is your voice, andboth carry more power than you

(01:18:00):
might imagine.
Democracy isn't passive.
It only works when we each showup.
Thank you for helping me tomake it thrive.
May we continue to worktogether to build stronger, more
vibrant communities, to live,work and play in Ones we can all
be proud.
To call home, work and play inones we can all be proud to call
home.
Until next time, my friendsnamaste.

(01:18:22):
The love and light in me seesand honors the love and light in
you.

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