Year-End Review with Raleigh City Council Member Jonathan Melton
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Steve we have a special guest on live a frequent guest with us John Melton Jonathan Melton he's the out large council member for the City of Raleigh Jonathan welcome to the show Hey, how are you guys? Hey, good. Jonathan Council member Melton former mayor pro temp Congratulations in your reelection and We were doing a year in review and you were very involved with the Harris campaign and you know Just kind of want to talk about you know talk a little bit about what your takeaways or for you know We're you know as we look at 2024 there was so much news about this election and and what does this mean? The democrats moving forward. What are your thoughts on that and we want to talk to a little bit about Raleigh as well? Yes, I worked closely with the NC coordinated campaign for the Harris campaign here in North Carolina Obviously very disappointed with the result nationally. We had some good-win statewide You know, we've got a regroup for the midterms. I do think that the excitement that vice president Harris brought to the campaign in a very short Period of time the amount of momentum. We were able to build the new volunteers. We signed up I hope that that organizing effort will continue into the midterms and really set us off on a good start You know, there's a lot of organizing that happened a lot of You know building that happened on the ground the new Volunteers signing up new folks getting engaged and we just got to carry that forward and regroup. That's great I'm gonna before Jeff gets in That's great to hear and thank you for your involvement in those elections now that we're all you got real active We got a new mayor Janet Cowell. We're gonna be bringing her on in a few weeks I talked to us about what what are some of the things you're looking forward to in 2025 in the capital city? Well, I'm actually downtown right now with my husband at the beautiful A so we've been walking around and shopping local and eating local and there's a lot of great things happening in Raleigh and Specifically downtown. I'm really looking forward to some of the projects that we have kicking off in the central business district around Fayetteville Street We're gonna reimagine what Fayetteville Street looks like make it I think more welcoming for outdoor dining and eating we'll have the new red hat expansion the convention center expansion We have a new convention center hotel that will be under construction So there's a lot of exciting things happening Downtown to support our small businesses to support the economy to give folks great places to hang out and eat and drink and enjoy themselves And so I'm really excited for that and then we have some, you know, bigger more regional Projects to like our bus rapid transit, which will be under construction down New Bern Avenue the first line on Four planned lines that will eventually connect to Kerry and Garner and then north as well So a lot of things to look forward to in the next year or two. Yeah. Thank you, John What are you looking forward to in 2025? What are your main objections objectives as you go into the new year? Well, so we did a lot of work. I've been on the city council of 2019 We have done a lot of work with prior councils and prior mayor mayor Baldwin on zoning reform making easier to build different types of housing supporting affordable housing Transit investment and a lot of that I want to see across the finish line I just mentioned bus rapid transit we need to get it running So hopefully you'll be seeing some visible signs of construction in 2025 And then I do think the opening will be probably sometime in 26 But there's a lot of stuff that we set the the groundwork for that I want to see Finished we have acquired some key properties along bus rapid transit like the DMV site on New Bern Avenue That is a prime site for economic development and growth and you know some workforce housing and in 2025 We're gonna be working with the community on planning what that will look like And so there's just a lot of things that I want to see across the finish line during this next term Jonathan my last question is about remote work I mean we are seeing you know and more so we're seeing 25% vacancies and offices So is that something you think that Raleigh will continue to navigate through is redevelopment looking at the downtown? Supporting startups what you guys have done a great job with innovate Raleigh. I mean you'll go workspace Is this something going into your retreats that you're gonna continue to discuss from an economic development perspective?
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