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Featured in today's "Parade of Homes"

Down to the wire

City councilor Jessie Taliaferro is losing ground to pro-neighborhood challenger Rodger Koopman as the calendar closes in on the election this Tuesday. 

A new poll released by Public Policy Polling on Friday reveals that the two candidates are running neck-and-neck at 40% each.  Only two weeks ago, Taliaferro held the lead at 35% to Koopman's 21 percent. 

A hard-hitting grass-roots campaign by Koopman explains the erasure of Taliaferro's lead.  For weeks, dozens of citizens alienated by Taliaferro's actions on council have been pounding the pavement in neighborhoods across District B to get the word out to their fellow voters.  Meanwhile, other residents of District B have been hosting "meet-and-greet" events for Koopman in their homes -- on an almost nightly basis in recent weeks -- to introduce Koopman to neighbors and friends.

Why does Rodger Koopman have so many friends in neighborhoods across District B? 

Because, unlike Taliaferro, Koopman supports:

• Raising impact fees on new development, to make growth pay its own way
• Protecting natural areas at Durant Nature Park, and preserving Horseshoe Farm Park as a nature park -- while building new gyms and ballfields in other, more suitable locations
• Enacting reasonable rules about infill development and tear-downs to protect the character of Raleigh's neighborhoods
• Putting citizens (NOT Big Real Estate) back in charge at City Hall.

The word is getting out about Taliaferro's shabby record as the developers' "go-to gal" on City Council.  With scant coverage from the N&O, neighbors have taken the story to neighbors in a shoe-leather campaign across northeast Raleigh. 

Word of mouth is effective, but slow.  Will enough Raleigh voters get the story in time?   

Bread and butter

City Council candidate Jessie Taliaferro received the overwhelming majority – 77 percent – of her campaign funds from developers and their allies in the real estate and building community, campaign filings with the Wake County Board of Elections reveal.

Moreover, in the most recent month of September, Taliaferro received 93.8% of her campaign funds from developers and the real estate industry.

Taliaferro’s filings with the Wake Board of Elections reveal that the vast majority of her contributions in the 2006-2007 campaign cycle came from developers, developers’ lawyers, spouses of developers, and others in the real estate and development industry.

Developer John Kane and his wife, Willa, contributed a total of $2000 to Taliaferro’s campaign. Taliaferro has been criticized for supporting Kane’s proposal to build a private parking deck for luxury condos using $75 million in taxpayer funds (Independent Weekly, August 15, 2007).

Developers’ attorneys Clyde Holt, Elizabeth Trahos, Mack Paul, and Isabel Mattox were among those who contributed at least $250 each to Taliaferro's campaign. They have appeared regularly before the Raleigh Planning Commission to advocate for rezonings and other development approvals on behalf of real estate interests.

The analysis, performed by the Rodger Koopman campaign, was based on public record filings for the current election cycle.

The campaign contributions that Taliaferro received from developers help to explain the incumbent’s position in favor of development interests, such as the Kane parking deck subsidy.

Taliaferro also opposed the mayor’s proposal to increase impact fees so that development would pay more of its own way, leaving Raleigh taxpayers paying 75% of the costs of growth according to an independent study performed for the City of Raleigh by Duncan Associates (News & Observer, April 19, 2006).

The election is on October 9.