Three Durham City Council members were appointed or reappointed to committees of the National League of Cities this week.

• Councilman Farad Ali, appointed to the Community and Economic Development Policy and Advocacy Steering Committee. The committee deals with community and economic development, financial institutions, international trade, housing, land use, and recreation.
• Mayor Pro Tem Cora Cole-McFadden, reappointed to the Human Development Steering Committee. The committee is concerned with employment and job training, child development, aid to needy families, unemployment support, immigration, health, education and equal opportunity..
• Councilman Mike Woodard, reappointed to the Transportation Infrastructure and Services Policy and Advocacy Steering Committee. The committee works in public transit, streets and highways, aviation, and passenger and freight rail.

The National League of Cities is a resource and lobbying organization representing 19,000 municipalities. Its committees decide policies for the league on various public concerns.
 

Whether he realized it at the time or not, when City Council member Howard Clement moved last night to put off a decision on $175,000 for the Mok'e Jazz Cultural Center for two weeks, he was setting it at a critical time.

Oct. 5: Election Eve.

Clement and council member Cora Cole-McFadden are both up for re-election and both face multiple opponents in the Oct. 6 primary.

Both Clement and Cole-McFadden had previously expressed support for the grant, requested by Mozella McLaughlin and her three children to help renovate and expand the building she owns at 2520 Fayetteville Street for a community center with live jazz, a restaurant, rooftop garden and other amenities.

But they hedged their support at last night's council meeting, where one of Cole-McFadden's challengers and two of Clement's stated their positions on the grant and more than 20 speakers urged the council to help keep the Know Book Store -- McLaughlin's current tenant -- in business.

Cole-McFadden and Clement said they wanted a compromise that would aid both sides, and supported a delay to allow time for more negotiation between tenant and landlord, after Clement challenger Darius Little and Cole-McFadden challenger Donald Hughes spoke for the grant as community revitalization; and Clement challenger Matt Drew spoke against it as an overly risky investment of taxpayers' money.

Bookstore owner Bruce Bridges, who also runs a restaurant and holds weekly Jazz Nights at the building, has claimed McLaughlin's project could put him out of business. McLaughlin has offered Bridges a place in the Mok'e Center, but Bridges has said the increased rent he would have to pay for less space, plus giving up the restaurant operation to McLaughlin, would likely cripple his store.

Monday night, Bridges tossed a new issue into the dispute by asking the council to grant money for his business if it approved the McLaughlin grant.

Mayor Bill Bell also tossed in a new issue, wanting to know why the financial analysis that the city economic-development department for McLaughlin's grant application had not taken into account the cost of state and federal taxes her Center would have to pay as a for-profit enterprise.

Postponing a decision, Bell said, should be for the purpose of re-analyzing the Mok'e Center's reasonable cash flow and not for dealing with the Know Book Store, which he considered an issue separate from the grant, involving landlord and tenant.

But Bridges, and other speakers, made a connection in objecting to a public subsidy for one business that would jeopardize another.

Councilman Eugene Brown, who has said the Mok'e Center is not financially viable in opposing the city grant, passionately repeated that point during the council deliberation.

Councilman Farad Ali was equally passionate in supporting the grant, saying, "This is project that has life," and maintaining that the council had unfairly subjected the McLaughlin application to terms and scrutiny it had not applied to other grants under the city's Neighborhood Commercial Revitalization program.

Donald Hughes filed for election to the City Council's Ward 1 seat this morning, accompanied by about 20 supporters who included his mother, former council and school board member Jackie Wagstaff, and county commisssioner Joe Bowser.

"Win, lose or draw, may the campaign bring you joy," elections director Mike Ashe said when Hughes had signed the requisite papers and paid his $188.35 filing fee (below).

Hughes is challenging incumbent Cora Cole-McFadden, who defeated Wagstaff's council re-election bid in 2001.

"I'm focusing on my own campaign," Cole-McFadden said, speaking by telephone from New York, where she is attending the NAACP convention.

Before going to the Board of Elections to file, Hughes opened his campaign with a rally on Alston Avenue, across from Eastway Elementary School (above).

"This election is about inspiring Durham," he said, recalling his own inspiration as an Eastway pupil when a then-council member Cynthia Brown spoke to his class about community participation.

A May graduate of UNC Greensboro, Hughes said his campaign will take full advantage of technologies such as Facebook and Twitter with which he and his contemporaries have grown up.

"It is now our time," he said.

Political newcomer Donald Hughes takes the plunge into Durham's city election tomorrow, with a 10:30 a.m. rally on Alston Avenue.

"It's just been in me for as long as I can remember," Hughes told Bull's Eye this afternoon.

Hughes is challenging two-term incumbent Cora Cole-McFadden for the Ward 1 City Council seat.

"I really want to see Durham come together and move for action," he said.

Speculation around town has put Hughes into the city council field for months. A 2005 graduate of Hillside High School and 2009 graduate of UNC-Greensboro, he has made his opinions known at several city council and county commissioners' meetings this year.

"Being a native of Durham and growing up in the community ... I saw the importance of standing up for what you believe," he said.

Hughes is the son of former city councilwoman and former Durham Public Schools board member Jackie Wagstaff, Cole-McFadden defeated Wagstaff's bid for re-election to the council in 2001.

"My mother stressed the importance of giving back to my community at an early age," Hughes said.

Mayor Pro Tem Cora Cole-McFadden filed for re-election to her City Council Ward 1 seat this afternoon, giving each office on this fall's municipal ballot at least one official candidate.

Cole-McFadden, who lives in the Old Farm neighborhood of northern Durham, was elected to the council in 2001 and re-elected in 2005.

The Rev. Melvin Whitley asked the Durham City Council to support his "bullet ownership bill" Thursday, and got a mixed reception.

While council member Howard Clement and Mayor Pro-Tem Cora Cole-McFadden expressed enthusiastic support, council member Eugene Brown said, "There are lot more things that we can do that might pass constitutional muster and legislative muster and do a lot more good."