Raleigh Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin makes the right choice with surprise reelection announcement | Opinion

Mary-Ann Baldwin won’t be keeping her job as Raleigh’s mayor, but she certainly can keep a secret.

Baldwin surprised the city Tuesday evening with a video announcement that she will not seek reelection to a third term this November. Her reason was also a surprise: She recently had surgery for breast cancer and her husband, Jim, had open-heart surgery.

They’re both doing fine, she said, but the health scares made the 67-year-old mayor reconsider whether she wants the challenge of a campaign and, if successful, another two years leading an increasingly contentious City Council.

Baldwin said her heart was telling her to run again, “but my head was telling me something different. It’s telling me it’s time to devote my energies to myself and my family and to find other ways to serve.”

She made the right call, both for herself and for her city.

The mayor may well have won reelection. She has built strong political connections during her four years as mayor and serving from 2007 to 2017 as an at-large City Council member. She is a formidable fundraiser. And she has a record to run on that includes expanding affordable housing, building mass transit and helping usher through a massive redevelopment of PNC Arena and its surrounding property.

But as Baldwin gained experience, she also gained critics. In her hurry to get things done, she sometimes put aside diplomacy. She made the tone-deaf mistake of taking a job with a developer, which she quickly gave up. And on the sudden challenges such as responding to COVID or the protests over George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police, she could appear overwhelmed.

A measure of Baldwin’s political troubles can be seen in those who have announced they’re running for mayor. The top contenders are Janet Cowell, a former state treasurer, state lawmaker and City Council member; Terrance Ruth, an associate N.C. professor who, despite being a political newcomer, ran strongly against Baldwin in 2022, and Corey Branch, a City Council member since 2015. Three others are also in the race.

In her video, Baldwin mentioned that when she arrived in Raleigh in 1988 it was “a very different city.” How different is clear from the numbers. Raleigh’s population in 1988 was 201,000 and its footprint covered 90 square miles. Both have far more than doubled.

Baldwin was in leadership for most of those years as Raleigh grew from a big small city to a small big city. She helped it adapt, but she was running out of momentum. Some opposed her support for and by developers. First-term City Council members are divided about which way to go. And Baldwin was running out of new ideas.

Former Mayor Charles Meeker said the city has “stalled.” He and Baldwin’s predecessor, Nancy McFarlane, favored a change at the top. They came out early in support of Cowell.

Some of Baldwin’s difficulties are reflective of faults in how the city is governed. City Council positions, including the mayor, are still treated as part-time jobs with low pay.

Raleigh needs a government that fits it. Pay council members a professional, full-time wage. Make terms four years and staggered. Revert to odd-year elections when local issues get voters’ full attention.

Such changes are under consideration and likely to come. Baldwin may be among the last to govern under more of a small-town model. She did her best under that arrangement, but better results will require a stronger leadership structure.

Baldwin closed her video by noting that she still has seven months in office and still has much she wants to get done. No doubt she’ll be engaged until it’s time to go. She said she is looking forward to her new job as the executive director of Cooper Charitable Foundation, which aims to help people secure housing or stay in their homes.

In deciding whether to run again, Baldwin was caught between her heart and her head. But in her nearly 15 years of service to Raleigh she led with both. The city is better for it.

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@ newsobserver.com