Molly Rawn won a runoff against Lioneld Jordan and will now serve as mayor of Fayetteville.

Incumbent Jordan and challenger Rawn originally ran against each other in November, along with fellow candidates Tom Terminella and Adam Fire Cat.

Jordan was seeking his fifth term after his first win in 2008. Previously, he served on the Fayetteville City Council for eight years.

Rawn has lived in Fayetteville for 19 years. For the past eight years, she has served as CEO of Experience Fayetteville, the city’s tourism office.

On election night, Jordan received 46.92% (16,609) of the vote, while Rawn received 36.92% (13,068), Terminella received 12.39% (4,386) and Fire Cat received 3.76% (1,332).

After the runoff election, Rawn and Jordan continued their campaign, which culminated on the day of the runoff election on December 3rd.

According to the unofficial results of the runoff, Rawn won with 51.14% (5,411) of the vote, while Jordan received 48.86% (5,169).

In an interview just hours after the results dropped, Rawn told 5NEWS she was excited and ready to move on.

“We are so excited and so grateful to the people of Fayetteville and ready to move forward. We are excited about the things we will do together,” Rawn said. “Let’s all work together and move forward.”

Rawn said that when she runs next year, she wants to keep her campaign promises.

“We’re going to look at our infrastructure, we’re going to take a closer look at housing. Living in Fayetteville is difficult and becoming increasingly unaffordable. “So how can we as a city begin to take steps to address this?” Rawn said.

“I work well with people. People know me. I have 16 years experience, so I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen pandemics, I’ve seen recessions, I’ve seen hyperinflation. And all of that.” I believe I bring stability to an uncertain world we are experiencing right now.”

“I manage a $513 million budget and have 926 employees to take care of. I think one of the most important things you do as an elected official is to manage taxpayers’ money properly, and I do that very well.”

“We will incentivize the developer community to get on board now.”

“When it comes to housing, we currently have a wage crisis in this city. The average home in this city costs $460,000 per year. Now there are a lot of people working in this city who earn $12 to $15 an hour. They will never own their own home. “I think we need to flood the city with housing along 71B and that will drive down the price of the houses.”

“I think the first thing we need to work on is water and wastewater infrastructure, because if there isn’t adequate infrastructure, you have nothing.”

“What we’re going to do between now and this time next year is we’re going to spend $110 million on water and wastewater infrastructure. Then I’ll look at a bond. We’re going to fix everything.” All the lines and everything is something I’ve wanted to do for a while.

“We build roads. As you can see when you drive through the city, roads are being built everywhere. This is inconvenient at the moment, but in the future we will have the right infrastructure to accommodate any growth.”

“We spent $4.9 million on homeless programs and rental and housing for low-income people. We spent $1.4 million on organizations that help homeless and low-income people keep their homes. These are important things; we” I will continue this.

“When we look at the homeless thing, it’s not just something that’s unique to the city of Fayetteville. It’s a regional thing and all of us in the region have to say that we have a problem here. “If we all work together.” “I’ve never seen anything this region couldn’t achieve together.”

Climate change and environment

“We have preserved 1,100 hectares of urban forest that will never be touched again.”

“If you read the climate action plan, the ultimate goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We have to provide clean water, we have to provide clean air and everything that goes into that.”

“During my time at Experience Fayetteville, we had our highest tax collection month on record and I built an incredible team responsible for increasing economic development in the city through tourism. We were responsible for launching the 2022 Cyclocross World Championships in the United States, only the second time this championship has been held in the United States. We are also responsible for bringing programs like the Arts Court to the area and also creating the Downtown Fayetteville Coalition.

“I want this to be a place my children can call home, and affordable housing is becoming increasingly difficult to find. The challenges we face due to rapid growth are really important to me, and that’s why I’m running with one. “We’re looking to the future to see how we can build the best Fayetteville possible.”

“The most important thing we can do in the face of the housing crisis is to build more of it. Housing construction is illegal in most parts of the city, and we can change that. We also need to have partnerships, particularly public-private partnerships, that allow for subsidized housing so that we can have more housing units across the spectrum.”

“We need massive investments in modernizing infrastructure, especially in the water sector. We can’t keep up with the growth. We are behind and that has to be the top priority from day one.”

“Our homeless population employs so many people. I’ve spent the last year talking to voters and it comes up in almost every conversation. Regardless of where anyone stands politically, we can all recognize that this is a problem and we can approach it with a lot of compassion, but we have to have a plan and a strategy.”

“I am a proponent of what we call the Housing First model, which is about getting people housed first before we address many of the systemic issues that keep them unhoused. “

Climate change and environment

“We’re seeing nationally that cities and communities are really at the forefront of tackling climate change, and we’re going to feel the brunt of that. There’s no time to argue about whether you believe that or not.” It’s true or not. I think one of the most important things we can do in response to climate change is to build enough housing for people and to create enough density so that more people can use public transport. “