Action requested by members of the Walltown Community

Dear Walltown neighbors and Durham residents,

A huge thanks to the many of you who came out to last week’s stakeholder meeting on the redevelopment of Northgate Mall. We believe community members from Walltown and beyond spoke clearly about the needs for: 

1.  Affordable housing
2. Affordable retail
3. Green space for community
4. Environmental sustainability

Walltown’s updated alternative design merges the developer’s plans for a life sciences campus with these community priorities. The plan reflects over four years of input from Walltown, the other six neighborhoods proximate to the mall (Northgate Park, Trinity Park, Duke Park, Trinity Heights, Watts-Hillandale, Old West Durham), and the wider Durham community. 

WHAT’S NEXT → Please Contact City Council Members

The Walltown Community Association is asking Durham residents to contact city council members by email and/or phone by March 1 with the following messages (Feel free to use your own words. This is a guide.)

I live in Durham, and I support Walltown’s plan to include affordable housing and community green space as a part of any redevelopment of Northgate Mall. If you have not seen the plan, please take a look at Walltown.net.  

Affordable housing is important to me and to Durham. This is a rare opportunity to ensure that the Northgate Mall plans reflect what citizens like me want most. The planned life sciences labs and offices will bring hundreds of high-wage earners to the area putting intense pressure on affordable rental and owner-occupied housing in Walltown and the surrounding neighborhoods (property taxes will rise even more, landlords will raise rents).

Redevelopment of the mall is also a once-in-a-generation chance to turn the sea of concrete into a greener space that can better handle the heat and stormwater challenges that already have a disproportionate effect on nearby residents’ health and electricity bills. 

Durham residents - including me - are asking the Council to take bold, decisive action. 

Thank you for your consideration, 

Your Name and Address 

Yours in Community,

Audrey Mitchell, President, Walltown Community Association

Brandon Williams, Chair, Northgate Mall Committee

You can email the entire council at [email protected] or use the individual contact information below.

• Elaine O’Neal (Mayor): 919-560-4333, ext. 10269; [email protected] 
• Javiera Caballero (At-Large): 919-560-4396, ext. 10272; [email protected] 
• DeDreana Freeman (Ward 1): 919-560-4396, ext. 10276; [email protected] 
• Jillian Johnson (At-Large): 919-560-4396, ext. 10278; [email protected] 
• Mark-Anthony Middleton (Ward 2): 919-560-4396, ext. 10277; [email protected] 
• Monique Holsey-Hyman (At-Large): 919-560-4396, ext. 10274; [email protected] 
• Leonardo Williams (Ward 3): 919-560-4396, ext. 10273; [email protected]

Tyre Nichols should be alive today. His brutal murder is yet another painful example of police brutality in the United States, especially against communities of color. We grieve for Tyre’s family, friends, and community. The circumstances around his savage beating — an increase in aggressive policing tactics in response to crime — are mirrored in communities across the U.S. This could happen almost anywhere although Tyre Nichols was guilty of no crime other than "driving while black."

We know change is long overdue, and we call upon our leaders — and our entire community — to redouble their efforts to imagine and build a public safety system that serves everyone.  We ask the City and the Police Department to ensure that units similar to the SCORPION street crime team - or others that rely heavily on traffic stops or aggressive "stop and frisk" style policing in targeted areas - are not utilized in Durham. 

Better responses continue to be urgently needed. The early data on the HEART program is encouraging and we'd like to see the program expand to other areas of the city. The upcoming six month data can help determine if HEART can be expanded to additional offenses. We look forward to increased data from the recently expanded Bull City United violence interrupters and to forthcoming recommendations from the Durham Community Safety and Wellness Task Force.  Many other efforts in Durham, including those directed at employment, housing and treatment are an integral part of a larger solution, but funding will be necessary to make these options a reality where they are most needed.

Board of Directors, People's Alliance

A little more than thirty years ago, the People’s Alliance stood in support of the merger of the City and County School systems.  Those school board meetings to determine the district maps were also full of parents, speaking to their fears for their children’s education and well being. We knew that the merger was about making the public school system more equitable for ALL Durham students, and we see that today as well. We believe in the hard work of the DPS team to create the Growing Together plan. Thank you to Board Member Rogers for sharing her lived experience of this event in Durham history. 

As the PA Education Action Team stated in a letter to the board in June, 2022 “We believe the regional model presented to the Board has many strengths, including a clear focus on equity and efficiency.” PA has stood in support of traditional, publicly funded schools that are overseen by elected officials for almost 50 years. We agree with author and research scientist, Heather McGhee, when she wrote: 

“We must challenge ourselves to live our lives in solidarity across color, origin, and class. We must demand changes to the rules in order to disrupt the very notion that those who have more money are worth more in our democracy and our economy.”

We are DPS parents and teachers. We want what is best for our children. And we support this plan. 

We understand that change is difficult and disappointment is painful. And we support this plan. 

We recognize that community outreach and engagement efforts from the district around this initiative were not robust. And we support this plan.

We know that moving to a new school before traditional transition points may present a challenge for some young learners. And we support this plan.

We appreciate that the financial, medical, social, psychological, and emotional challenges of the global pandemic are not fully behind us for many families. And we support this plan. 

We are parents and teachers of neurodivergent and disabled children and understand the unique challenge this presents during unexpected transitions. And we support this plan.

We acknowledge that altering existing programs at schools places an additional burden on teachers already at capacity. And we support this plan. 

We hear the angry, fear-based rhetoric pathologizing under-resourced communities. We know this rhetoric is likely to get worse before it gets better. And we support this plan.   

We hear families threatening to leave the public school system if the district does not make certain allowances or changes. And we support this plan. 

There is never a perfect time for change. It is never effortless when those with privilege are asked to operate within a system based on equity. It is never convenient to reckon with white supremacy and the damage it has done to our public institutions. 

Ultimately what matters is that every child in Durham has free access to a highly qualified, certified teacher loving on and guiding them in the classroom every day, with essential support services in place and a nurturing principal at the helm. Everything else – the titles and the specialties and the programming – is window dressing. 

Our children are watching and listening. Are we modeling respect, resilience, and a spirit of collaborative problem-solving?

We are DPS parents and teachers. We want what is best for ALL children. And we support this plan.