A smiling man with shoulder-length black hair and a beard and mustache. He is wearing a suit and standing outside the City Hall building.
Credit: Contributed by Mario Benavente

Name as it appears on the ballot: Mario (Be) Benavente

Previous elected offices held: Fayetteville City Council Member, District 3

Age as of Election Day: 35

Occupation (employer, where you work, what you do): Associate Attorney, Rand & Gregory P.A.

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1. Give us your elevator pitch in 200 words or less. Why are you running for this office? What makes you the most qualified candidate?

I am running for Mayor because Fayetteville is ready for new energy and a clear path forward. As a two-term City Council member and licensed attorney, I have delivered results that matter: making transit investment a top five city priority for the first time, commissioning a landmark study that exposed nearly half a billion dollars in annual costs from gun violence, and creating the Office of Community Safety to respond when law enforcement asked for help taking mental health, homelessness, and addiction issues off their plate.

I grew up here, graduated from E.E. Smith High School, and returned home after earning my degrees at UNC Chapel Hill and North Carolina Central University School of Law. My story is one of resilience, service, and commitment to this community.

Fayetteville deserves a Mayor who will cure crime through a public health approach, invest in youth, and create next-level economic opportunities. I am ready to lead.

2. What do you view as the three most pressing issues facing the city as a whole? How will you address them as mayor?

The three most pressing issues facing Fayetteville are public safety, economic growth, and youth opportunity.

First, we must cure crime through a public health approach to community safety. That means addressing root causes like mental health, homelessness, and addiction through the Office of Community Safety, while ensuring law enforcement can focus on violent crime and rebuilding community trust.

Second, Fayetteville must grow its economy in ways that lift everyone. By prioritizing smart development, supporting small businesses, and expanding transit, we can attract high-paying jobs and ease the property tax burden on residents.

Finally, we must invest in our young people. Too often we lose talent to other cities. By expanding after-school programs, summer jobs, late-night recreation, and mentorship, we can keep our best and brightest here, building careers and families in Fayetteville.

As Mayor, I will bring the energy and experience needed to deliver on these priorities and take Fayetteville to the next level.

3. What’s the best or most important thing the Fayetteville City Council has done in the past year? Additionally, name a decision you believe the council should have handled differently. Please explain your answers.

The most important thing City Council has done in the past year is establish the Office of Community Safety and advance the first-ever Cost of Gun Violence study. Both initiatives recognize that to cure crime in Fayetteville, we have to have more than a 1-dimensional approach. Public safety is not achieved exclusively by policing; we must also about address the root causes of crime and the enormous financial and human toll it takes on our city. By creating a new office to respond to folks struggling with mental health, homelessness, and addiction issues, rather than foisting everything on law enforcement, we are beginning to build a more comprehensive and effective approach to community safety.

One decision I believe the council should have handled differently was our approach to the budget. I voted against this year’s budget because it kept the tax rate six cents above revenue neutral without any effort to reduce spending from the manager’s draft. In a year where property values soared, this choice placed a heavy burden on families, especially folks on fixed incomes, who want to age in place and no interest in flipping their homes. I believe we should have gone revenue neutral this year to give residents time to adjust and to protect affordability in our community.

4. Last year, the City of Fayetteville sued a contractor for abandoning over $6 million in construction projects. The city has since hired new contractors to finish the projects. What steps will you take to ensure Fayetteville is able to successfully complete capital projects in the future?

The delays at Fire Station 4 and the Tennis Center on Murchison Road showed us that Fayetteville’s contractor vetting process must be much stronger. Too often, we’ve relied on the lowest bid without properly weighing past performance, financial stability, or valid bonding capacity. That approach left us with lawsuits, abandoned projects, and wasted tax dollars.

As mayor, I will push for tougher pre-qualification standards, clearer contract milestones with real penalties for non-performance, and a stronger emphasis on reliability when awarding contracts. Fayetteville residents deserve projects that are done right and delivered on time.

We must also keep politics out of the process. Even the perception of favoritism, as with Mohammed Mohammed’s financial contribution to the incumbent mayor before receiving city work, erodes public trust. Vigilance and transparency will be the foundation for how we deliver capital projects, because taxpayers deserve nothing less.

5. While overall crime in Fayetteville has decreased by around 13% this year, the number of homicides and incidents of juvenile crime have increased. The Fayetteville City Council recently enacted a youth curfew ordinance. Would you have voted in favor of it? How will you work to improve public safety and reduce crime in the city?

I would not have voted in favor of the youth curfew ordinance. Youth crime is best addressed with proven solutions, and research shows curfews simply do not reduce crime. In fact, Charlotte enacted the same type of ordinance and still saw a 300% spike in juvenile homicides last year. We all want kids safe when the streetlights come on, but a curfew does not guarantee that.

The policy passed here was based on incidents that actually occurred before 11PM and often involved individuals whose ages were never even verified. Our own data shows juvenile crime peaks after school, not late at night. Instead of political stunts, we should focus on what works: summer jobs, after-school programs, late-night recreation, mentoring, and conflict resolution. Some colleagues call criminalization curfew like this “another tool in the toolbox.” Yet, they never want to fund alternative approaches backed by research and continue to see out hammers, treating every problem like a nail. We don’t have to harm our youth first, we can skip straight to helping those most at-risk.

As mayor, I will continue the work I’ve already started with the creation of the Office of Community Safety and by advancing a public health approach to crime. That means investing in youth opportunity, taking mental health, homelessness, and addiction issues off law enforcement’s plate, and building real solutions that make neighborhoods safer. Fayetteville deserves safety built on evidence, not slogans.

6. How will you work to attract and retain new businesses and other development to Fayetteville? Name another municipality you believe has made smart decisions about sustainable growth and development, and describe what it has done that could be implemented in Fayetteville.

To attract and retain new businesses, Fayetteville must address the barriers employers themselves identified in the Abernathy Report commissioned by the FCEDC. Companies made clear that weaknesses in K-12 education, crime, and our city’s overall appearance make it difficult to recruit talent or place headquarters here. Some employers even said they lost top candidates once they toured Fayetteville. If we want to compete, we must change both the narrative and the reality.

As mayor, I will focus on three strategies. First, strengthen our education-to-career pipelines by expanding apprenticeships, internships, and partnerships with Fayetteville State University, Fayetteville Technical Community College, and Methodist University, so graduates can build careers here. Second, recruit and retain young professionals by offering unprecedented access to support such as mentorship, networking, affordable housing, and modern transit so we can out-offer other cities and root the next generation here in Fayetteville. Third, invest in placemaking through safer streets, stronger neighborhoods, and quality-of-life amenities that make people want to stay.

One model we can learn from is Durham’s “Made in Durham” initiative, which built a coordinated nonprofit to connect schools, businesses, and government in a long-term workforce pipeline. A similar collective impact model here would help Fayetteville grow high-paying jobs, broaden our tax base, and create next-level opportunities for our residents.

7. The county and city have often struggled to determine who is responsible for addressing homelessness. How would you work with the Cumberland County government and other community partners to decrease homelessness in the city?

The county does have more direct authority when it comes to homelessness, but the city has consistently led the way on new approaches. When we passed the no camping ordinance and established the Day Resource Center, those actions spurred larger-scale responses from the county. Fayetteville has shown that we are nimble enough to act more decisively and quickly than the county, and when we act, it sets the stage for bigger system-wide change.

At the same time, the city’s budget is half the size of the county’s. We cannot shoulder this responsibility alone. Our role is to innovate, pilot programs at scale, and prove what works so that the county can step in with its broader resources and reach. As mayor, I will continue to push for that partnership, while also ensuring the city does its part to provide real pathways off the street through housing, services, and coordinated community support.