Three seats on the Fayetteville City Council will be held by newcomers after this fall’s municipal elections. With the incumbents for District 1, District 3 and District 8 joining a crowded mayoral race, Fayetteville voters will choose some fresh faces to lead the city.
In an unexpected twist, current representative Courtney Banks-McLaughlin withdrew her candidacy for District 8 on the last day of the filing period, instead opting to run for mayor. Within hours, two more candidates had filed for District 8.
The District 8 candidates include Rodney Garvin, Travis Hamed and Shaun McMillan. McMillan told CityView he hadn’t initially planned on running, but Banks-McLaughlin’s sudden decision prompted him to throw his hat in the ring.
“There was a chain of events where my incumbent city council member, Courtney Banks McLaughlin, made a last-minute decision that she was going to run for mayor,” McMillan said. “And as part of the chain reaction, we saw a bunch of other stuff happen after that. I think that was a wild, wild morning — like Colvin ended up going back in the race after that as well, around that same time.”
Mayor Mitch Colvin, who initially stated he wouldn’t run for reelection, told CityView he decided on the morning of July 18 to get back into the fray after Banks-McLaughlin filed to run for the office.
Since the end of the filing period, the pool of candidates for District 8 has shuffled once again. A fourth candidate, Robbie Poole, had filed for election on July 17, but told CityView on Thursday that he made the decision to drop out of the race. He cited personal and professional constraints that would limit his ability to run an effective campaign, but didn’t rule out running again in the next election cycle.
The largest district by land mass, District 8 borders Spring Lake and Fort Bragg, west of I-295. The District 8 candidates all expressed a desire to reduce crime in the area and improve economic opportunity in west Fayetteville, which is dominated by subdivisions and chain retail.
Read on for a brief overview of the candidates and their priorities.
Rodney Garvin
Garvin is a Fayetteville native and graduate of 71st High School, as well as Fayetteville State University, where he received his bachelor’s degree in speech, theater, and telecommunications. He also holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix. Professionally, Garvin said he’s spent 20 years working for Best Buy in various leadership positions. He described himself as an entrepreneur with multiple trades, including home theater installation, tax preparation and working in the rental car business. He said he is active in the Cliffdale West Community Watch group.
Garvin has never run for political office before. He said he was motivated to campaign for city council as a way to give back to his community, especially in supporting those in his district who are struggling financially. If elected, Garvin said he will focus on improving local economic development, particularly in attracting new and local businesses to District 8 through “inclusive growth.” He also expressed a desire to support veterans and their families, as well as to bring transparency to how the city council spends taxpayer dollars.
“One of the things I’ve always done is being able to help people,” Garvin said. “So [for example], your toilet’s broken, and you need to find a way to get it fixed. I’m the person. I don’t know how to fix a toilet, but I may know somebody who does. So I’m looking more for the transparency part to be able to take the information that’s given to me or the query, the question, and be able to find somebody who can help solve it. So ultimately it’s just solving problems — that’s the biggest thing I want to do. Be transparent and be able to help as many people as I can.”
Travis Hamed
Hamed, who moved to Fayetteville at 8 years old, said he has lived here for most of his life. He graduated high school from Fayetteville Academy, and said he attended East Carolina University for a couple years before deciding to return to Fayetteville to work in the family business, a used car dealership. He is currently the general manager at the dealership, Sell Your Car Today.
Hamed is also a newcomer to politics. He said he was motivated to run for city council in an effort to improve public safety and change Fayetteville’s reputation of being a crime-ridden city. If elected, Hamed said he wants to focus on crime reduction and fiscal responsibility, particularly in ensuring city council’s spending practices are transparent and provide solutions to the challenges residents are facing, like economic instability. He is also passionate about bringing more small businesses to west Fayetteville. He believes the root cause of crime is poverty and hopes to take steps to address the underlying issue.
“What really pushed me was seeing crime rise and city council just continue to spend money or throw money at an issue without any accountability,” he said. “Too often they repeat the same problems without offering us the real solutions. In business, every dollar matters, so I just want to bring real accountability and leadership to city council by providing solutions rather than just reiterating the problems.”
Shaun McMillan
A U.S. Army veteran, McMillan was born in the Fayetteville area, but moved frequently while growing up as his father was in the military. He has lived in Fayetteville since 2007, and was stationed at Fort Bragg for part of his service. A local activist and community organizer, McMillan regularly speaks at Fayetteville City Council meetings, often on the topic of police transparency. McMillan was involved in the formation of Fayetteville Police Accountability Community Taskforce (PACT), a local organization focused on social justice issues.
He is also involved in the local grassroots community organizing group, Fayetteville Freedom for All, and has advocated for independent oversight of the Fayetteville Police Department and for the creation of the city’s Office of Community Safety. In addition, McMillan works in the entertainment industry as a professional actor.
McMillan has never run for political office before. As a first-time candidate, he said he wants to continue pressing the issues he’s passionate about, including public safety, economic inequality, bringing transparency and accountability to local government, and police oversight.
“People are concerned about safety on many, many levels,” McMillan said. “There are concerns about violent crime that have to be addressed here in western Fayetteville. But there’s also a sense of uncertainty about the times that we’re heading into when we talk about safety.
“I like to think of it in terms of being holistic. When people talk about violent crime, you can’t separate that from the root causes of crime, in terms of poverty, in terms of the affordability crisis that residents in District 8 are experiencing now, in terms of insecurity of things like jobs and benefits. There’s a lot that we need to do to ensure that we’ll stay safe through tumultuous times.”
McMillan’s activism has in the past led to confrontations with law enforcement. In February, he was arrested during a protest in Fayetteville against N.C. Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin’s efforts to cancel votes in the N.C. Supreme Court election. McMillan was charged with resisting a public officer, a Class 2 misdemeanor in North Carolina. The case is pending in the Cumberland County District Court.
The charge stemmed from an interaction McMillan had with a Fayetteville police officer who was attempting to enforce the city’s noise ordinance, which police alleged protestors were breaking. McMillan said he was tasked with speaking to police on behalf of organizers, but was arrested when he tried to speak with the officer about it. “My thoughts on it are that it shouldn’t have happened,” he told CityView. “We should have been allowed to hold a rally, a peaceful rally, free of harassment.”
Garvin, Hamad and McMillan will compete in the primary election on Oct. 7. The top two vote-getters will compete in the general election on Nov. 4.
