Kevin Foy

Last updated
Kevin Foy
Mayor of Chapel Hill
In office
December 3, 2001 –December 3, 2009
Preceded by Rosemary Waldorf
Succeeded by Mark Kleinschmidt
Chapel Hill Town Council
In office
December 1, 1997 –December 3, 2001
Personal details
Born (1956-01-28) January 28, 1956 (age 63)
NationalityAmerican
Political party Democratic
Spouse(s)Nancy Feder [1]
Residence Chapel Hill, North Carolina, U.S. [2]
Alma mater Kenyon College (BA)
NCCU School of Law (JD)
OccupationPolitician, professor, lawyer

Kevin C. Foy (born January 28, 1956) [2] is an American politician and professor who served as Mayor of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, from 2001 to 2009. He is a member of the Democratic Party. As mayor, Foy focused on land-use ordinances and urban planning in the town. He now teaches at North Carolina Central University School of Law.

Democratic Party (United States) Major political party in the United States

The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with its rival, the Republican Party. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Democratic Party was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest active political party.

Urban planning technical and political process concerned with the use of land and design of the urban environment

Urban planning is a technical and political process concerned with the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportation, communications, and distribution networks. Urban planning deals with physical layout of human settlements. The primary concern is the public welfare, which includes considerations of efficiency, sanitation, protection and use of the environment, as well as effects on social and economic activities. Urban planning is considered an interdisciplinary field that includes social engineering and design sciences. It is closely related to the field of urban design and some urban planners provide designs for streets, parks, buildings and other urban areas. Urban planning is also referred to as urban and regional planning, regional planning, town planning, city planning, rural planning, urban development or some combination in various areas worldwide.

The North Carolina Central University School of Law is the law school associated with North Carolina Central University. The school is fully accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) and the North Carolina State Bar Council, and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). According to NC Central's official 2013 ABA-required disclosures, 14.8% of the Class of 2013 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required employment nine months after graduation.

Contents

Education and early work

Foy graduated from Kenyon College in 1979 and later worked for two Democratic Ohio state senators. After several years, he attended North Carolina Central University School of Law studying environmental law. Foy paid attention to land-use decisions made by the town of Chapel Hill and noted that in 1995 the town was "a really nice place that was going to be exploited by people selling it out." [1]

Kenyon College private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, United States

Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio. It was founded in 1824 by Philander Chase. Kenyon College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.

Ohio Senate Upper house of the Ohio legislature

The Ohio Senate is the upper house of the Ohio General Assembly. The State Senate, which meets in the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, first convened in 1803. Senators are elected for four year terms, staggered every two years such that half of the seats are contested at each election. Even numbered seats and odd numbered seats are contested in separate election years. The President of the Ohio Senate presides over the body when in session, and is currently Larry Obhof.

Environmental law rules of law, promoting the protection of the natural environment

Environmental law, also known as environmental and natural resources law, is a collective address environmental pollution. A related but distinct set of regulatory regimes, now strongly influenced by environmental legal principles, focus on the management of specific natural resources, such as forests, minerals, or fisheries. Other areas, such as environmental impact assessment, may not fit neatly into either category, but are nonetheless important components of environmental law.

Career

1995–2001: Litigation and town council

Foy and his neighbors sued Chapel Hill in 1995 to prevent development that the town had approved of 15 houses in a floodplain of 3–4 acres (1.2–1.6 ha). Foy did some of the legal work to save on costs. They lost the case (Lloyd vs. Chapel Hill) at both the district and appellate levels, though the town renegotiated with the developer to keep the space open. [1]

Real estate development multifaceted business encompassing activities related to buildings and land

Real estate development, or property development, is a business process, encompassing activities that range from the renovation and re-lease of existing buildings to the purchase of raw land and the sale of developed land or parcels to others. Real estate developers are the people and companies who coordinate all of these activities, converting ideas from paper to real property. Real estate development is different from construction, although many developers also manage the construction process.

North Carolina Court of Appeals

The North Carolina Court of Appeals is the only intermediate appellate court in the state of North Carolina. It is composed of fifteen members who sit in rotating panels of three. The Court of Appeals was created by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1967 after voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1965 which "authorized the creation of an intermediate court of appeals to relieve pressure on the North Carolina Supreme Court."

He ran for mayor in 1995 after he and his neighborhood had lost a second land-use case to the town. He and several other neighborhood groups opposed the then-proposed development of Meadowmont, North Carolina. The incumbent mayor, Kenneth Broun, was not seeking reelection, so Foy ran against town council member Rosemary Waldorf. Foy was labeled an "antigrowth" candidate, which he said was inaccurate, and he was seen as a newcomer to the town. He was endorsed by the Sierra Club and the Independent Weekly . Foy spent $3,000 and lost the election receiving 46 percent of the vote. [3]

In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town.

Meadowmont, North Carolina United States historic place

Meadowmont is a mixed-use community in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which contains the Meadowmont House and Meadowmont Village, among other notable locations, in addition to residential areas, shopping, and office space and has been profiled in recent years in local periodicals such as Chapel Hill Magazine.

Sierra Club environmental organization

The Sierra Club is an environmental organization in the United States. It was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by the Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who became its first president. The Sierra Club primarily operates in the United States; an affiliated organization, Sierra Club Canada, operates in Canada and deals exclusively with Canadian issues.

In his 1997 campaign for town council, Foy again received endorsements from the Sierra Club and the Independent Weekly as well as support from several sitting members. He received the second-highest number of votes among the eight candidates, securing a seat. [4] He was sworn in to town council on December 1, 1997. [5] He decided not to run for mayor in 1999, only two years into his four-year town-council term and thought Waldorf was doing a good job. [4]

2001–2009: Mayoralty

Mayor Waldorf decided not to run for a third term in 2001, prompting Foy to enter the race. [4] He ran against Lee Pavao, a fellow town council member. [6] Donations from individuals were limited to $200; each candidate spent $25,000 on the campaign. [7] Foy's campaign focused on three things: protecting the environment; inclusivity, like affordable housing; and university–town relations. [8] Pavao, a businessman, supported Meadowmont's development, though both were in favor of "smart growth". [6] During the election, Foy continued running his law practice. He won by a considerable margin, against expectations that the race would be closer. [8]

Affordable housing housing affordable to those with a median household income

Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a median household income or below as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affordable housing refers to mortgages and number of forms that exist along a continuum – from emergency shelters, to transitional housing, to non-market rental, to formal and informal rental, indigenous housing, and ending with affordable home ownership.

Smart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl. It also advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a range of housing choices. The term "smart growth" is particularly used in North America. In Europe and particularly the UK, the terms "compact city", "urban densification" or "urban intensification" have often been used to describe similar concepts, which have influenced government planning policies in the UK, the Netherlands and several other European countries.

Foy was sworn in as Mayor of Chapel Hill for his first two-year term on December 3, 2001. [5] He was reelected in 2003 against just write-in votes and in 2005 against a "stealth candidate" who had moved to Chapel Hill just a week before the filing day. Local news noted that Foy had done a similar thing in 1995. [8] The "stealth candidate", Kevin A. Wolff, ran again in 2007.

As mayor, Foy negotiated the expansion of the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). [9] [10] Several times, UNC wanted to expand, so community members spoke in opposition to the town council, and the mayor and council generally approved the expansion if it was appropriate. [11] He also formed a downtown partnership group with input from UNC and businesses on Franklin Street. [12] After town manager Cal Horton's resignation in September 2006, [13] Foy selected Roger Stancil to fill the position, who was unanimously confirmed by the council. [14]

Foy was the chair of the state's Metropolitan Mayor's Coalition, promoting the fare-free [5] Chapel Hill Transit (CHT) and asking the Department of Transportation to keep maintaining major roads. He kept CHT from merging with the Triangle Transit Authority in 2003 and kept the town library separate from that of the county. [10]

Foy has remarked that his two main achievements while in office were rewriting the town's land-use ordinance and renaming a main thoroughfare in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. [8] [9] The town manager (Horton) had recommended an elaborate process for citizen input about land use, which tired some town council members, though Foy kept up the energy to secure reform. [15] Airport Road (part of NC Hwy. 86) was renamed Martin Luther King Boulevard, which raised tensions in Chapel Hill over financial concerns of changing addresses on paper, giving up a long-time address, and race. [16] [9] The United States Conference of Mayors awarded Foy the Climate Protection Outstanding Achievement Award in June 2008 and named Chapel Hill America's Most Livable City in June 2009. [5]

Foy and the council asked the state legislature to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (1996) and had Chapel Hill grant domestic partnerships. [17] Foy did not seek reelection in 2009 and considered a run for U.S. Senate in 2010. [18] Support for incumbent senator Richard Burr, however, was greater than that of any Democrat, including Foy. [19] Foy endorsed the 2009 campaign of his eventual successor, Mark Kleinschmidt. [20]

Post-mayoralty

Foy teaches courses on environmental law, businesses, remedies, and torts at North Carolina Central University School of Law, where he received his Juris Doctor degree. [21]

Electoral history

2001 Chapel Hill mayoral election results [22]
CandidateVotes%
Kevin Foy4,99356.61
Lee Pavao3,49039.57
Cam Hill1171.33
Write-in2202.49
Total votes8,820100
2003 Chapel Hill mayoral election results [23]
CandidateVotes%
Kevin Foy5,52092.74
Write-in, Pat Killian1823.06
Write-in, other2504.20
Total votes5,952100
2005 Chapel Hill mayoral election results [24]
CandidateVotes%
Kevin Foy4,28977.78
Kevin A. Wolff1,17821.36
Write-in470.85
Total votes5,514100
2007 Chapel Hill mayoral election results [25]
CandidateVotes%
Kevin Foy4,33370.17
Kevin A. Wolff1,80329.20
Write-in390.63
Total votes6,175100

See also

Related Research Articles

Chapel Hill, North Carolina town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States

Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Chatham, and Durham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 57,233 in the 2010 census, making Chapel Hill the 15th-largest city in the state. Chapel Hill, Durham, and the state capital, Raleigh, make up the corners of the Research Triangle, with a total population of 1,998,808.

Orange County, North Carolina U.S. county in North Carolina

Orange County is a county located in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2010 census, the population was 133,801. Its county seat is Hillsborough.

Carrboro, North Carolina Town in North Carolina, United States

Carrboro is a town in Orange County in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The population was 19,582 at the 2010 census. The town, which is part of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill combined statistical area, was named after North Carolina industrialist Julian Shakespeare Carr.

English Democrats

The English Democrats is a right-wing to far-right, English nationalist political party active in England. A minor party, it has no elected representatives at any level of UK government.

Walter H. Dalton North Carolina politician

Walter H. Dalton is an American attorney and politician who served as the 33rd Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, he served six terms in the state senate before his election to the office of lieutenant governor in 2008.

David Price (American politician) U.S. Representative from North Carolina

David Eugene Price is an American politician serving as the U.S. Representative for North Carolina's 4th congressional district since 1997, previously holding the position from 1987 to 1995. A member of the Democratic Party, his district includes Orange County and parts of Wake County and Durham County, including the cities of Raleigh, Cary, Durham, and Chapel Hill.

Thomas A. Stith III is a North Carolina political figure. Stith was a member of the city council of Durham, North Carolina from 1999 to 2007. More recently, he has served as Program Director for Economic Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise.

Pat McCrory American politician

Patrick Lloyd McCrory is an American businessman, politician, and radio host who served as the 74th Governor of North Carolina from January 2013 to January 1, 2017. He served as the 53rd Mayor of Charlotte from 1995 to 2009, and was appointed by President George W. Bush to the United States Homeland Security Advisory Council from 2002 to 2006.

Franklin Street (Chapel Hill)

Franklin Street is a prominent thoroughfare in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Historic Franklin Street is considered the center of social life for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as the town of Chapel Hill.

Ranked-choice voting (RCV), also known as instant-runoff voting (IRV), is used for state primary, congressional, and presidential elections in Maine and for local elections in 11 cities. Those cities include San Francisco, California; Oakland, California; Berkeley, California; San Leandro, California; Takoma Park, Maryland; Basalt, Colorado; Telluride, Colorado; St. Paul, Minnesota; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Portland, Maine. It is pending implementation in several additional cities, including in 2019 in Las Cruces, New Mexico and St. Louis Park, Minnesota. RCV is commonly used for student government and other non-governmental elections. It has been proposed for presidential elections and will be used in four states in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries.

Libertarian Party of North Carolina

The Libertarian Party of North Carolina (LPNC) is the North Carolina affiliate of the Libertarian Party.

Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce organization

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce is the local chamber of commerce for the towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro, and Southern Orange County in North Carolina, United States. The Chamber of Commerce's role has included working with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Athletic Department to promote visitor spending in the downtown area and helping businesses to relocate to Franklin Street and substantially vacant shopping malls, such as Meadowmont on the eastern edge of Chapel Hill. Along with UNC's Center for Global Initiatives, School of Social Work, and Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development, and Duke University's Center for International Development, the Chamber of Commerce is part of the Institute for Sustainable Development.

The mayor of Raleigh is the mayor of Raleigh, the state capital of North Carolina, in the United States. Raleigh operates with council-manager government, under which the mayor is elected separately from Raleigh City Council, of which he or she is the eighth member.

Same-sex marriage has been legally recognized in the U.S. state of North Carolina since October 10, 2014, when a U.S. District Court judge ruled in General Synod of the United Church of Christ v. Cooper that the state's denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples was unconstitutional. The state's Governor and Attorney General had acknowledged that a recent ruling in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court's decision not to hear an appeal in that case established the unconstitutionality of North Carolina's ban on same-sex marriage. State legislators sought without success to intervene in lawsuits to defend the state's ban on same-sex marriage.

Jonathan Howes was an American politician and urban planner. He served as the Director of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1970 until 1993. Howes began his political career as an elected member of the Chapel Hill Town Council from 1975 to 1987. He was then elected Mayor of Chapel Hill for two consecutive terms from 1987 to 1991. In 1991, North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt appointed Howes as Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, a state cabinet position he held from 1992 to 1997.

Mark J. Kleinschmidt is an American lawyer, teacher, and politician. He served as the Mayor of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, from 2009 until 2015.

Pamela S Hemminger is an American Democratic politician serving as mayor of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, since December 2, 2015. In that year's town election, she unseated Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt.

Lydia E. Lavelle is an American academic and politician. She is the mayor of Carrboro, North Carolina, and a professor of law at North Carolina Central University. She was first elected mayor in 2013, after serving on the Board of Aldermen of Carrboro for six years from 2007 to 2013. When she was elected, she became the first openly-lesbian mayor in North Carolina. She serves on the board of the North Carolina Metropolitan Mayors Coalition and on the North Carolina Commission on Inclusion, to which she was appointed in 2018. As a law professor, she has researched the effects of anti-discrimination laws on LGBT people. In 2014, she and her wife, Alicia Stemper, were the first gay couple to receive a marriage certificate in Orange County, North Carolina, after having two previous ceremonies of union prior to the legalization of gay marriage in North Carolina. In 2015, after receiving their marriage certificate, they held a public celebration of their marriage.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Svara 2008, p. 146.
  2. 1 2 "Kevin C. Foy – Candidate for Chapel Hill Mayor". Indy Week . October 24, 2007. Archived from the original on June 21, 2013. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
  3. ↑ Svara 2008, p. 147.
  4. 1 2 3 Svara 2008, p. 148.
  5. 1 2 3 4 "A resolution honoring the service of Kevin C. Foy" (PDF). Town of Chapel Hill. December 7, 2009. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
  6. 1 2 Geary, Bob (September 12, 2001). "Fight for the Hill". Indy Week . Archived from the original on September 19, 2015. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
  7. ↑ Ross, Kirk (February 12, 2003). "Cost of race takes big leap; Mayor's race shows need for reform". Chapel Hill News. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 23, 2017– via Town of Chapel Hill.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Svara 2008, p. 149.
  9. 1 2 3 "Memories With The Mayors". Chapel Hill Magazine. March 17, 2017. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
  10. 1 2 DeConto, Jesse (December 6, 2009). "Mayor Foy leaving legacy of collaboration". The News & Observer . Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 23, 2017– via North Carolina Metropolitan Mayor's Coalition.
  11. ↑ Svara 2008, p. 152–153.
  12. ↑ Svara 2008, p. 154.
  13. ↑ Svara 2008, p. 159.
  14. ↑ Svara 2008, p. 161.
  15. ↑ Svara 2008, p. 150.
  16. ↑ Svara 2008, p. 150–151.
  17. ↑ Svara 2008, p. 157.
  18. ↑ Schwartz, Joe (August 19, 2009). "Chapel Hill Mayor Kevin Foy tests the Senate waters". Indy Week . Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
  19. ↑ Cowell, Rebekah L. (August 19, 2009). "Dems enter U.S. Senate race with a Burr under their saddles". Indy Week . Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
  20. ↑ Frier, Sarah (October 30, 2009). "Mayor Kevin Foy endorses Mark Kleinschmidt". Daily Tar Heel . Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
  21. ↑ "Kevin C. Foy". North Carolina Central University School of Law. Archived from the original on May 3, 2017. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
  22. ↑ "2001 Municipal and Bond Elections". Orange County. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
  23. ↑ "November 4, 2003 Municipal Election Results by Precinct" (PDF). Orange County, North Carolina. November 11, 2003. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 1, 2017. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
  24. ↑ "Orange County, North Carolina November 8, 2005 Election". Orange County. November 11, 2005. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
  25. ↑ "November 6, 2007 Election - Summary of Results". Orange County. November 13, 2007. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017. Retrieved December 23, 2017.
Bibliography
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.