These 4 women want to fill a vacant seat on the Orange County Board of Commissioners

Four women, including a former commissioner, want to fill a vacant seat on the Orange County Board of Commissioners this fall.

Marilyn Carter, Rani Dasi, Penny Rich and Anna Richards applied by the July 19 deadline to replace Commissioner Mark Dorosin.

Dorosin, who is leaving July 31, has accepted a faculty job at Florida A&M University College of Law in Orlando.

The Orange County Democratic Party will review the applications and send three nominees to the county commissioners, who are expected to fill the seat Sept. 2. The commissioners can choose one of the nominees or choose their own candidate.

The new commissioner will serve until November 2022, when a special election is scheduled to fill the remaining two years of Dorosin’s term in office.

Rich is the only candidate who has served as a commissioner, narrowly losing her seat after a recount in the March 2020 primary. The recount gave Dorosin seven more votes, re-electing him to a third term in office, which expires in 2024.

State law requires that his replacement be a member of the Democratic Party living in District 1, which includes Chapel Hill and Carrboro. Commissioner Jean Hamilton, who was elected in 2020, also represents District 1 voters.

If chosen, Dasi would be the fourth commissioner who has served on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School Board.

The candidates are:

▪ Carter: The retired technology professional, with experience in engineering, operations management and diversity leadership, is a member of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP and the State Executive Committee of the Orange County Democratic Primary. She also is a former chair of the local Democratic Party; a member of the Governor’s Commission for Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Abuse Services; an advocate for disabilities awareness; a founding member of UNC’s Persian Studies Advisory Group; and a member of the Iranian Cultural Society of North Carolina.

“I am motivated to apply for the open position on the Board of Orange County Commissioners by a promise I made to my mother, Alice, to serve my community to my fullest ability,” Carter said in her application. “I share this personal anecdote, because it lies at the very core of my being, and it also depicts how good healthcare, timely interventions, early childhood education and excellent public schools meant that a child with a disability, in this case me, was not left behind.”

▪ Dasi: The current member — and former chair and vice chair — of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School Board also has served as chair and vice chair on the board of the nonprofit group, The Walking Classroom, which promotes exercise while learning. She is a member of the N.C. Beginning Teacher of the Year Steering Committee, an executive board member of the N.C. Caucus of Black School Board Members, and has been co-director of the Northwestern University Triangle Area Alumni Admission Council.

“I have focused on education as a pathway to community health, and as I have gotten deeper into that work, it has become more apparent that so many factors outside of schools influence overall community wellness and what happens in schools,” Dasi said. “County government has the scale and resources to provide structural supports which more broadly contribute to community health.”

▪ Rich: The former chair and vice chair of the county commissioners also has served as a member of the Orange Water and Sewer Authority board of directors and the Chapel Hill Town Council for three years. She is a member of the Democratic Women and the NCDP State Executive Committee. Rich was recognized last year with the Orange County Emergency Services Award and with the Chamber for a Greater Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chair’s Award for Leadership in Public-Private Partnership for her leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. She also received the Old North State Award earlier this year.

“I am dedicated to making Orange County a place for everyone to experience a good life by providing a sound basic education for every student; creating meaningful jobs that pay a living wage; creating housing options for our income diverse community; protecting green spaces for recreation; providing robust public transportation options ... addressing urgent climate concerns; protecting civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights; rejecting bigotry in all its forms ... and continuing the push for broadband to become a utility, making it available and affordable for all of our residents, especially those in rural Orange,” Rich said.

▪ Richards: The social justice advocate and community organizer is the former president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP and the 2019 North Carolina NAACP branch president of the year. She also worked as part of the Silent Sam Coalition to remove UNC’s Confederate monument from campus. Richards retired in 2013 from Boeing, where she worked as a finance operations executive. Last year, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber named her its Citizen of the Year.

“As a lifelong volunteer and social justice advocate, I work to advance opportunities for all citizens. I never saw elected office as my mechanism to serve,” Richards said. “However, as the coronavirus disproportionately impacted so many in this the wealthiest county in North Carolina, I realized that there were limits to the impact of volunteer efforts alone. … I see this unexpected appointment as a way to add my community volunteer perspective to the process.”

For more information about the candidates and their priorities, go to tinyurl.com/yachzxp6.

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