Hondros keeps seat in Fayetteville District 9 race
Incumbent Fayetteville Councilman Deno Hondros will retain his District 9 seat for a second term, according to unofficial results from Tuesday night’s general election.
Hondros, who received 1,209 votes, faced newcomer Fredlisha Lansana, who received 596 votes.
According to the unofficial results, another nine write-in votes were cast in the district.
This will be Hondros' second term.
Candidate reactions
Following Tuesday night’s results, Hondros said he considered himself “blessed and humbled” to be able to serve a second term.
“First of all, I want to thank God … District 9 does not belong to me, it belongs to the voters... I want to thank my opponent for running a good race and believe anyone willing to run ... for an elected office as a public servant is a good person.”
In a statement, Lansana congratulated Hondros on his election victory.
“I want to thank the Lord, voters, volunteers and family members who supported me,” she said. “I will continue to serve my community by fostering youth empowerment, homelessness support, supporting our educators and students, among other passions.”
What's next
Hondros said during his first term in office, he learned a lot about processes and procedures while seeing how Fayetteville works with local representatives in state and federal government, as well as with Fayetteville Public Works and Cumberland County.
Hondros said that he has seen some headway made in public safety, but thinks there still is work to be done.
“I love Fayetteville. It’s my hometown,” he said. “I think we’ve come a long way, but we can never rest our laurels on that. We can always get better. My personal goal is to look in the morning each morning and have the day be better than yesterday.”
He said that during his first race, he campaigned on improvements to public safety, housing and homelessness in the city.
Since then, he said, the city has created an Office of Community Service and has budgeted to hire a director for it.
He said the office will free up the police department by focusing on homelessness and mental health.
He said he would like to see the Office of Community Safety continue to get “built out," allowing the Fayetteville Police Department to focus on violent crime, while the office has resources like violence interrupters and conflict resolution.
“We have to give folks a positive alternative so they don’t fall to negative alternatives,” he said.
Along with homelessness and mental health, Hondro said, he’s seen the city leverage public and private partnerships, while also seeing a homeless day resource center open — the latter of which he credited the prior council with spearheading.
“(The resource center is) not a magic wand, but it is a conduit for that population to get connected to the resources out there,” he said.
Another five projects in the city, he said, will add more than 200 transitional housing units to the city.
Hondros said in the current election, he ran on a platform focused on economic development, attainable housing and public safety.
Economic development has factors like land, sites and buildings, which he said can be outside of the city’s control.
However, Hondros said, the city can focus on quality of life through parks and recreation programs and affordable housing.
He said while he appreciates Tuesday’s win, he is ready “to get a good night’s rest” and “roll up” his sleeves to get back to work Wednesday.
Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528.
More: Fayetteville Observer Voter Guide: Meet the Fayetteville City Council District 9 candidates
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Councilman Deno Hondros elected to second term
