{"id":1364,"date":"2019-11-01T03:12:43","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T03:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/?p=1364"},"modified":"2023-03-27T15:52:20","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T15:52:20","slug":"jillian-johnson-sustainability-affordability-public-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/2019\/11\/01\/jillian-johnson-sustainability-affordability-public-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"Jillian Johnson: Sustainability, affordability, public engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"
At yet another Durham City Council candidate forum, three very vocal challengers were questioning the competency of three incumbent City Council members.<\/span><\/p>\n Among the targets was Jillian Johnson, Durham\u2019s mayor pro tem and council member since 2015.<\/span> Johnson remained calm, unemotional and confident. \u201cI have tried very hard to focus on the issues and to not publicly criticize other candidates positions during the campaign. We just have different policies,\u201d she said after the October forum.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Johnson is running for re-election for an at-large City Council seat. A big theme of her campaign is collaborative leadership, a commitment made concrete by her joint <\/span>\u201cBull City Together\u201d<\/span><\/a> platform with fellow incumbents Charlie Reece<\/a> and Javiera Caballero<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Johnson moved from Virginia to Durham in 1999, an 18-year-old Duke University freshman drawn to public policy and community activism. Four years later, she stayed, eager to put her newly earned degree to work for the city.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDurham just felt like home. It felt like a place where I could do the kind of work I wanted to do, have the kind of community I was looking for, and have my kids in a diverse and fun city,\u201d she said. <\/span>
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\n<\/span>The challenger candidates, often joined by supporters in the audience, huffed skeptically when Johnson\u00a0 dug into policy and community engagement plans like her \u201cBeyond Policing\u201d conflict resolution solution to gun violence in Durham.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
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