The Cary Report

Good people of Cary,

It is the morning after Election Day, and the results are inside.

I stayed up late last night to make sure I got all of the results prior to finishing this report. While I’m sure you already read all about Democrats taking back control of the House and Senate (by pretty significant margins), there is quite a bit happening locally too that you’ll read about below.

The featured story this week is the Taste of China festival, which takes over downtown on Saturday. The Black Creek Greenway has also fully reopened, seven months ahead of schedule, and it is this week’s destination. I took a stroll along it a few days ago, and it is one of the best spots in town right now to see the leaves change at peak foliage.

And I am excited to announce The Cary Puzzler, a series of games that will run weekly along with the report. This week’s is a news quiz, which you can check out here.

All of this, and more, below.

Thank you for continuing to support local,
James

Polls closed at 7:30 PM on Tuesday, and Cary voters decided the three amendments on their ballot plus two Wake County bond questions. Here is what happened.

Turnout was heavy before Election Day even arrived. Wake County finished early voting with 326,679 ballots cast, which is 128 percent of the county’s entire early vote in 2022. Statewide, 2,807,434 ballots were accepted, up 30.4 percent from the same point in 2022.

The night’s biggest race was called early. Roy Cooper, the former governor, beat Michael Whatley for the U.S. Senate seat that Thom Tillis is leaving, and the Associated Press called it at 8:24 PM, less than an hour after the polls closed. Cooper has never lost an election, through the state legislature, four terms as attorney general, and two terms as governor. He is the first Democrat North Carolina has sent to the U.S. Senate since Kay Hagan won in 2008.

Voter photo ID amendment: APPROVED, 60 percent. Photo ID for voting in person has been in the state constitution since 2018. This amendment extends the requirement to voting by mail, where showing ID means including a photocopy of it in the ballot envelope, or filling out an exception form. That rule existed before as a regular state law. It now sits in the constitution too, so a future legislature cannot change it on its own.

Income Tax Cap Amendment: APPROVED, 62 percent. This amendment does not lower anyone’s tax. The state income tax rate is already set to fall from 3.99 percent to 3.49 percent in 2027. What the amendment does is cap future increases at 3.5 percent, so the rate cannot climb back above that line.

Property tax limits amendment: APPROVED, 60 percent. The amendment does not set a number itself. It orders the state legislature to pass laws that limit how much local governments can raise property taxes, so any cap on what Cary or Wake County can collect gets written later in Raleigh.

Wake County read the ballot differently than the state did. Voters here rejected the photo ID amendment, 53 percent against, even as it passed statewide. On the two tax amendments the county said yes, but only barely: 51.2 percent for the income tax cap and 51.3 percent for the property tax limits.

There were also two Wake County bonds, separate from the amendments. The school bond, $680 million for the Wake County Public School System, PASSED with 63 percent. The Wake Tech bond, $149.1 million for Wake Technical Community College, PASSED with 63 percent. Together, the two questions totaled $829.1 million. For a $500,000 house, the two bonds together would add up to about $25 more a year, or about $2 extra a month, in taxes.

The sixth annual Taste of China festival is at and around Downtown Cary Park on Saturday from 11 to 5, and admission is free. If you are downtown that day, you will not miss it.

The Chinese-American Friendship Association of North Carolina puts the festival on with the Town of Cary. The food is clearly the main draw. Past years had booths cooking from regions all over China (Henan, Shanxi, Sichuan, Guangdong), and the lines form for dumplings, noodles, and lamb kebabs. There are also lion and dragon dances, martial arts demonstrations, and folk dancing through the day, and a children’s pavilion with face painting and balloon twisting.

The photo above is last year’s crowd on Academy Street, which gives you a sense of the size of this thing. Per CAFA, over 20,000 people came to last year’s festival, and the street held more than 40 food vendors and 30 artisan booths.

The festival actually started in Raleigh, not Cary. CAFA held the first one at Bicentennial Plaza in 2018 and again in 2019. It then stopped for three years. It came back in Cary in the spring of 2023 as a street festival on Academy Street and moved into Downtown Cary Park in 2024. CAFA was founded in 1996, so this year is the group’s 30th anniversary, and this is the biggest event it runs. CAFA says it has more than 2,000 members, the largest Chinese American organization in the state.

Before you go, know that South Academy Street will be closed to traffic between Dry Avenue and East Park Street from 8 in the morning until 7 at night. Parking will be much easier this year than last thanks to the new parking decks, and the Town’s downtown parking page lays out the options.

Start at the north end. The part of the Black Creek Greenway that just opened is the stretch by Lake Crabtree at the Old Reedy Creek Road Trailhead, and it is the best place to see the most recent renovation. The Town announced on Monday that the full 7.1 miles, from Fred G. Bond Metro Park to Old Reedy Creek Road, have reopened, which closes out a renovation that began in June 2024 and finished seven months ahead of schedule.

The trail is widened to 12 feet, the drainage is improved, a new pedestrian bridge carries it over Cary Parkway, and a connection near Dynasty Drive opened earlier this year. The final cost is expected to come in around $17.3 million, under the $17.5 million bid, and according to council member Lori Bush, more than $14 million of the project’s cost came from federal funding. The reopening also takes Cary past 100 miles of greenways.

Go now for the color. The trees along the lake are at their peak this week, and the new concrete gives you an easy out-and-back with the lake beside you the whole way.

If you have a free hour this week, I would highly suggest parking at the Old Reedy Creek Road Trailhead and admiring the beautiful autumn views of Lake Crabtree.