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Winston-Salem Study Group Recommends 10-Member City Council

A meeting of the Winston-Salem City Council. APRIL LAISSLE/WFDD

A Winston-Salem study group is recommending that the city change to a 10-member city council.

The Winston-Salem Local Governance Study Commission voted for the change on Wednesday. The recommendation calls for eight members to be elected by wards and two elected citywide.

The current council is made up of eight members, elected by ward.

According to a press release, council members would continue to be elected to four-year terms, with partisan elections held on even-numbered years. The mayor would be elected at large and only vote at council meetings to break a tie.

The commission was formed last May, with an original goal of having the recommendations in place before the start of the 2020 legislative session.

The suggestions will now be presented to Mayor Allen Joines and N.C. Representatives Donny Lambeth and Debra Conrad. They will also be sent on to the City Council, which by law is allowed to change any aspect of the city's election process except for the timing of council elections.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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