Mona Singh

Large AI companies have been bullying state and local governments into approving large data centers and granting huge tax benefits, with little or no protections against their harmful impacts. A single data center can consume resources equivalent to 100,000 households, straining essential resources such as water and power, which hurts affordability through increased energy and water costs. Data centers cause environmental harm by damaging water and air quality, and adding heat and noise. They contribute few jobs once the construction is done. Wake County is a growing metropolitan area and, therefore, no place for a data center. I will insist that Wake County’s environmental resources be protected for use by residents.

Our federal and state governments are cutting support for education. Wake County schools are already suffering from abysmal infrastructure, including leaking roofs, broken HVAC, and suspected mold. I will ensure that public schools get the funding they need to provide quality education to our students, including those with special needs. I will work to find ways to provide the necessary funds for all aspects of our schools, including buildings and equipment, support (salaries, benefits, training) for WCPSS teachers and other staff.

Besides additional funding, one way to improve workforce preparedness is by engaging the community. Wake County has a phenomenal pool of educated people and especially retirees who want to give back to the community. I will work to advance community participation in education through programs such as Communities in Schools for mentoring students so that students whose families may lack college-educated adults can benefit from the experience and expertise of retirees, especially to enhance STEAM offerings across our schools.

As I know from my own career, new technologies and business practices emerge in surprising ways. Therefore, I will ensure not only that Wake Tech has the resources, both staff and infrastructure, to keep its curricula up-to-date with new technology but also that it has offerings for adults to upskill themselves, especially in industries that are gaining prominence in the County. Even people who are currently employed may future-proof their employability by preparing for upcoming careers.

A big challenge for Wake Tech students with children is child care and especially so for working adults, especially women and single parents. I will examine how to expand options for all, including childcare grants and universal preschool.

I will seek to expand Wake Tech’s partnerships with public schools. For example, the Cooperative Innovative High Schools program enables students to earn a high school diploma while earning credits for an associate degree. I will seek to expand it from four schools currently by finding ways to support staff (for teaching and coordinating with outside stakeholders) and transportation solutions so they are viable for students without personal cars.

I will seek to expand apprenticeship opportunities for students at local companies. I will foster closer relationships with leading employers of Wake Tech graduates, where they contribute financially, hire student interns, and provide experienced employees as adjunct teaching staff to bring real-world experience to guide students. Given the cost to a company of recruiting qualified employees, such support by them would be beneficial to them, not just to students.

Broadband access for all and County libraries are crucial to workforce development. Not only do libraries level access to knowledge, they also provide computers for learning and job search and facilities to use for job interviews. I will try to ensure that libraries across the County have modern resources and new libraries are architected for all these essential purposes with agility in meeting future community needs.

I will advocate for adequate funding for County Health and Human Services, emphasizing disease prevention (free immunizations, needle exchanges, public education about hygiene and available programs) and early intervention (improved access to health clinics) to reduce costs. I will evaluate if we can increase the number of regional clinics and expand telehealth options so that a sick person doesn’t suffer unnecessarily or infect others at work, school, or in a bus. Further, I will ensure that appropriate funds are allocated to services such as maternal and child health, and immunizations, with a focus on helping those in greatest need, such as low-income residents. For immigrant communities, I will ensure that there is adequate language support and that these services are suitably advertised (e.g., through radio and social media, partnerships with ethnic stores and places of worship) so that everyone receives public health information and partakes of the available services. I will institute data gathering and analysis protocols to continually track demand for health services to enable dynamic reallocation of resources across the County.

I will advocate setting up a network of social workers (and volunteers) in each community. This network can help spread the word about the available public health services and encourage participation in them, while also helping individuals with their specific needs, including administrative help in signing up for programs such as Medicaid and CHIP. Federal cuts have made qualification harder but if we can make sure that all who qualify are enrolled, that will benefit them and produce revenue for the County.

Mental health and substance abuse crises are social work and community challenges rather than police challenges. I will advocate for instituting a system of community social workers. People who need mental health and substance abuse help often need it more than once. Thus, we can acquire data about their specific case along with the social worker adding social knowledge, e.g., about whether they are going through job loss or a divorce. This knowledge can help improve targeting of the services for each incident, including routing mobile crisis calls better, and before an incident occurs, bringing up softer interventions such as alerting a peer volunteer to chat with an at-risk person to ease their anxiety or remind them to take their medication. The idea is to support a 24x7 service while minimizing the involvement of traditional police and healthcare.

I will support County programs such as One Water that seek to ensure sustainable and safe water options (including PFAS testing). I will work with County Soil and Water supervisors to make sure they have the resources they need and maintain transparency about water quality and supply.

We need better preparedness for the variety of emergencies that might arise. Hurricanes and tornados can mess with transportation, power, and water, and overwhelm the healthcare system. Heat emergencies are increasingly common; we have cooling stations for people who need them but they may not be adequate and our public communication leaves room for improvement. In addition, the Harris nuclear power station is based in Wake, and we need to be ready for any emergency there.

I will make sure our emergency services are well-equipped and well-staffed. County services need to adequately coordinate with the services provided by the constituent municipalities.

I have noticed that too many elected officials avoid taking clear positions. When forced to do so, they may express concern (about water quality, privacy, …) without endorsing any specific course of action. Some politicians can get away with boasting that they are not scientists.

Elected officials owe it to their constituents to make an effort to understand societal problems and the trade-offs between alternative solutions, and to take public positions for which they would hold themselves accountable. If they were to do so, they would need to be virtually forced to bring forth evidence and not rely on magical thinking or vague platitudes.

Many real situations don’t provide immediate and personal rewards or harms. And, science is not a one-and-done enterprise, so what to scientists is the best feature of science (its ability to self-correct) appears to lay people as a weakness because of its lack of immutability. Thus, interventions such as vaccines or face masks or even Pasteurization can appear unnecessary and this uncertainty can be exploited by anti-science social media personalities to promote snake oil solutions. Public officials can help combat nonsense by highlighting the scientific evidence behind their proposals, while indicating the gaps in current knowledge and how additional knowledge may lead them to withdraw current recommendations.

A scientific attitude with its emphasis on evidence can apply even to everyday decisions. I am an advocate of people-driven governance and of community engagement. I will investigate online tools that the County can host to help neighborhood communities to deliberate on problems that matter to them and exchange ideas about alternative solutions. When these problems and solutions affect larger regions within the County, they can provide a good starting point for further discussion, e.g., in public meetings. An important component here would be the involvement of scientists with the relevant expertise to provide advice based on the underlying science and help the public understand the consequences of various proposals. This would be a bottom-up approach of rebuilding public trust in science.