City Council member Mario Benavente may be new to City Council but is not new to local politics. Benavente has been active in Fayetteville’s issues since he returned to his hometown in 2018.

The 32-year-old was a founding member and former chairman of the Fayetteville Millennial Advisory Commission. He has also been a community activist championing for police reform. Benavente was selected to participate in the Department of Justice’s City-SPIRIT program to identify ways to repurpose the Market House earlier this year.

District 3 includes parts of Fort Bragg and the neighborhoods of Cottonade, Country Club North, Hillendale, Hillendale West, Kornbow, North Hills, Tiffany Pines, University Estates, University Hills and parts of Ponderosa.

The election for Benavente was close. He won only by six votes, and after a recount – requested by incumbent Antonio Jones — Benavente still came out on top.

“I think it went exactly according to plan, the landslide victory. I am, you know, just really grateful for all the friends and supporters who came out and put in hundreds of hours of work and knocked on thousands of doors over all this time,” he said.

The new council member plans to represent District 3’s residents like how a lawyer represents his clients. This makes sense regarding Benavente’s law background. When it comes to contentious topics, Benavente plans to listen to his residents. He says District 3 is diverse but also has a lot of older residents. Residents who have been promised development in the past but have been left ignored.

“I'm here to be their attorney now in city hall, being the most zealous advocate I can be for all of our priorities to become realized,” Benavente said. “They need someone who has the energy and the time and the dedication to finally bring all these things together because they're such a committed, dedicated group of voters that it's easy to take advantage of or take for granted because they're never going to be so frustrated that they don't come to vote. They're never going to give up on the city. They're always going to be involved.”

One big topic Benavente plans to focus on is finding the right candidate for the next police chief. Fayetteville Police Chief Gina Hawkins will step down in January. The city manager with city council's approval will appoint the next chief.

“The biggest qualities I'm looking for in a police chief are they demonstrate able success in the community that they're coming from. If they're from outside of the community or if they're here, demonstrable success [in] things that they've tried to implement locally. It's not just your paper resume. I want to see your extracurriculars. I want to see what clubs you were involved in, what groups you were involved in,” Benavente said.

Benavente also wants to propose an independent civilian oversight committee in regards to the FPD. The current Community Police Advisory Board cannot subpoena records or interviews and can only recommend suggested changes to city council. The authority of the board is advisory only.

“The advisory board can tell the city council, ‘hey, maybe think about this’ and the council can ignore it essentially. And they've done that before with other boards. I've seen them do it,” Benavente said. “It was a mistake just to go with an advisory board because you don't want to placate this issue with the community that has real concerns about ensuring equal justice in Fayetteville.”

When considering which committees Benavente would like to work on, he tells Up & Coming Weekly that the Appointments Committee interests him
the most.

“That's the one that basically reviews all the applications that come in from citizens who want to volunteer to serve on these boards,” Benavente said. “I'm very much interested in being a part of that to make sure that fairness and equity happens on the Appointments Committee so that citizens would want to get involved in the city government and know that they're going to be ... getting a fair shot to serve in a role because those boards and commissions are so crucial.”

The committees that council members are assigned to are decided by the mayor.

Outside of city council, Benavente hopes he can work as a community advocate by attending community watch meetings and working with organizations to bring much-needed resources to the area.

“When I go to the community watch meetings, they give us a list of what the majority of the calls were about that month. And in one community, there was a lot of domestic violence. And at that point, the police really can't do anything until something horrible happens. Why should we be waiting for that to happen before we as a community take action?”

Benavente says not everything needs a governmental solution, but rather have the community come together to solve a problem. In response to the domestic violence uptick in one of the neighborhoods, Benavente says there could be a block party where resources and organizations are available to anyone who may need it.

Other District 3 issues Benavente says he wants to tackle include finishing sidewalk projects, installing stoplights and finding a solution for the predatory realtor calls that are taking advantage of older citizens.

“We know development and investments are coming to this area, but we have to make sure that our communities are truly benefiting from it and not being ran out right here on the five-yard line, that they're losing their homes [and] are not be able to benefit,” Benavente said.

The next Fayetteville City Council meeting is scheduled for Monday, Aug. 22 at 7 p.m.