Alamance County Board of Commissioners

Carissa Graves

Democrat Carissa Graves has previously served as a mayor of Green Level and served on the board for 12 years. After seeing issues, such as healthcare facilities, school board and overall budgeting for the county — she was interested in serving on a larger scale. 

“I've been here for 24 years, and I served in a political arena, but Alamance County still feels like home,” Graves said. 

The school system is an issue Graves specifically cares about, as she used to be a seventh grade math teacher and said she saw first hand how problems affected students and teachers. 

“When people are complaining about not having facilities up to par, I know how important that is for teachers, parents,” Graves said. “People going to a building, they have to feel comfortable so just funding and making sure those areas, make sure the funding is allocated and then actually implemented.”

Graves also said as someone who has grown up in public schools, she believes in their success and wants to see them properly funded, something she said will also help people want to return to the county after graduation. 

Another issue Graves is passionate about is Emergency Medical Services. She said after she found out that the county runs out of ambulances regularly, she realized this was something she needed to prioritize. She said this is something that doesn’t seem like a large issue, until it comes up — but then, especially for people who live in more rural parts of the county, it can become life or death.

“They may not know what it's like for the people that live on the outskirts, or the people that you know maybe further out getting the medical care they need,” Graves said. 

John Paisley Jr.

Republican John Paisley Jr. was appointed to the Alamance County Board of Commissioners in 2014, then ran later that year for a two-year term — but lost by eight points. Paisley has now served a total of five years on the board and is running for reelection this year. 

Paisley is running because of the growth and development occurring in the county and feels he still has work left to accomplish, he said. One way the commissioners have worked to adapt to this growth is with the creation of the Behavioral Health Center and additional training for law enforcement. 

“It will enable people with either mental health issues, drug issues, alcohol issues and so forth, to receive help without incurring law enforcement, hospitals or things of that sort, and so it should be a tremendous plus for the entire county,” Paisley said. 

In the future, Paisley said he hopes to increase spending for the school system, sheriff’s department and emergency services — but said doing it carefully is important. 

“Just throwing money at it is not helpful, but doing it and overseeing some of the spending is extremely important,” Paisley said. “We had previously a school board and school system that was throwing, in my opinion, throwing money away, not spending it wisely, not completing projects in a timely fashion.”

One way Paisley is combating this is by beginning to meet with the superintendent of the school system, the chairman of the school board and the county manager. This way any issues or difficulties that arise can be talked through privately first, he said. 

Paisley is from Alamance County and attended at that time Elon College, prompting him to want to serve the community he is from. 

“I'm a firm believer that you leave things better than you found them, and so consequently, Alamance County has been wonderful for me and for my family, my wife, four children, grandchildren and so forth, it’s my opportunity to pay back,” Paisley said. 

Anthony Pierce

Democrat Anthony Pierce has run for the position of county commissioner before but is now running because he said it feels like there is a lot at stake. This year, Pierce hopes to bring new perspectives, more effort and a 21st century mindset to his campaign. 

He said his biggest issue is education. Last year, Alamance-Burlington School System faced a two week delay because of the mold outbreak throughout 32 out of 36 of its schools. But, what Pierce said the bigger issue is looking at how this happened. 

“The challenge is, it didn't happen overnight,” Pierce said. “This is decades of neglect, but what I saw from our county leaders and working with the ABSS school board is they refuse to work and compromise and come up with a solution, and instead, our county commissioners decided to play the blame game and point fingers. To me that hurts only our students, because adults can't get along and come together.”

Pierce said his own children all attend public schools and he has been able to volunteer there and at other schools. He said he has seen firsthand the issues different schools face, and how that affects students and their learning process. 

“We owe it to our kids and to our county to make sure our facilities are conducive to learning and working,” Pierce said. 

Another priority Pierce has is funding first responders. He said the county only has about eight ambulances to cover 423 square miles of the county. Because of this, Pierce volunteers with first responders, and wants to prioritize its funding if elected. 

“We need a commissioner on board that wants to truly invest in our first responders to make sure that regardless of where you at in Alamance County, if you dial 911, somebody should be able to come to your aid,” Pierce said. 

Ed Priola

Republican Ed Priola is running to be a county commissioner because he feels taxpayers have had enough — particularly with increases in property taxes and additional spending in the school system. 

Priola said property taxes have risen higher than necessary and that combined with the rate of inflation is making it difficult for people to pay their bills. Another issue Priola cited was paying additional Christmas bonuses for educators and administrators in the school system. He said while he supports educators, as he is one himself, he said the money that the Board of Education was supposed to be used for HVAC repairs after mold was found in 32 out of 36 Alamance-Burlington schools, was then used for other things including bonuses. 

Priola also said he wants to bring the focus of schools back to educators, and less on administrators. 

“What I'd like to see, basically, is to see more teachers in the classroom and less administrators in the back rooms,” Priola said. 

Another place Priola wants to see less funding is parks and recreation. He said Burlington has spent more than it should on nonessential items. 

“Some places like Burlington city kind of got off track when they're paying for pickleball courts, millions of dollars, when people are trying to struggle and pay the rent,” Priola said. 

Priola said across the board he wants to look over every line item on the budget and ensure that everything being paid for makes sense.

“We got to look at every nickel we spend, every penny we spend, turn it over till they scream, pinch them till they scream,” Priola said. 

Pamela Tyler Thompson

Republican Pamela Tyler Thompson was first elected to county commissioners in 2020. She is running for reelection with one of her main platforms being supporting veterans. Thompson said both her son and father are veterans, making the issue more personal to her. She specifically wants to help veterans who are homeless get back on their feet. 

“Nobody goes to deployment and comes back from deployment the same,” Thompson said. 

Thompson also works with drug addiction and wants to help people on a larger level who struggle with addiction, she said. The Alamance Behavioral Health Center offers mental health services, substance use recovery support and support for people with disabilities. Thompson was on the committee to help bring this center to the county. The center officially opened this summer, and Thompson said she hopes this will help people who would otherwise be sent to jail or prison for a small crime but would be helped more if they could receive treatment for their mental illness. 

“Jail is good for what jail needs to be, but for folks who have real severe mental illness, it's just a place where they can hold their breath and they get out and they get right back to it,” Thompson said. “That's the crime — is the mental illness — not what they're doing”

Thompson said the sheriff, Terry Johnson, was particularly behind creating this center, as she said he was the one who saw people continually getting arrested, and it was becoming a large expense for the county — and not helping individuals. 

Thompson has worked with two nonprofits focused on family abuse services and also worked as a forensic interviewer in the county’s jail, handling drug chargers. 

“I found with most, I can say every female inmate, temporary at the jail that was in there for something that had a run with drugs was a victim of some kind of sexual assault growing up, and they were missed,” Thompson said. “Then drugs comes along and says, ‘I'll just help you forget all this if you take me,’ and then you got two bodies that you're serving your crime and your addiction, and it's just a nightmare.”

Chris Smith

Democrat Chris Smith has four children, who were all scheduled to begin school for the first time in the Alamance-Burlington School System when the school year was delayed due to a mold outbreak in 32 out of 36 of the schools. Smith and his family had just moved to Alamance County from Durham County and said after the initial mold outbreak, it seemed to be a crisis throughout the school year. This led Smith to begin attending county commissioner meetings and school board meetings.

“I started to ask myself, ‘What is going on? Why do we keep having these problems with the school system?’” Smith said. “It always comes back to funding, the lack of funding, from the county level, and the state level.”

Smith is running for a seat on the county commissioners for the first time in November. He is running as a Democrat with his main platform being education — something he said should not be a partisan issue.

“Taking care of our public schools seems to be an issue that unites both conservative and progressive, Republican and Democrats in Alamance County,” Smith said. “I've had several conservative Republicans reach out to me and express support for me or trying to encourage me and try to give me advice on how to navigate the political landscape of Alamance County.”

Smith said he also wants to move away from the current voting at large system, to a district-based voting system in order to improve representation. 

“Right now, we have five Republican commissioners that all live within a seven mile radius around the Burlington area,” Smith said. “And this is a large county. This is a county of over 400 square miles, having all five year commissioners live in such a tight little pocket just doesn't make sense, and that's because of the at-large voting system.”

Smith also urged young voters, particularly college students, to not take voting for granted. 

“It's really sad in our society that the people that turn out the most are our oldest citizens, when it should be the youngest citizens who have so much of their lives ahead of them,” Smith said. “It really needs to be reversed. Young people really need to turn out in higher numbers, because it's your world.”