Six candidates are vying for five seats on the Davidson Board of Commissioners this election day, Nov. 4. Four incumbents are seeking re-election and two challengers are looking to join the board. The slate of incumbents, backed by the Mecklenburg County Democratic Party, include Autumn Rierson-Michael, Steve Justus ’78, Tracy Mattison Brandon and Ryan Fay. They face longtime community advocate Connie Wessner and public affairs consultant David Lusk.
The four incumbents—Michael, Justus, Brandon and Fay—tout different political and professional experiences, but are all involved in the community outside of their work on the Town Board. Rierson Michael, the current Mayor Pro Tempore, was the executive director of the Davidson Lands Conservancy before she became a civics teacher at Community School of Davidson. Justus, a Davidson alum and physician, has served on the Board for 25 years. Mattison Brandon is involved with the College as the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship Campus Minister and works with various community organizations like Davidson Housing Coalition and Davidson LifeLine. Fay, the Director of Business Operations at Scott Clark Auto Group, touts experience with Lake Norman Economic Development and CMS Bonds Committee.
While the incumbents’ campaigns are different, each platform emphasizes expanding affordable housing. In the Charlotte Observer’s candidate questionnaire, all four addressed affordable housing projects as a central issue facing Davidson.
“We’ve created and y’all have created and the folks who came before us have created a truly amazing place to live. Because of that, there’s really high demand to be here,” Rierson Michael said at a Sept. 29 candidates forum. “We as a Board have tried to mitigate some of those potential negative impacts through our affordable housing work.”
Wessner may be a challenger in this race, but she is no newcomer to Davidson civic life. She previously served on the Board of Commissioners from 2009-2013. In her 27 years in Davidson, she has also served on the Planning Board, Davidson Housing Coalition, Community School of Davidson, County’s Future of the Library Task Force and the Pedestrian Safety Task Force. She was motivated to rejoin the Board out of concern over low participation in local politics.
“In the last couple of cycles, we’ve had barely enough people running to fill the seats. The vitality of our town really turns on the willingness of people to step up and step in and participate,” Wessner said. “So when I saw that it looked like we were going that direction again for this election, I decided I had the experience and the interest that rather than complain about it, I would step up and run.”
Wessner also put affordability at the center of her platform, informed by her time as executive director of the Davidson Housing Coalition.
“The primary focus of people living in Davidson should be to maintain a wide mix of residents with different skills, experiences, perspectives and backgrounds, keeping the doors open to them as members of our community,” Wessner said. “That’s really what makes Davidson what Davidson is.”
While Lusk is the lone candidate with no previous experience on the Town Board, he has significant experience in politics. He has worked for decades in state and legislative affairs, and in 2015 founded Key Advocacy, a national consulting firm that trains organizations in grassroots strategy and public affairs. Lusk drew extensively from that experience in the Sept. 29 candidates forum.
“I’ve spent over 20 years looking at ways that I can give people a voice. Since 2010, I’ve trained over 15,000 people on how to have a voice in front of policymakers,” he said. “A Commissioner needs to be able to listen to the community and understand what their concerns are and then convey that.”
Despite only having moved to the area in 2023, Lusk maintains that his engagement with the town in those two years have left a lasting impression.
“I may not be a son of Davidson by fate, but I am one by choice,” Lusk wrote in the News of Davidson. “I’ve become a staple at town meetings, organized a Commissioner’s Chat in my Davidson Pointe neighborhood, hosted former Police Chief Kim Davidson and his department for a community meet-and-greet during Davidson Pointe’s 2024 fall festival, attended the Board of Commissioners 2025 Strategic Mid-Year Retreat, and now serve on the Town’s Planning Advisory Board.”
For the candidates, the stakes of the race are not only a spot on the Board but also the length of their terms. The top two vote-getters will enjoy a four-year term, while the next three victors will have to run for re-election again in 2027. This change occurs to account for a ballot measure approved by Davidson in 2023 to shift the Board from two-year terms to staggered four-year terms.
The incumbent candidates visited the College’s Union Atrium in collaboration with the Center for Political Engagement on Oct. 28 for a meet and greet to speak with students and answer their questions about local politics.
“Davidson students make up a huge part of our population,” Mattison Brandon said. “I’m a firm believer that we need to engage with students because there’s interests that you all have that connect well with our values and our standards. As a campus minister and a Town Commissioner, I’m engaged at a different level with students in terms of their needs and their interests: things like environmental sustainability, community, affordability and equity.”