Kinnaird, Eleanor: photographs (Chapel Hill Historical Society)
1 photograph in the Society's People A-O binder: Candid with election campaign poster.
Key local figure
Lavelle won a seat on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen in 2007 and served two terms, then was mayor of Carrboro for four terms from 2013 to 2021. She is a professor at North Carolina Central University School of Law, where her subjects include state and local government law and sexuality and the law.
Source: North Carolina Central University School of Law: Lydia Lavelle
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Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.
No work in the index names this person by itself yet. The works below belong to Carrboro’s LGBTQ municipal firsts, the wider story it is part of.
1 photograph in the Society's People A-O binder: Candid with election campaign poster.
Dated events connected with this person, earliest first. See the whole chronology →
In her first run for office Lavelle led the field of aldermen candidates with 1,656 votes, about 25 percent, ahead of two-term incumbent Joal Hall Broun and Dan Coleman. She lived in the northern part of town Carrboro had recently annexed, and Mayor Mark Chilton read her first-place finish as a sign that voters were ready to move past the annexation fight.
Lydia Lavelle, who ran unopposed for mayor in the fall 2013 election, was sworn in on December 3, 2013 as North Carolina's first openly lesbian mayor. Aldermen Randee Haven-O'Donnell, Sammy Slade and Jacquelyn Gist were sworn in for new terms at the same meeting.
People: Lydia Lavelle · Jacquelyn Gist · Randee Haven-O'Donnell · Sammy Slade
A federal judge struck down North Carolina's ban on same-sex marriage late on Friday, October 10, 2014, by which time the Orange County Register of Deeds office in Hillsborough had closed for the day. The office issued its first licences to same-sex couples when it reopened on Monday, October 13, with Carrboro mayor Lydia Lavelle and Alicia Stemper first in line; the two married at the Carrboro Town Commons on October 25, 2014.
Part of LGBTQ political firsts in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, 1980s–1990s · 4 events
People: Lydia Lavelle
El Centro Hispano, the Carrboro Day Laborer Task Force, Orange County Justice United and the Town of Carrboro opened a workers' center for day laborers at 201 W. Weaver St., which organizers called the first in North Carolina. The opening began with a march from the Jones Ferry and Davie roads corner and followed about ten years of planning.
People: Lydia Lavelle · Randee Haven-O'Donnell
Three days after the General Assembly passed and Governor Pat McCrory signed House Bill 2, the Board met in special session and adopted a resolution affirming the dignity of LGBT people, calling for the law's repeal and urging other North Carolina governments to use it as a model, then adopted a second resolution condemning by name the legislators and governor who enacted it. Both passed six to none with Jacquelyn Gist absent, and the Board asked staff to raise the town's rainbow pride flags on March 28.
People: Lydia Lavelle · Randee Haven-O'Donnell · Sammy Slade
At residents' request the Board of Aldermen set square-footage and parking limits and a cap of four unrelated occupants per household for the historically African American neighborhood, which had seen more student rentals and larger replacement houses. New building had to comply at once and existing houses were given three years.
People: Lydia Lavelle
Orange County government and the Towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro declared states of emergency to prepare for COVID-19, allowing emergency procedures and funding. The county declaration, extended more than a dozen times, stayed in force until May 1, 2022.
People: Penny Rich · Lydia Lavelle
Six weeks after the state's moratorium on local employment and public accommodation ordinances expired on December 1, 2020, the Council unanimously adopted Ordinance No. 10/20-21, adding to Chapter 8 of the Town Code a ban on discrimination in employment and places of public accommodation that covers sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. The ordinance took effect on adoption and cited the town's March 26, 2016 pledge to seek such protections.
People: Lydia Lavelle · Jacquelyn Gist · Randee Haven-O'Donnell · Sammy Slade · Barbara Foushee
After four terms as mayor and fourteen years in town office, Lavelle said she would not run again, saying that to everything there is a season and that she looked forward to what came next.
As the delta variant spread, Orange County and the Towns of Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough required masks inside buildings and businesses from 5 p.m. on August 11, 2021.
People: Lydia Lavelle · Quintana Stewart
At the council's meeting the town honored Lavelle for her four terms as mayor, and state senator Valerie Foushee administered the oath of office to her successor, Damon Seils. Randee Haven-O'Donnell, Barbara Foushee and Danny Nowell began council terms at the same meeting.
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