Four months into his first term on Charlotte City Council, JD Mazuera Arias is still adjusting to the role and the expectations that come with it. The work moves quickly, the volume of information is constant and the stakes are often immediate.
“It’s like drinking from a fire hose,” he said, describing the early months of his term. That pace is not just about learning procedures or policy. It reflects a broader reality that Charlotte is growing faster than the systems currently designed to govern it.
Sworn in on Dec. 1, 2025, Mazuera Arias entered office at a moment when both the council and the city itself were in transition. New members joined the body following closely contested races, and Charlotte continues to grow at a pace that is reshaping how the city functions. That growth is visible across neighborhoods, but inside City Hall, he said, the systems in place do not always reflect the scale of the city today.
His path to this moment was defined by a race that came down to 34 votes. In 2025, he defeated incumbent Marjorie Molina in the District 5 Democratic primary after a recount confirmed the narrow margin. That outcome has stayed with him, not as a point of political advantage, but as a reminder of what the position represents. “This seat isn’t mine,” he said after the election. “It belongs to everyone.”
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That belief continues to shape how he approaches the role. Rather than treating the win as a mandate for a specific agenda, he describes it as a responsibility to a district that is both diverse and often overlooked.
Throughout his campaign, Mazuera Arias focused on what he calls “kitchen table issues,” emphasizing affordability, housing and safety in a district where those concerns cut across political identity. “It [doesn’t] matter whether you are Republican, Independent, Democratic,” he said. “Everyone deserves safety. Everyone deserves the dignity of living without worrying about being displaced.”
The city’s growth is often positioned as a success story, defined by new development and expanding opportunity. For Mazuera Arias, the more important question is what that growth means for the people who have been here all along. “What about the people that already live here?” he said. “Are we making their lives better?” It is a question that reverberates throughout East Charlotte, a deeply diverse and historically underinvested part of the city. Growth, in his view, is not inherently a problem. The concern is whether it happens in a way that displaces the communities that built the city in the first place. “We can grow,” he said, “but let’s make sure that growth doesn’t displace people.”
For Mazuera Arias, that understanding is rooted in his own experience. Born in Colombia and raised in East Charlotte, he spent much of his life undocumented before becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2021. Navigating systems that were not designed for immigrants like him informs how he understands policy, access and belonging, and how he responds in moments of tension. During ICE and Border Patrol activity in East Charlotte last November, when federal agents disrupted businesses and daily life along Central Avenue, he said he made a point to be present. “When CBP was in town, I stood with my immigrant community on Central Avenue,” he said.
In practice, that approach is not limited to moments of crisis. Mazuera Arias describes his time in community spaces as a continuation of his role. “I don’t spend time with community because I want to get votes,” he said. “I spend time with community because they’re my community.” The distinction matters to him. It reflects a belief that public service is not just about decision-making inside City Hall, but about maintaining relationships outside of it. “Who am I if community doesn’t exist?” he said.
At the same time, his approach to leadership has been shaped by time spent outside Charlotte. Before returning to the city, he lived and worked in Washington, D.C. and New York City, including time in the office of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In those environments, he said, disagreement was part of the process. “In D.C. and New York, disagreement and debate was how we came to solutions,” he said. Returning to Charlotte, he found a different dynamic, one where conversations about race and difference are often more limited. “There’s this idea that we can’t talk about race, we can’t talk about differences,” he said. Bringing a more direct approach has not always been easy. “The response has been pushback,” he said. Still, he sees those conversations as necessary if the city is going to address the realities it faces.
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Those realities become especially clear inside City Hall. One of the most significant adjustments, he said, has been understanding how limited the role can be. Charlotte operates within a council-manager system and under state law that gives the North Carolina General Assembly broad authority over what cities can and cannot do, often referred to as Dillon’s Rule, which holds that municipalities can only exercise powers explicitly granted by the state. “Council rarely has any authority at all,” he said, noting that rezonings are one of the few areas where council exercises direct control. That structure shapes how decisions are approached and what options are even on the table. “We are typically answering the question of what we can’t do rather than what we can do,” he said.
His identity as a queer Latino councilmember is part of how he understands that work, but he does not treat representation as an endpoint. “Not all skin folk are kin folk,” he said, emphasizing that shared identity does not automatically translate to shared priorities. Instead, he focuses on whether leadership reflects the needs and realities of the communities it serves. That perspective was visible in his recent appearance as a speaker at the HRC North Carolina Dinner, where he described the experience as both meaningful and reflective. “It felt like a passing of the baton,” he said, situating himself within a longer history of LGBTQ+ advocacy. At the same time, he acknowledged the broader climate facing those communities. “Our mere existence is threatening to so many people,” he said.
When asked why his story matters in this moment, Mazuera Arias returns to the idea of community rather than individual achievement. “I was a statistic that wasn’t supposed to be in this seat,” he said. But he rejects the idea that his path is self-made. “I made it out because I had family and community,” he said, pointing to the people and support systems that shaped his path. “When you flip the page, you’re not just going to read my story. You’re going to read the stories of so many people. My story is a story of community.”
As Charlotte continues to grow and change, Mazuera Arias is still navigating the limits of the system he now operates within, while balancing the expectations and needs of a rapidly evolving city. At the same time, he is working to expand who has a voice in shaping what comes next and to ensure that the communities that built the city are not left out of its future.