Cancer Sucks & A Growing Town

👋 Good Morning, Apex! Today is Thursday, October 1, 2026 and this is the 91st weekly issue of The Peak Weekly.

It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

And I want to start off this week’s email with some personal news.

My beautiful wife, Katie - better known around here as Mrs. Weekly - was diagnosed with breast cancer about three weeks ago.

Her type is called Invasive Ductal Carcinoma HER2-positive breast cancer which is a very fast-growing and aggressive form.

The timeline has moved fast.

She starts Chemotherapy on Monday.

She has zero history of breast cancer in her family and doesn’t check any of the high-risk boxes.

So, why her?!

Well, I don’t know. But I do know that about 1 in 8 women will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of their lifetime.

That’s not an insignificant number.

It can happen to anyone.

So, pick up the phone and schedule your checkup.

Katie caught it early. And she did that by getting regular mammograms.

We have a roughly year-long journey ahead of us. She’s going to kick cancer’s ass and I’m going to be right there with her every step of the way.

But please keep her in your thoughts. She’s the reason that I am able to do The Peak Weekly. She is what gives me the strength to keep going and now it’s my time to return the favor.

If you have been putting off any sort of check-up that you are due for, please take this as your sign to go get that done.

Mrs. Weekly is on Instagram if you have any advice for her or just want to show her some love 💜 

Miscellaneous Info:

🥾 Beaver Creek Greenway Repairs
Repairs on the Beaver Creek Greenway near two bridges are scheduled for October 12 - October 16. During this time, sections of the trail will be closed to the public.

🏫 Chat with Wake County Schools Superintendent
On October 29, the Town of Apex is hosting an evening with Wake County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Robert P. Taylor to discuss updates on the district's priorities, including student achievement & wellness, school safety, and more - followed by Q&A.

📐 Triangle Parade of Homes
This is North Carolina's largest free, self-guided open house event showcasing newly constructed homes, innovative floor plans, and the latest design and technology trends across the Raleigh-Durham region. Dates are October 3-4, 9-11 and 16-18. There are 11 homes in Apex featured in the tour.

🏞️ Kids in Nature Day
Here at The Peak Weekly, we are all things Apex all the time. But sometimes it’s okay to visit our neighbors, right?! Kids in Nature Day is South Wake Conservationists’ biggest event of the year. It’s at Lake Benson Park (in nearby Garner) next Saturday, October 10. It’s a great event. Lots of live animal exhibits, interactive music, ice cream and Ranger Rick will be there. You can learn more and pre-register here.

🚒 Touch a Truck
Touch-a-Truck, taking place on October 6, allows children to get in the driver’s seat with a free hands-on experience with vehicles of all kinds. From 4:30pm - 7pm at Town Hall campus, local representatives and their vehicles from emergency, construction, landscaping, military, transportation, and delivery will all be in one place! Children will be allowed to touch, climb on, and ask questions about their favorite trucks and cars in a safe and supervised environment.

🍂 Biweekly Yard Waste Schedule
Beginning October 19, Apex will transition to a biweekly yard waste collection for all residents. It’s kind of confusing so let me try to explain:

Residents will now be placed into two collection zones: Zone A (green) or Zone B (blue).

During regular season (February- October 2027), your yard waste pickup will correspond to the day listed and will be collected biweekly on that specific day of the week.

During peak leaf season, which starts October 19 and runs until February 8, you’ll ignore the day of the week listed as collection, which will still happen biweekly, could fall on any day of the week.

Zone A’s biweekly collection starts the week of October 19 followed by the week of November 2 and so on. Zone B’s biweekly collection starts the Week of October 26 followed by the week of November 9 and so on.

Things to Do This Weekend in Apex:

Friday, October 2

🧩 Puzzlepalooza
6pm - 8:30pm | Senior Center

🐶 Pints & Puppies
6pm | Southern Peak Brewery

🎭️ Fall Play: “Drinking Habits”
7:30pm | The Halle

Saturday, October 3

🧑‍🌾 Apex Farmers Market
8am - 12pm | The Depot

🏃‍♀️ Run Club Apex
Meet at 9am | Foxtail Coffee

🎃 Family Pumpkin Painting
10:30am - 1pm | The Halle

🦞 St. Paul’s Lobster Fest
11am - 3pm | St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

🎭️ Fall Play: “Drinking Habits”
7:30pm | The Halle

Sunday, October 4

💘 Love Local Showcase
11am - 3pm | Downtown Apex

🎭️ Fall Play: “Drinking Habits”
3pm | The Halle

Local Business Updates

🪄 Magic Sushi
Date TBD and more info coming soon but the unlimited sushi & hibachi spot is coming soon to the old Chili’s.

🫐 Grain & Berry in 9 Days
The superfoods cafe will be opening in Beaver Creek on October 10. From energizing açaí bowls and smoothies to wholesome wraps, salads, and juices - Grain & Berry uses real ingredients and makes everything fresh to order.

Check for Yourself

New this week. A reader suggested this new category, and it's a great idea: each week I'll show you one method of pulling data directly from the source. No records request, no spreadsheet. Just the Town's own data, straight from the Town's own server.

This week: how to measure Apex’s growth by Certificates of Occupancy

Councilmember Terry Mahaffey stated that the number of COs issued each year is “a good proxy for home building.”

So let’s pull the COs issued each year directly from the Town of Apex’s data so that we can measure growth in Apex.

The Town has a Population Dashboard with a "Certificates of Occupancy Map” tab that you can select at the bottom.

The problem with that is it only displays COs for the current month. So, today being October 1, it’s probably blank.

But that’s okay. The data is still available.

The Town keeps a public list of every certificate of occupancy it issues. I could build you a chart of the data. Terry Mahaffey could build you a chart of the data. Or… you can check for yourself.

Here’s how. Copy and paste this into your browser:

https://services1.arcgis.com/nry3yyvaEfskMEXA/arcgis/rest/services/CO_Layer_FY2122/FeatureServer/0/query?where=1%3D1&groupByFieldsForStatistics=Fiscal_Year%2CType&outStatistics=%5B%7B%22statisticType%22%3A%22count%22%2C%22onStatisticField%22%3A%22PermitNumb%22%2C%22outStatisticFieldName%22%3A%22certificates%22%7D%2C%7B%22statisticType%22%3A%22sum%22%2C%22onStatisticField%22%3A%22Units%22%2C%22outStatisticFieldName%22%3A%22homes%22%7D%5D&orderByFields=Fiscal_Year%2CType&f=html

That’s a query that hits the certificate of occupancy layer on the Town’s public data server asking a question: for each fiscal year, how many certificates, and how many homes did they cover.

When you open that URL, scroll down until you see “results”. You'll see one row per year.

Here is a chart showing you those numbers. Please, by all means, cross check this against the numbers you see from the Town’s data:

Note: the data that comes back does not split the COs by detached houses, townhomes and apartments. It’s an extra step to get that. A bit more complicated, but let me show you how:

Download this PY file and this CSV file, then open up a terminal (mac) or command prompt (pc), navigate to your download folder and then run this:

python3 -m pip install pandas requests
python3 co_by_type.py apex_co.csv

That will hit the Town of Apex’s public server and give you back every single CO issued with number of units, permit number, date, etc. The file will look like this.

Why Am I Showing You How to Do This?

Because when an elected official tells you that growth is slowing in Apex and pats himself on the back for his great work in doing that, you should check for yourself…

See how your elected official is telling you that growth, based on COs declined from 2024 to 2025?

Go look at the data I just showed you how to pull. This is what growth based on COs and their number of units actually says:

There's a second thing in his post worth reading closely. He wrote that the 2020 peak "corresponds probably to a peak rate of approvals in 2017/2018 or so."

That's a fair point: a home gets its certificate two or three years after council approves the project. But follow his logic forward.

By the same lag, the homes certified last year trace to approvals in 2022 and 2023, when he was in his third and fourth years on council. The 857 apartments include The Village at Depot 499, which council rezoned in 2020, his first year. The dip in 2022–23 was just the old pipeline running out.

The climb since is this council's pipeline arriving. And it keeps running. Veridea, Welch Homestead, Hopson Gateway and the 5,300 homes under construction right now are the certificates of 2028, 2029 and 2030. By his own framing, those will be the record of what this council approved.

Lets do one more - an easier one. Terry says again that growth is declining - this type using population figures.

Well, guess what. That is nonsense and misinformation. Here are the real numbers:

This one is a lot easier to check for yourself. Don’t ask Terry. Don’t ask me. Ask the Town of Apex Population Dashboard which shows population by fiscal year.

By the way, his comment during the last election about how it should be required that they don’t take money from developer PACs. You’ll never believe it but…

I’m sorry for the rant. I truly have other things to worry about right now as I explained at the top. 

I volunteer my time to create this newsletter - 91 weeks in a row. I don’t sell ads. I don’t make money. I’m not running for any political position.

Meanwhile, Terry Mahaffey is building his political resume while destroying the town of Apex.

When he finally leaves, we’ll pay for it for years.

I have always linked to sources and told you where I get my data. He just says “non-sense” and some of you give that more credit.

I’m tired of talking about him. You’re tired of hearing about it

I am just trying to save the trees. And the wildlife who live in those trees.

Look at this:

Look at all those trees wiped out, approved 5-0 including the guy who put a tree in his logo and told you we have the best tree conservation in the entire state.

“We have the largest RCA (resource conservation area) program in the state.” -Terry Mahaffey

You should check that out yourself to see if it’s true.

And you can read all about that in my latest article here:

What You’re Not Being Told About Apex’s Trees 🌳 

Upcoming Civic Meetings

Today, October 1
Public Safety Council Committee
3pm | Town Hall

Today, October 1
Safety and Accessibility Subcommittee
4pm - 6pm | Town Hall

Wednesday, October 7
Infrastructure Subcommittee
2:45pm - 4pm | Town Hall

Wednesday, October 7
Data Center Subcommittee
5pm | Town Hall

Thursday, October 8
Town Council Strategic Planning
12pm - 5pm | Town Hall

A Look Ahead:

October 9-11
Fall Play: “Drinking Habits” | The Halle

October 10
Apex Oktoberfest | Town Campus

October 12
Indigenous People’s Day Ceremony | Apex Nature Park

October 16
Fall Harvest Night | The Depot Parking Lot

October 16
Drive-in Movie at The Park (Hocus Pocus) | Pleasant Park

October 17
Arbor Day Celebration | Pleasant Park

October 17
Shred Day | Public Works Dept

October 17
Community Conversation on Suicide Prevention | Senior Center

October 21
Apex Sands United Against Hate | Apex Nature Park

October 22
Explore S’Mores | Apex Nature Park
(rescheduled from September 24)

October 23
Apex Community Dance | The Halle

October 24
Goblin’s Groove Family Dance | The Halle

October 24
PokéFest | Apex Senior Center

October 29
Back-to-School Community & Conversation | Senior Center

October 30
Witches Night Out | Downtown Apex

A Final Note:

Thank you for taking time out of your day today to read this week’s edition of The Peak Weekly. If you love it, please forward it to a friend. If you don’t love it, please unsubscribe.

And, as always, if you have any ideas of how to make this newsletter better, want to nominate a local business or organization to be featured, or anything else, please respond to this email or email me directly at [email protected]

See you next Thursday... 😘