Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 22, 1990 TAG: 9004200228
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Elizabeth Obenshain
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Voters, jaded by the hoopla that accompanies a presidential race, often snooze through these elections.
You're not likely to hear great rhetoric. No candidate will hold forth: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for Christiansburg."
Nor will you pick up the National Enquirer and find Donna Rice perched on Roger Hedgepeth's knee as the Monkey Business toodles around Claytor Lake.
Yet after years of reporting on government, I finally concluded that if I had to choose between voting for president or for town council, I would probably choose to vote for town council.
I'll let you vote on who negotiates the SALT II treaty as long as I can say who decides on zoning for my street and Main Street.
Don't misunderstand me. Ever since I waded into furious arguments over Barry Goldwater in my high school days, I've followed every arcane twist of presidential politics.
But I've come to the conclusion that it's local officials who have the most impact on our lives.
Maybe it was just the exaggerated lesson I learned covering government in that fascinating and benighted city, Fayetteville, N.C.
This is a city notorious throughout the Tarheel State for strip development and other urban sins. Over the years, its city and county leaders voted to allow any developer or property owner who asked to exchange its historic buildings, its residential roads and its pine woods for miles of used-car lots, strip shopping malls and other more exotic businesses catering to soldiers at nearby Fort Bragg.
The council members and supervisors decided the quality of life for all of us. Their decisions on zoning, on money for a new library and on beautification determined the future of that city. Ever try to recruit a bright young graduate or executive to a city famed for urban ugliness?
In the New River Valley, town and city councils likewise put their stamp on our communities.
That stamp is often subtle. It comes from countless decisions on how to spend money and how much, on zoning cases and on development guidelines - small decisions that individually can seem quite trivial.
Yet these small decisions add up to an overall statement on how a community sees itself and what it values.
In Blacksburg, the sight of tulips blooming in profusion in a well-manicured median told a friend visiting from New York last week a lot about this small college town.
The council members set that tone for a town through decisions on major issues and through the subtle and not-so-subtle signals they send the town staff.
So if you haven't been aware of who is on your town board, maybe you should be.
Maybe we should even be grateful.
Covering local politics in North Carolina, I met some leaders of compassion and understanding. Others were cut from the old Southern politician mold - types who railed about spending "absorbent amounts of money" or complained about "per denim expenses." A few even settled their worst disagreements out in the parking lot, and with their fists - after the official meeting, of course.
After those North Carolina experiences, I've been downright delighted at the intelligence and education of most of the local elected officials I've met here.
I've never figured out why busy people, whether in Pulaski or Pearisburg, want a job that means hours of reading agendas and budgets, of irate phone calls and of hearings so dull they make you want to take up knitting.
Sadly, the most these candidates can hope for on May 1 is that we'll shrug off our apathy long enough to swing our cars by the polling place on our way home from work.
Imagine what would happen if one year a few townspeople got together, recruited the neighbors they most respected to run for council and then donated money and even knocked on doors for them?
Maybe it's too much to hope for.
Maybe it's about time - if we want people who can make a difference to run for council.
by CNB