Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 22, 1990 TAG: 9004230198
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
In some elections, that struggle has been camouflaged by party labels.
In some years, there have been armistices, with neither side challenging the incumbents of the other.
But not in recent memory has a councilmanic election gone by without each side producing at least one substantial candidate to carry forward its ideas and programs.
Until this year.
Now as much as ever, Roanoke needs leaders who'll look to the future, not live in the past.
Now as much as ever, Roanoke needs leaders who'll offer thoughtful criticism, not demagogic rhetoric.
Now as much as ever, Roanoke needs leaders who'll see political office as a means for community service, not ego gratification.
But this year, the progressives punted.
It's questionable whether they even have a ticket. And to the extent they do, their ticket is unimpressive. There's a Republican candidate (the only Republican candidate, in an election for three seats) remarkable for his lack of qualifications. And there's an incumbent, a Democrat turned independent, whose credentials are getting a mite moldy. At least he has some.
Meanwhile, the populists have gained control of the Democratic Party. In this city, the Democratic label alone can be enough to make you a winner. The populists, running as the Democratic ticket, may well sweep the May 1 election.
When the field of candidates is strong, the tough task can be deciding which candidate not to support. In this election, the tough task for many Roanokers may be finding three candidates for whom they wish to vote.
Here are our recommendations:
William White
William White, 43, is the best news of the campaign. He has emerged as a potentially top-notch councilman, and the Democrats are to be congratulated for recruiting him to their ticket.
An Arkansas product whose wife is a native Roanoker, White is a certified public accountant who built his own firm from scratch. In a refreshing switch from the usual arrangement, its headquarters are in Roanoke; the branches are in Richmond and Norfolk.
Though a newcomer to elective office, White has paid his dues through service on local and state boards, and most recently on the city School Board. There, he contributed something too often lacking in the bickering of school politics: common sense.
White didn't take automatic issue with new programs proposed by the school administration - but he worked to have other parts of the school budget examined for possible trimming before going to the city for more money.
White was neither a backer nor a detractor of Superintendent Frank Tota. He supported many of Tota's initiatives, but voted against the too-lucrative early-retirement package set up for the superintendent last year.
White says Don Bartol could have been an excellent School Board member - if City Council had waited to appoint him until a year or two after his retirement as principal of Jackson Junior High. As it was, the abruptness of the shift in the employer-employee relationship made things awkward for both Bartol and Tota.
A couple of those issues are history now; it's time to move on to new ones. But we cite White's responses to our inquiries because his comments reflect a level-headed approach that would well serve council - and the city - on issues still to come.
Howard Musser
Another Democrat, incumbent Howard Musser, should be re-elected. More firmly rooted than White in Roanoke's populist tradition, he is an intelligent man who occasionally displays the irritating habit of playing to the crowd even when he knows the crowd to be wrong.
Irritating, but not without value. Sometimes in Roanoke, an excellent idea is put into jeopardy because the man in the street feels it's being crammed down his throat. (Sometimes, it is.)
On the whole, Musser during his years on council has supported future-oriented initiatives. But at the same time, he has helped make all Roanokers feel they have a voice in the corridors of power. That in turn has helped build public support for such various goals as good schools, downtown vitalization, flood reduction and economic development.
Musser has turned in an especially good job as one of council's negotiators in developing the proposed plan for city-county consolidation. (Council's other negotiator is Vice Mayor Bev Fitzpatrick, whose term doesn't expire this year.)
It's impossible to satisfy everyone; this plan may not satisfy even enough people to carry both Roanokes in the November referendum, as it must to go into effect. But Musser, like the other negotiators, clearly sought to frame as good a plan as possible, given the political realities facing them.
City-county consolidation may not be absolutely vital to the future good health of the Roanoke Valley, but the future looks bleaker without it. For merger to be approved, however, the public will have to be convinced of its merits. Musser needs to be returned to council to help with the task.
James Trout
For our third recommendation, the hard one, Democrat-turned-independent Councilman James Trout gets the nod over former Democratic Councilman James Harvey. Either man is preferable to Republican Roland "Spanky" Macher or independent Cecil McClanahan.
McClanahan seems not to be running a serious campaign. Macher is, but there are troubling aspects to his candidacy.
One is Macher's utter lack of experience in local government.
By that, we mean in part the obvious: He has never sat on any local-government boards and agencies. But we also mean his lack of a record, prior to the campaign, of interest in local government on even an unofficial basis.
Also troubling is Macher's role in the sale to the city of the old A&P building (now an antiques mall owned by him and his family). The building is sited on what is to be part of development in conjunction with the new Dominion Tower.
It is no sin for a businessman to hold out for top dollar, and turn a tidy profit in the process. But when it's at the expense of city taxpayers, it's not the sort of thing that wins points for you in a Citizen of the Year contest - or a City Council election.
As for Trout and Harvey, there's a personal animosity between them (and between Trout and Musser). At least it's sincere, even if based on the kind of inside-politics stuff that few but politicians care much about.
Yet in many ways, Trout and Harvey are alike.
Both men have become fixtures on the local political scene. Trout has been on and off council for the past two decades. In 1988, in a four-person race for three seats, Harvey narrowly lost his bid for a third consecutive four-year term.
At bottom, we believe, both men have Roanoke's best interests at heart. In the case of both men, however, those interests are encrusted by the barnacles of old political wounds and old political grudges, and by intellects more attuned to vote-counting than issue-analyzing.
Finally, both men seem to lack the energy, the zest for the arena, they once possessed. Trout seems to prefer reflecting on the past than looking into the future, and has trouble sticking to the point at hand. Harvey's campaign themes this year are much the same as his themes of a decade ago, even though the city and city government have undergone considerable change since then.
In the end, however, our unenthusiastic nod goes to Trout for two reasons.
One is his almost single-minded devotion to economic development. His supporters and his opponents argue over the degree to which Trout is responsible for it.
Still, economic development has been Trout's bailiwick. The city has been enjoying a measure of success at it. It will continue to be among the most important tasks for Roanoke to work on. That all argues for Trout's re-election.
The other reason for our nod in Trout's direction is his balancing role in the ancient progressive-populist feud.
At one time thought to number among the populists, he pretty much has been drummed out of their ranks. Had Trout been defter at keeping a foot in both camps, he might today be enjoying the Democratic endorsement rather than running a chancier campaign as an independent. Political deftness, however, is not one of his characteristics, as exemplified by the awkward timing of his announced retirement from council (just before the Democratic mass meeting) and his re-entry into the race (just after). It didn't look good.
But for all that, and for all the rambling of Trout's manner of speech, he has shown moments of courage on council in resisting popular causes of the day when they seem to conflict with the good of Roanoke's long-term future.
by CNB