Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 4, 1993 TAG: 9311040240
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Not quite. But it's a beginning.
Come January, the Comptons will control the commissioner of revenue offices in Roanoke and Roanoke County.
Can Salem be far behind?
Probably not, because Wayne Compton's other two daughters live in North Carolina.
Still, it's something for political pundits to ponder.
Compton, the county's commissioner for 14 years, saw his political influence grow with the victory of his daughter, Marsha Compton Fielder, as the city's commissioner.
Already, there is speculation that Compton might try to influence city policy through his daughter.
But he said Wednesday that won't happen.
"You won't see me down there, trying to run the city," Compton said.
"She did all of this on her own. Some people think I did, but I didn't," he said. "I gave her some political advice, but I won't be involved in running [the city office]."
Compton said he never tried to persuade his daughter to get into politics.
Fielder said she became interested in public service and politics when her father was elected to the county Board of Supervisors while she was in the eighth grade. He represented the Hollins Magisterial District before he became commissioner of revenue in 1979.
"Him being an elected official affected me. It caused me to get into this type of work," she said.
Fresh out of high school, Marsha Compton was working as a clerk in the county treasurer's office when Compton became commissioner. Soon she moved to his office and has been there for 14 years. She worked her way up to deputy commissioner.
Compton was accused of nepotism. But he said a precedent already had been set when Billy Muse, a former commissioner of revenue, hired his son to work for him.
Compton said he will have no ego problems with Fielder running a larger office.
They will have identical salaries - $54,287. Their pay is set by the state Compensation Board. The salary for commissioner of all localities with a population between 70,000 and 99,999 is the same.
Republican Jerome Howard, the city incumbent, makes $62,702, but the salary for the post will drop because Roanoke's population dipped below 100,000 in the last census.
The Compton name helped Fielder, especially during the early stages of the campaign, although she denies she used it for political gain.
Her campaign materials identified her as Marsha Compton Fielder, and she was listed that way on the ballot.
Fielder, 32, said she used her maiden name to help voters identify her. She was married in December, just a few weeks before the campaign began.
"When I started out, no one knew who Marsha Fielder was. So I used Compton so they would know who I was."
She ran the kind of campaign that is almost unheard of in an era when candidates rely heavily on a media blitz. She ran no newspaper, radio or television ads because polls showed her comfortably ahead of Councilman Howard Musser, who was in the hospital for two months recovering from a stroke.
Tim Shock, Fielder's campaign manager, said Musser's illness made the campaign tougher.
"It was a touchy issue. It was something a lot of people wanted to talk about, but you did not want to talk about it or appear to be exploiting it," Shock said. "There was a danger of a backlash."
David Anderson, the city treasurer who lost the Democratic nomination to Fielder, received 298 write-in votes. In the final days of the campaign, Anderson said he would welcome write-ins.
Fielder's election may help spur the Roanoke Valley localities to use the same color decals for all motor vehicles and a establish a system whereby motorists could be cited outside their home localities for failing to have decals.
Compton said he has proposed such a system in the past, but Roanoke has not been interested.
Said Compton: "I might bring that up again; but she'll be on her own, and I won't have anything to do with running [her] office."
by CNB