Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 6, 1994 TAG: 9405060104
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER|
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Gone will be Democrats Howard Musser and Jimmy Harvey, who rode a taxpayer revolt onto council in the late 1970s and generally voted as a bloc as spokesmen for their conservative, working-class constituency.
In their place will be two newcomers, who not only come from different parties but from vastly different perspectives as well.
Linda Wyatt, a schoolteacher, was strongly backed by an insurgent coalition of liberal Democrats dominated by labor unions, teachers, blacks and gays.
John Parrott, a construction engineer, is an old name in Roanoke's business community and won largely on the strength of a disproportionately heavy turnout in affluent South Roanoke.
At the same time, Tuesday's election gave a full term to a third newcomer of sorts, Democrat John Edwards, who initially was given a temporary council appointment when Beverly Fitzpatrick Jr. resigned last fall.
Mayor David Bowers notes this is the biggest turnover Roanoke City Council has seen since the 1970s.
"Historically, we've added one new member in every election since 1980," he says. "In 1992, that was [Delvis] Mac McCadden; in 1990, that was Bill White. Before that, in 1988, there was Bev. We skipped a year, and then there was me in 1984."
But during the past five years, council has quietly undergone an almost complete makeover. Of the seven members who will be on the council that begins work in July, only two were in office before the 1990 election: Bowers and Republican Elizabeth Bowles.
"This is a changing of the guard," declares Gary Waldo, a teachers' lobbyist who was a key strategist behind Wyatt's bid.
But it's not at all clear what council's new guard intends to do.
That's why McCadden, a Republican, says: "This will be a more unpredictable council. There will be a lot more discussion of things."
Tuesday's election dropped the party lineup on council from 5-2 in the Democrats' favor to 4-3.
But those are misleading numbers, says Al Wilson, the city's Democratic Party chairman. "There are very few partisan votes, if any, on council."
Instead, the real lineup on council in the past has been 2-2-3, with Democrats Bowers and White making up one faction, Democrats Musser and Harvey forming another, and Fitzpatrick, a business-oriented Democrat from South Roanoke, often finding himself aligned with Republicans Bowles and McCadden.
Under that arrangement, the mayor sometimes found himself in the minority on key votes, while Musser and Harvey held the balance of power. For instance, in 1992 they joined with Fitzpatrick and the two Republicans to cast a 5-2 vote against adopting a ward system for electing council members. And in 1993, another 5-2 vote denied the mayor the seat he so coveted on the Hotel Roanoke Conference Center Commission.
Now that Musser and Harvey are on the way out - and Fitzpatrick is already gone - Wilson sees another 2-2-3 breakdown, but one with much different dynamics.
Bowers and White will remain a team. And the three Republicans likely will stick together, although Wilson sees the possibility that Parrott often may go his own way. "I don't see Jack Parrott as a die-hard Republican," Wilson says. "He's more of a Republican in the way that [former mayor] Noel Taylor was a Republican."
But council-watchers see a new bloc forming with Edwards and Wyatt, this one distinctly more liberal than the old Musser-Harvey alliance.
The unifying force between Edwards and Wyatt may be organized labor. Wyatt was labor's favorite candidate during the campaign. Edwards, for his part, has long enjoyed good relations with unions, but remains mindful of how some Roanoke labor leaders went against him during his unsuccessful 1992 bid for the Democratic nomination for Congress.
Waldo says "the big question" about the new council is how well - and how often - the Wyatt/Edwards team will join the Bowers/White duo to wield a majority. "The question in politics is who owes who allegiance," Waldo says. "I'm sure John and Linda are going to be team players, but I'm not sure they'll automatically take their lead from the mayor and Bill White."
In fact, Waldo sees Wyatt and Edwards taking the initiative on several fronts - most notably, regional cooperation.
Waldo says Bowers' approach has been too confrontational toward neighboring governments. "I think the city has all too often patronized to the county, portraying people in the county as rubes and yokels. I think it will be a priority for John and Linda to forge a different approach, to be more cooperative and less confrontational with Roanoke County and Salem."
If so, Wyatt and Edwards could find an ally in Parrott, who charged during the campaign that the city was to blame for ignoring projects outside the city limits.
Wyatt and Parrott are pegged as potential issue-raisers in other ways.
Wyatt, for instance, is on record saying she would introduce an ordinance banning discrimination against gays.
McCadden won't name names, but he directs a not-so-veiled warning to Wyatt about some of the liberal issues she seems prepared to raise, saying, "Some people will get a lesson in reality."
By the same token, longtime Republican political operative Mamie Vest says Parrott will "shake things up," though she's at a loss to explain how. Indeed, fellow Republican McCadden predicts Parrott will be a "stabilizing influence." In many ways, Parrott will assume the familiar role of the business community's voice on council - a role previously held by Fitzpatrick.
There are two long-running issues, Bowers says, that the new council appears likely to act on - setting referendums on whether Roanoke should start electing its School Board, and whether the city should scrap its at-large system of electing council members in favor of a ward system.
Waldo predicts a referendum on the ward system could be on the ballot as early as this November - and in place by the next council election, in 1996.
Beyond that, Bowers isn't sure what the next council will be like. "Do I see disagreements? No. Will there be any? No question."
But there are no major decisions looming before council.
"Council will be a lot like the race was," Wilson says. "Right now, there are no controversies here."
So it may take some time, he says, before the dynamics on the new council become clear. "From the standpoint of people who enjoy watching politics," Wilson says, "City Council is going to be an interesting place to watch for the next year or two."
by CNB