Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 7, 1992 TAG: 9203070187
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURENCE HAMMACK and
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
She quickly regained her composure during an interview at her home, spending the next 50 minutes explaining why she feels her financial problems should be a private issue - even as she seeks a public office.
"I don't think that should be a part of my campaign, that I'm late paying my bills," Anderson said in an interview. "I think my personal finances are my own personal business."
But they also became the business of Roanoke General District Court, where during the past five years civil actions were filed against Anderson for debts she had incurred on rent, hospital bills and a student loan. All of the actions were dismissed after Anderson paid the bills.
Anderson's financial problems were discovered this week when the Roanoke Times & World-News examined city court records for each of the eight candidates for City Council and mayor.
City officials also say that Anderson has paid at least $1,035 in parking tickets in the past four years. She accumulated $600 in tickets in 1988 and was permitted to pay them off in an installment plan.
By early this year, she had run up another $435 in parking tickets. She paid off that debt before she announced in January her plans to run for council.
Most of the parking tickets were issued for violations near the Municipal Building, where she worked as a secretary in the city clerk's office for 5 1/2 years.
In the interview, Anderson also admitted that, while working in the clerk's office, she had improperly used an official stamp that in effect created her own free parking passes to the Municipal Garage on Church Avenue.
"I shouldn't have done it; I admit it was a mistake," she said. "But I don't feel that should be very damaging to me. I didn't have $3 on some days to pay for parking."
City Clerk Mary Parker would not discuss Anderson's improper use of the free-parking stamp or say whether she had been reprimanded, saying it was a personnel matter. Anderson resigned her city job in November for medical reasons, Parker said.
Court checks show that other city candidates also had civil actions to collect debts filed against them, including mayoral candidate Wick Anderson and council hopefuls Delvis "Mac" McCadden and James Trout.
Wick Anderson's legal action was over a contested $3 parking ticket dating to 1977. Trout's was a 1964 dispute over a $224 department store bill - something so old that Trout said he couldn't remember details, but that it must have resulted from a billing disagreement.
And McCadden had two judgments filed against him, in 1987 and 1980, one involving a $7,816 dispute with a New York leasing and financial services firm, and another over a $330 doctor's bill.
All of the cases against the candidates have been settled.
Renee Anderson was the only candidate to have had more than two civil actions for debt collection in the city brought against her in recent years.
Anderson, 28, said that's probably because she is the youngest candidate and therefore the most likely to have financial problems as she entered the job market while struggling to earn a college degree.
"Not everybody is born with a checkbook that is loaded," she said.
"I've tried to make the most of what I have had. You fall short sometimes, but I have tried to do the best I can.
"I am human and I have made mistakes," she said. However, Anderson does not feel those mistakes should be used against her in the campaign - or that they would affect her ability to be a council member.
"When people are running for public office, people expect them to live absolutely fault-free," she said.
Anderson said that many people her age have experienced similar financial pressures. After dropping out of Virginia Tech but before she went to work as a city secretary, Anderson said she was working two jobs that paid minimum wage while struggling to support herself and pay off a student loan.
"I had more money going out than I had coming in," she said.
Anderson said from days of working at a part-time job while she was a high school student that she had resolved to put herself through college without having to depend on her parents.
Court records show that she took a $5,000 student loan from Norfolk and Western Employees Federal Credit Union and missed at least one payment, as well as getting behind on rent and taking issue with a hospital bill.
"Sometimes [the payments] weren't always on time, but that's part of growing up when you're out on your own," she said.
Anderson said she accumulated dozens of parking tickets because she often had trouble finding a parking place close to the Municipal Building. She had a monthly space in the First Baptist Church's lot, but lost that when construction began on the church's new sanctuary.
"I would park close to the [Municipal Building] so I could get to work on time. I would get busy at work and I couldn't get back outside to move my car," she said.
Anderson acknowledged she had wondered if the parking tickets could become an issue in the campaign, but she said all have been paid now.
"I have not committed any crime or any felony, and I don't have any [driving under the influence] convictions," she said.
Of the 20 or more people that Anderson discussed the parking-ticket issue with, no one felt it would be a problem. "From the voters I talked to and discussed it with, they laughed at it."
Anderson said she hopes her financial condition - which has improved since she went into her brother's used-car business - will not follow her through the campaign.
"I'm not rich; I'm not wealthy," she said. "But I'm making it and I'm happy."
Staff writer Monica Davey contributed information for this story.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB