Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 8, 1993 TAG: 9309080285
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Whether the issue has been tax cuts, sewer rates or pensions for firefighters and police officers, Musser and Harvey have almost always voted together.
Now they face another fight. Each has a serious health problem that could end his political career.
Musser, 63, is in the hospital recovering from a stroke two weeks ago that has affected some of his movement.
And now Harvey, 53, has been diagnosed with lung cancer.
A smoker for more than three decades, Harvey said Tuesday he still was weighing his treatment options. "I'm going to be positive and approach this just as aggressively as I do other things," he said.
Musser and Harvey are two of the most experienced and influential council members. Each has been on council for 11 years; their current terms end June 30.
Musser is running for commissioner of revenue as an independent. He said Tuesday that, despite his stroke, he has no plans to drop out of the race.
"I haven't changed my mind about it," Musser said, although his doctors have not told him when he can leave the hospital.
(Marsha Fielder, the Democratic nominee for commissioner of revenue who suspended her campaign when Musser was hospitalized, said Tuesday she has resumed campaigning. "Since I don't know what he's going to do, I've got to go forward with my campaign," Fielder said.)
Harvey said he has no plans to resign from council or slow his work pace. He is a corporate pilot and owner of rental property. In fact, Musser rents an apartment from Harvey, and it was Harvey who found Musser after he suffered the stroke.
Harvey said it's too early to speculate on whether he will seek another term.
If Musser and Harvey leave council, it would be the end of an era that began in the 1970s with the rise of a taxpayer coalition that pressed successfully for reductions in the city's real estate tax rate.
Musser and Harvey helped build the coalition before they were elected to council. They used it as a springboard for their own campaigns. And they are the last council members who were active in the taxpayer movement and the campaign to eliminate frills in city government.
Musser and Harvey have moved away from their populism and adopted a more pro-business attitude in recent years, but they haven't forgotten their political roots.
The top vote-getter in council elections serves as vice mayor. Musser, a retired finance supervisor at General Electric Co., has been vice mayor three times; Harvey was vice mayor once.
Last year, then-Mayor Noel Taylor chose not to seek re-election after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Taylor's health has remained good, and his cancer has not spread since he left office.
Harvey said he has already met with Taylor, a Baptist minister, since his own cancer was diagnosed, and it boosted his spirits.
"I felt a lot better after talking with Noel," said Harvey, a close friend of the former mayor.
Harvey also said he has smoked his last cigarette.
by CNB