Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 2, 1994 TAG: 9403020169
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Roanoke Democrats were in a mood for change Tuesday, ousting incumbent Jimmy Harvey and thwarting former councilman Jim Trout's comeback bid while awarding two newcomers spots on the party's ballot for City Council in the May election.
The 4,122 voters in the first primary for City Council candidates in 26 years showed a preference for new faces, and many Democrats read that as a referendum on the 2-for-1 pension plan for council members and top administrators.
"I didn't think it would play out, but evidently it did," said Councilman William White, who was renominated for a second term but described his election performance as "middling." "I guess it just goes to show, as you get experience and become an incumbent, you gather baggage."
The change issue was most evident in the nominating contest for a two-year term on council. In a sharply contested race that divided the party along cultural and ideological lines, teacher Linda Wyatt denied Harvey a chance to win a fourth term on council - 1,928 votes to 1,822.
Wyatt's 106-vote victory was a triumph for a liberal coalition of unions, teachers, gays, Gainsboro neighborhood activists and other self-styled "progressives" that has attempted to assert itself in the city's Democratic politics.
It also may have been the clearest signal of voters' displeasure with the 2-for-1 deal.
"What Linda heard at the polls today was a number of people asking, `Are you the one running against the guy who voted for the the 2-for-1?' " said Gary Waldo, a Roanoke Education Association staff member who played a key role in the Progressive Democratic Coalition. "I do think that was a factor for Harvey" - who was not on council when the plan was adopted in 1989, but voted in 1992 to extend it.
Change also was in the air in the race for the three spots on the ballot for four-year terms.
John Edwards, a relative newcomer appointed to council just four months ago, led the balloting. White finished second; but another first-time candidate, School Board member Nelson Harris, convincingly beat Trout for the final spot on the Democrats' May ticket.
"The two newcomers won, and the two oldest faces who voted for the 2-for-1, Trout and Harvey, lost," Waldo said. "Both of them had baggage, and that cost them. Edwards didn't have any baggage, and White had some but not a lot."
Technically, there were two elections taking place Tuesday, one to nominate a single candidate for the two years remaining on the seat that Beverly Fitzpatrick Jr. resigned last fall, and a second to nominate three candidates for four-year terms.
Of those, the most sharply defined contest was the one between Wyatt and Harvey for the two-year term, a showdown that pitted party "regulars" backing Harvey againstthe liberal coalition that made Wyatt's candidacy a rallying point.
Harvey, who rose to power as a blue-collar taxpayers' champion in the late 1970s, had counted on a big vote this time from the white-collar neighborhoods of Southwest Roanoke. He didn't get it.
He carried four of the five precincts in Raleigh Court, but not by enough - he lost Raleigh Court No. 3 and took Raleigh Court No. 4 by just one vote - while Wyatt edged him out in most of Southeast Roanoke and Williamson Road. And she won big in many of the predominantly black precincts of Northwest Roanoke.
The fault lines in the four-way scramble for the remaining three spots on the Democratic ticket weren't so clear.
Incumbents White and Edwards had been pegged as early favorites, while many Democrats had figured the final spot would come down to a battle between Trout, who has run in every election he has been eligible for since 1968, and the newcomer Harris, who already is mentioned as a potential candidate for higher office.
Those predictions came true.
Edwards, a lawyer who was appointed to council last fall after Fitzpatrick resigned, may have benefitted from his name recognition as a former U.S. attorney and an unsuccessful congressional candidate in 1992.
He ran strongest in South Roanoke and Raleigh Court, but showed broad support elsewhere, especially Southeast and Williamson Road. He carried 23 of 33 precincts and led the balloting with 2,900 votes.
White, an accountant and one of two black members on the seven-member council, ran a solid second or third throughout most of the city, while rolling up his biggest margins in black neighborhoods. He carried eight precincts, mostly in Northwest Roanoke, and finished with 2,521 votes.
Harris, the pastor of Ridgewood Baptist Church, ran second to Edwards in many of the Williamson Road and Raleigh Court precincts and did poorly only in parts of Southeast Roanoke. That was a good enough showing to win the final spot on the ballot with 2,099 votes.
Meanwhile, Trout, a retired railroad planner who has been on and off council since the 1960s, ran last or tied for last in 22 precincts. Only in Southeast Roanoke did he manage to run stronger. He polled 1,601 votes.
Staff writer Jan Vertefeuille contributed information to this story.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB