Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 28, 1994 TAG: 9404280186
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
The old hands are Joyce Lewis, Lewis Barnett and Al Leighton. Each has lived in Blacksburg for decades. Lewis and Barnett are vying for their third term on council; Leighton, his sixth.
But each has squirmed a bit as two-time challenger Ray Chisholm has gotten under their skin recently with potshots at town management and questioning the advantage of their experience.
For years, the ultimate issue in Blacksburg Town Council election politics has been how to balance economic development with maintaining a small-town quality of life. Much of what the incumbents speak of fits that bill again.
Lewis, Barnett and Leighton each would like to run on the traditional issues of promoting balanced development, doing their best for Blacksburg's citizens and forging ahead. The three say they will run on their records.
But in two candidates' forums in the past week, Chisholm, a local developer, businessman and one-time Planning Commission member, has attacked the council members on some unexpected specifics, though his points have sometimes come across as irksome or inflammatory.
A bit of what each has had to say follows:
Leighton wants a Town Council more responsive to citizens' needs, orderly growth within the guidelines of the town's zoning ordinance and better cooperation between the town and the university on issues such as Greek housing and the proposed downtown parking deck.
A professor in Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture and a former Republican candidate for the House of Delegates, he wants to see more effort by the management of Gables Shopping Center and University Mall to gain and retain business. He is helping negotiate a franchise with Blacksburg Cable Television for next year and wants more attention paid to senior citizens' needs.
Councilman Barnett, even more than Leighton, has spoken of the senior citizen role in Blacksburg, calling for more programs directed at them and the building of a center specifically for the retirement-age group.
A member of the town's Planning Commission for 17 years, he works in Tech's registrar's office, coordinating special programs.
He often shows his interest in the town's bicycle-friendliness, and has said the major reason he'd like to remain on council is to see the completion of the zoning ordinance rewrite, which along with the town's comprehensive plan he describes as the two most important documents the town has.
Joyce Lewis, a former chairwoman of the Montgomery County Republican Party and former member of of the Montgomery Regional Economic Development Commission, is an advocate of balanced economic growth.
"We must effect the change we feel will be ... of the best interests to our community," she said at a forum sponsored by the Blacksburg Federation of Neighborhoods.
On her list of interests, she cites: an emergency preparedness plan to deal with situation's like the ice storm that resulted in the town's losing water, expansion of the recycling program and better cooperation between the town and Tech.
Chisholm has challenged the incumbents, saying Town Council could use a "little new input, a little different perspective."
At the Federation forum, he admitted he had not had time to go door-to-door soliciting votes or to make up any campaign literature, but said of the incumbents' literature: "I have to agree with most of what they say."
But he has then gone on to portray their thrice-as-long-as-his residency in Blacksburg as possibly contributing to "tunnel vision."
Chisholm, a civil engineer with more than 20 years of experience, maintains that the town could save money by using a chipper on the site of its brush cleaning pickup efforts instead of hauling thousands of loads to the Montgomery County landfill. He has suggested that the town's $10 parking fine is too high. He has attacked the management of the town, which recently won a U.S. Senate Productivity Award, as inexperienced and insensitive in their workings with business.
And he has maintained that the council is packed with Tech employees, which calls into question its ability to make decisions unbiased by the university's influence.
His arguments have succeeded in at least one thing: forcing the three incumbents to tailor rebuttals askew of their original platforms.
"I can say unequivocally that I have never had one single person [in Tech's administration] who has tried to put any pressure one me," said Leighton, one of five Tech employees on the Town Council. "If I ever felt the pressure, I guarantee you right now, I would get out of Town Council."
"It's a bad rap to say that the town management is not interested in the business community," Barnett said. All three incumbents have expressed support for the staff.
At times, it has appeared as if Chisholm is up against a unified team of three, as each incumbent has focused arguments against him, while never directly attacking the others.
So much so, that Monday in his closing remarks at a League of Women Voters of Montgomery County forum, Chisholm told the few audience members, "For those of you that would like to see a change ... you do not have to vote for three people. You can vote for one or two or even three."
Whether voters will agree with his call for change, or choose to continue the approach of the past, will be decided Tuesday.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB