Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 28, 1994 TAG: 9404280206
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Here's a white Baptist minister running for office as a Democrat.
``Too many people identify white Baptist ministers with the far right, Jerry Falwell element," Harris says.
He prefers to describe himself as a "moderate" - a moderate Baptist in his theology and a moderate Democrat in his politics.
Still, he acknowledges, "the stereotypical white minister doesn't get involved" as a Democrat. "But I've been breaking stereotypes all my life. I wasn't cruising Williamson Road when I was 16; I was sitting in neighborhood meetings."
As a paperboy in high school, Harris took to reading the newspaper on his route. "If you do that every day, you become pretty well informed. I knew who my congressman was, who was on City Council, who the governor was. On account of that, I developed this interest in the community and politics in general."
He's been getting involved ever since. As a teen-ager, he became a member of the Raleigh Court Civic League. As a college graduate, he abandoned his plan to go to law school and became a minister because he saw a greater opportunity for community service there.
And two years ago, at age 27, he was appointed to the Roanoke School Board. Now, Harris hopes to practice community involvement on an even wider scale, as a member of city council.
Harris says council needs to pay more attention to social issues - subjects he's acquainted with not just as a minister, but as a school board member.
Scarcely a Harris campaign speech goes by that doesn't include these two statistics:
Half the students in Roanoke's public schools come from what are officially classified as "economically disadvantaged" homes.
And for much of the past decade, Roanoke has had the highest teen-pregnancy rate in Virginia.
"These are the big issues the city needs to deal with," he says.
In particular, he says, "the city needs to have a long-term strategy to deal with teen pregnancy. Teen pregnancy far exceeds the school board's ability to deal with. It far exceeds the municipal government's ability to deal with."
But the city government could take the lead, he says, in organizing a community-wide effort that would harness non-profit groups such as the YWCA and Total Action Against Poverty.
Harris says he doesn't pretend to have a solution in hand to this or other social problems.
But the key, he says, is for city council to make it clear that "our social problems are just as important as any other challenge."
That's one reason why Harris is the only council candidate who is openly critical of City Manager Bob Herbert.
"I think Bob is doing fair in some areas and poor in others," Harris says. "When the Roanoke Gas situation exploded, he was on vacation," Harris points out. But he's especially "dismayed" that it took Herbert five months to organize the teen-pregnancy task force that council wanted created.
"I think sometimes we could use a little more creativity and vision from the city manager's office," Harris says. In particular, he'd like to see "a little less foot-dragging on some issues."
Harris also wants to see the city working more closely with its neighbors. He's proposing a periodic "state of the valley" conference that would bring together local government officials.
"I'd like to see us draw up a blue print for the valley's future," he says. "I'm realistic enough to understand we can't cooperate on everything, but let's agree to cooperate on the things we can cooperate on, and set valley-wide goals for industrial parks, housing, transportation. I just don't see that dialogue occurring."
Harris' most visible issue, though, isn't a social issue at all - it's Victory Stadium.
He's proposing the city make a commitment to fix up the aging stadium by including $1 million for repairs in this fall's bond issue. He admits that is short of the $3 million the city estimated it will take to give the stadium a complete makeover.
But it's a start, he says.
Keywords:
POLITICS PROFILE
by CNB