ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 20, 1996 TAG: 9604220012
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
THE NUMBER of Roanoke City Council candidates' forums is down considerably from two years ago, and the ones that are being held don't always play to packed houses.
Meanwhile, few general campaign themes have emerged. Voter interest instead seems to lie in an array of small issues - often, a complaint (less often, but sometimes, a compliment) about how well or poorly a particular municipal service has been delivered.
All this isn't necessarily bad. The seemingly low level of voter interest - at least on the surface and at least in comparison with some past elections - may reflect a conversely high level of voter satisfaction. Out of an accumulation of nuts-and-bolts details, each relatively minor in its own right, can come a broader assessment of how well the machinery of municipal government is or is not working.
But the seeming lack of interest may reflect less satisfaction than satisfaction's opposite: anomie born of a sense that the election really doesn't matter.
And while sidewalks, snow removal and towing ordinances are certainly fit subjects for a municipal election, they by themselves are not enough. Roanokers ought also to be talking about larger matters, including the kind of future they want for their city and how that vision might be accomplished.
In any case, this is a particularly poor election for Roanoke to slumber through. That's because, regardless of the outcome Election Day, a wholesale council turnover is already guaranteed.
Only two incumbents are running for re-election, and one of those - Councilwoman Linda Wyatt, a Democrat - is completing only her second year in office. The other, Democratic Mayor David Bowers, is a veteran, completing his 12th year on council, including the past four as mayor. However, his Republican opponent, Pat Green, is a political newcomer.
Some of the other candidates have been before the voters before. In a separate race to fill the final two years of an unexpired term, for example, School Board Chairman Nelson Harris, a Democrat who finished just out of the City Council running in 1994, faces Jeff Artis, a Republican who ran this past November for the House of Delegates. Indeed, two of the eight candidates vying for three four-year terms, Democrat Jim Trout and Republican David Lisk, have been elected before.
But running for office isn't the same as holding office. It has been six years since Trout was last on council; for Lisk, it has been a couple of decades.
In the absence of recent records by which to evaluate most of this year's council candidates, Roanokers would do well to try to get better acquainted with them between now and the May 7 election.
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS CITY COUNCILby CNB