With the conclusion of Tuesday’s Democratic primary, the 2022 Roanoke City Council races have perhaps assumed their ultimate form — and what a strange shape it is.
Though it’s improbable, it’s not impossible that, given an unanticipated twist or two, the November election could see more than half of city council exchanged for new faces — because of three seats that were expected to be up for grabs, and a fourth that wasn’t, at least not at first.
Tuesday, the Star City’s Democrats were tasked with whittling four council candidates down to the ticket that will vie for three open council seats. Though the differences between the quartet were subtle, one had to leave the metaphorical island, and environmental advocate Terry McGuire was the one voted off.
That leaves incumbent Joe Cobb, winner of the most votes, and incumbent Vivian Sanchez-Jones, an appointee running for election for the first time, along with real estate agent Peter Volosin, trying again after coming in fifth in the November 2020 council contest. According to the uncertified Tuesday night tally, Cobb swept the city’s south precincts, while Sanchez-Jones won the most votes in eight northern precincts. Volosin won the remaining three.
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The trio officially climbs into the ring to join Republican candidates Dalton Baugess, Nick Hagen and Maynard Keller, and independent candidates Preston Tyler, Jamaal “J.L.” Jackson and former Mayor David Bowers.
At the same time, the city will hold a special election to fill the seat vacated when property manager and magazine publisher Robert Jeffrey Jr. pleaded no contest to embezzlement on March 17. The winner will serve the remaining two years of Jeffrey’s term. The Republican who earned the most votes in the 2020 council race, Peg McGuire, is squaring off against Luke Priddy, the chief of staff for state Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke.
Basic demographics in solid blue Roanoke stack the odds against McGuire in this one on one contest, and her supporters might end up wishing she had gone for the general instead.
Of course, a question hangs in the air as to whether voters might punish Democrats for Jeffrey’s high jinks. When Jeffrey entered his plea, he raised his total number of felony convictions within two days from two to three.
The sordid spectacle began when Jeffrey was indicted in July 2021 on two charges that he embezzled money from the Northwest Neighborhood Environmental Organization and again in October on two more charges that he obtained money by false pretenses from the city’s Economic Development Authority. Throughout the ordeal Jeffrey refused to resign, which in hindsight appears to have been a case of postponing the inevitable. His presence on council caused distraction and embarrassment until his exit.
The races are sure to focus on the escalating rash of shootings in the Star City. As of June 14, the most recent meeting of the Roanoke Gun Violence Prevention Commission, Roanoke Police Department statistics showed nine gun-related homicides and 25 aggravated assaults in 2022, compared to six homicides and 19 assaults by that date in 2021.
Cobb, as chair of the commission, may well take the brunt of criticism from other candidates — though as he earned the highest voting totals in Tuesday’s primary and the 2018 general election, for him to lose his seat the entire Democratic ticket would have to sink, and that would be a shocking development, considering a Republican hasn’t won a Roanoke council race since 2000.
Though Cobb has taken some heat, including from Mayor Sherman Lea, for a prevention effort perceived as slow-moving, you would not have learned about those tensions from the June 16 Democratic debate held in the WFIR studio. Cobb’s fellow Democrats all showered praise on his work.
Though some differences among the candidates existed, McGuire seemed more than once to be the odd man out, especially when he stated that he would be open to a discussion of re-dividing the city into wards, with each ward represented by a council member. At present all council members are at-large, meaning they represent the whole city, and Cobb, Sanchez-Jones and Volosin all said they prefer it that way.
(McGuire’s odd man out status was further underscored by Volosin’s improperly labeled handouts that discouraged voters from backing McGuire — what consequences might come from this remain to be seen.)
The greatest threat to seeing all three victorious Democrats seated in the downtown municipal building’s fourth floor comes from someone once one of their number, former Mayor Bowers, a veteran politician who has made his angle of attack clear: to stanch the gun violence crisis and make the city safe, council should be pouring resources into the Roanoke police force instead of funding social programs that don’t have instant payoff.
A contested election is a worthwhile election, and Roanoke Republicans have a full slate competing in this one, a welcome development that hasn’t always been true in the past. Republicans Hagen, an attorney, and Baugess, logistics officer for the Salem Fire Department, have voiced views akin to the one Bowers espouses.
To digress a moment about the notion of giving police higher pay, better resources and more hires, versus supporting programs that go into affected communities and work to change violent, anti-police culture at the source so that fewer youth get drawn down the wrong path in the first place: there is no sensible reason why this must be an either-or, all or nothing choice. In the words of the popular internet meme — swiped from the 2000 animated film “The Road to El Dorado,” and viewed by millions more than the actual movie ever was: “Both. Both. Both. Both is good.”
In fact, city council has taken the “both is good” approach. As noted by Roanoke Times reporter Jeff Sturgeon (“Election raises violence debate,” April 24), Roanoke earmarked $3 million for police compensation increases, $200,000 for lighting and cameras, and $1.3 million for the commission to distribute to community-based programs.
Both the rising tide of gun violence and the shrinking number of police officers are national crises influenced by a multitude of factors and accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Reasonable people can argue as to whether the city’s methods for dealing with either problem go far enough.
The election will hinge in large part on whose vision convinces the most voters, though there’s plenty of possibility that the end result will grant seats to politicians on both sides of the divide.
