Lynchburg gears up for highly anticipated city council elections | #citycouncil

With just days to go before Hill City residents head to the polls to make their voices heard in the 2022 midterm election — which includes a highly contested Lynchburg City Council race — Lynchburg’s registrar is gearing up for a busier election than usual.

Council is made up of seven members, four of whom represent the city’s four wards and three of whom are chosen at large. This year, the three at-large seats will be on the ballot, with the three highest vote-getters earning four-year terms. New candidates Patrick Earl, Marty Misjuns, Stephanie Reed, Larry Taylor and Walter Virgil Jr. are running, while incumbents Treney Tweedy and Beau Wright look to hold on to their current seats. With three seats up for grabs and only two incumbents running, at least one of the new candidates will be elected.

“I think it’s really been one of the busiest ones, in terms of preparation, because of the training, getting new equipment, understanding how to use the new equipment from our end, and letting our officers of election know what they need to do on Election Day,” Christine Gibbons, Lynchburg’s general registrar, said inside her Kemper Street Station office this week.

Voters have steadily flowed inside the registrar’s office at 825 Kemper St. since the beginning of early voting in September, with anywhere from 100 to 150 per day coming in to cast their votes, Gibbons said.

According to Virginia Department of Elections data, as of Nov. 1, Lynchburg has 55,858 registered voters.

As of Oct. 31, Gibbons said, her office already had seen about 3,000 voters come for in-person early voting. Additionally, she said, the office has received about 2,000 of the 3,000 mail-in ballots it had sent out.

That means about 9% of the city’s registered voters already had voted as of Oct. 31.

This year, the city council election is in November, not May, after the Virginia General Assembly passed a law last year moving local elections to November. Gibbons said voter turnout is expected to surpass the 12% mark from the 2018 at-large city council election, which was in May.

Gibbons said she anticipates the in-person early voting total could climb to 5,000 voters by the Nov. 5 deadline, meaning almost 7,000 voters could voice their opinions before Election Day.

This year, in addition to city council elections, voters will decide who will represent Virginia’s 5th congressional district, with incumbent Republican Rep. Bob Good facing off against Democratic challenger Josh Throneburg.

Because of a push in recent years by both of the major political parties to increase turnout at the local level, there aren’t many elections where candidates are sent to Congress that have low turnout anymore, David Richards, chair of the political science department at the University of Lynchburg, said in a recent interview.

“There may be sort of high turnouts and really high turnouts,” Richards said about elections with federal races on the ballot. “But I don’t think we’re going to see, sort of, elections where nobody shows up because both parties have really drilled home that message of, ‘If you don’t come out to vote, the other side will.’”

As for who high turnout could benefit, it might not be as easy to determine in local elections as in national elections. In most national elections, higher-than-expected turnout could be a sign of trouble for an incumbent, showing a swell of support for a challenger.

But that isn’t always the case when it comes to local elections, Richards said.

“The way, normally, city council races are run, they don’t have a party identifier,” Richards said. “And if you’re paying the least bit of attention, you might recognize the incumbent [on the ballot], but you may not recognize people running against them because they are new names.”

“And I think in this race in particular, some of those candidates are going to struggle more than maybe they would have, because people just don’t know who they are, whereas the incumbents, they’ve at least seen those names around if they read the paper, watch the news, they’ve seen these people pop up,” Richards said.

Richards did warn that being an incumbent isn’t a firewall against challengers.

“It is very difficult,” Richards said about defeating an incumbent. “What usually is going to happen is the incumbent doesn’t campaign or doesn’t campaign effectively; that could be a problem.

“But if you have a high-interest campaign …” — which Richards said this race is — “and there’s a lot of turnout, even the incumbent may not have enough of a base to overcome somebody new who taps into the voters who are coming in and haven’t voted before.”

Another sign of interest in the race: the amount of money raised by the candidates.

According to the nonprofit Virginia Public Access Project, the seven candidates have raised more than $308,000 during the 2022 election cycle, which is more than quadruple the total raised during 2018’s at-large city council elections — $65,831 — despite having the same number of candidates.

The candidates also smashed fundraising numbers from 2014 and 2010, which came in at over $134,000 and $153,000, respectively.

Here’s how much each candidate has raised, according to VPAP, as of Nov. 4:

Fundraising numbers increased in the final month for Misjuns, Reed and Taylor in part because of several in-kind donations made to their campaigns. Each candidate noted at least one in-kind donation of at least $2,500 in their October reporting.

While fundraising can be a sign of future success in elections, Richards warned it’s not as important on the local level as it is on the national level, pointing out that name recognition, endorsements and personal connections mean just as much as money in local races.

In elections where the winning margin can come down to as close as a couple hundred votes, Richards said having in-roads all across the city is important. The more people a candidate knows, the more people they can turn out to impact those narrow margins.

While city council candidates often run as independents, party politics play a bigger role than usual this year: three candidates — Misjuns, Reed and Taylor — are backed by the Lynchburg Republican City Committee and have signed a pledge committing to a slate of goals laid out by current Ward IV Councilman Chris Faraldi, who is one of two Republicans currently on council along with Ward III Councilman Jeff Helgeson.

Faraldi, in September, released his “Lynchburg Pledge,” which outlines three main priorities: fiscal responsibility and tax breaks to bolster the local economy; investment in public safety; and education in Lynchburg.

Meanwhile, incumbents Tweedy and Wright have repeatedly pointed to their investments in infrastructure with the recent Lakeside Drive bridge project; investments in public safety by providing raises for the police and fire departments; and targeted tax relief in fiscal year 2023 in the form of real estate tax rebates and personal property tax reductions.

Throughout the campaign season, Earl has expressed his interest in both prioritizing ways to aid citizens with tax revenue, but also has said he wants to promote quality city services and promote a quality Lynchburg city workforce.

Earl also has made the ongoing Lynchburg City Schools facilities assessment a top issue, pointing out that the children need quality facilities if they are going to get a quality education.

Virgil has stressed the importance of a high-quality educational system, saying that if the city focuses on getting children to graduation, it will help solve part of the city’s crime issue.

Additionally, he has said he wants to see more financial accountability from city departments, adding the organizations that show their fiscal responsibility should allow them to advocate for more down the line since they are using it well.

One specific item in Faraldi’s pledge is to change the school board from being an appointed body to an elected one, which also has come up on the campaign trail. Misjuns, Reed and Taylor have all said they favor an elected school board, while newcomers Earl and Virgil, along with incumbents Tweedy and Wright, argued against an elected school board during a September town hall event.

Richards, the UL professor, similarly opined that tax cuts — which he said could lead to less spending — and the selection process for the school board are the two most important issues on the table for Tuesday’s election.

The opportunity for an early seat on council could hang in the balance on Tuesday.

This week, At-large Councilman Randy Nelson announced he will resign from council as of noon Monday, Nov. 7. In his resignation, Nelson’s wish is that a non-incumbent victor in Tuesday’s election be specially appointed to his seat early, allowing that person an opportunity to be on council prior to the start of fiscal year 2024 budget negotiations.

According to City Attorney Matthew Freedman, it is up to the discretion of the current council as to who will take Nelson’s place on council, noting if there are multiple new candidates who win a seat on Tuesday that council could choose one to bring forth early.

The appointment could happen during a special called meeting, which would need at least three working days notice, or during a regular meeting of council, Freedman said. Council only has one regularly scheduled meeting left prior to the new year, scheduled for Dec. 13.

Polls open at 6 a.m. across the city Tuesday and will remain open until 7 p.m. Anyone in line at 7 p.m. will be allowed to cast their vote.

On Election Day, the Greater Lynchburg Transit Company will host “Fare Free Day,” giving all residents free rides to vote.

For more information, visit the registrar’s website at Lynchburgva.gov/registrars-office.