High turnout expected for Democrats' firehouse primary

After a summer campaign season that has seen accusations fly about city politics sinking to new lows and insurgent candidates threatening a frightened party establishment, Charlottesville voters will soon have a chance to pick three City Council nominees to represent an unusually divided Democratic Party.

On Saturday, voters will choose the three nominees at the party’s firehouse primary, and Democratic organizers expect turnout to be high. During the first round of absentee voting on Aug. 9, 130 people showed up to cast a vote, compared with 49 in the 2009 election. Party organizers say there’s a high level of public interest this year.

“We have a bunch of really strong candidates and they’ve been having people out knocking on doors and making phone calls,” said party co-chairman Jim Nix. “We’re going to have a lot of people voting and the voting is going to be all over the place as far as the candidates are concerned.”

The Democratic nominees will eventually compete with at least five independents in the general election, but in a city long dominated by Democrats — and where all five current councilors are Democrats — the primary is a key milestone in the election cycle.

The seven Democrats seeking their party’s nomination this year have all stressed the importance of making improvements in jobs, education and housing, but the more concrete issues — the infrastructure projects that will either get built or not — have provided plenty of fodder for debate and disagreement.

Most candidates have downplayed the water-supply plan and the Meadow Creek Parkway as top campaign issues, but the two lingering controversies — the water plan in particular — have been animating factors that have given rise to some of the sharpest campaign rhetoric and driven a wedge into the Democratic field.

Given the crowded lineup, some suspected that the candidates would eventually form alliances of sorts, and at least one faction became clear at a July 20 candidate forum.

During a round in which candidates were allowed to ask questions of each other, Dede Smith, Brevy Cannon and Colette Blount collaborated to ask each other softball questions, which essentially gave all three a chance to make closing remarks.

Smith, a former city School Board chairwoman and co-founder of pro-dredging group Citizens for a Sustainable Water Plan; Cannon, a media-relations writer at the University of Virginia; and Blount, a teacher and current School Board member, are all opposed to the plan to build a new earthen dam at the Ragged Mountain Reservoir. Mayor Dave Norris, who championed an alternative water plan that was undone earlier this year when a split council voted for the current plan, has endorsed all three anti-dam candidates.

Norris said he chose to endorse those three candidates not just because of any particular focus on the parkway or water plan, but because they will insist on “standing strong” for the city’s interests.

“I think both of those issues are emblematic of broader philosophies about governance and about priorities,” Norris said. “And most importantly, they’re emblematic of a different approach to city-county relations.”

Norris chalked up the party split to the council’s shift from unanimous support of his preferred water plan to a 3-2 vote for a plan favored by “party insiders” and county interests.

“The effort to undo that unanimous vote is what caused this divide that we’re now seeing play out in the City Council election,” Norris said.

Loosely aligned

Incumbent Councilor Satyendra Huja, architect and city School Board member Kathy Galvin and developer Paul Beyer haven’t shown such an explicit alliance, but all have taken similar positions in support of the water plan and the parkway. Galvin and Beyer have both suggested that continued debate over those two issues is unhelpful, and detracts from other pressing needs in the city.

One-time candidate Peter McIntosh linked Huja, Galvin and Beyer when he dropped out of the council race in mid-June. A retired attorney, McIntosh said those three could carry the banner of forward-looking thinking without him.

It was Galvin who made the charge that the city had reached a low point in politics, saying that a “bunker mentality” on the water plan and parkway made consensus difficult, which she said was “bad for the Democratic Party.”

“The question is not a divide in the party,” Galvin said. “The question is how we divide up our time talking about the issues.”

James Halfaday, a gym owner, has seemingly been a candidate unto himself. He has stressed education, fiscal conservatism and a more responsive city government as his top priorities. He supports the parkway, but favors a dredge-first approach to water supply. At a recent candidate forum, Halfaday characterized himself as a straight-shooter.

“The reason I’m running for Charlottesville City Council that differs me from any of these candidates up here is that I do not read from a script. I tell you what comes from my heart and I tell you what comes from my mind. So these individuals that read from their papers, they’re not speaking from their heart.” Halfaday said. “… If you ask me a question, I give you a direct answer. A lot of people don’t like me because of that.”

Clerk nomination

The seven council candidates may get marquee billing, but Democrats will also nominate a candidate Saturday for clerk of Charlottesville Circuit Court. Llezelle Dugger and Pam Melampy are challenging longtime incumbent Paul C. Garrett for the nomination.

The Democratic primary will be held from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at Burley Middle School. The primary is open to registered city voters willing to sign a Democratic declaration form.

Voters who will be out of town on that date can participate in absentee balloting from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Independence Resource Center on Cherry Avenue. In-home voting service is available to those who cannot leave home due to illness or infirmity, but is only offered during the Saturday caucus or Thursday’s absentee voting period. Those who need in-home service should call Nix at 987-3321.

Nix said he worried that other election issues may be overwhelmed by focus on high-profile controversies, but those worries were not realized.

“My fear going into this is that it would be all about the water plan and the parkway and that has proven not to be the case,” Nix said. “There have been a lot of issues discussed , and I think that’s a great thing.”