Divided Democrats: Caucus results spark new criticisms

Charlottesville’s Democratic Party was unusually divided heading into Saturday’s primary election, but it doesn’t appear the rift will be closing anytime soon.

Some city Democrats have called for unity after the hotly contested firehouse primary, but the post-election reactions of those active in local politics seem to signify anything but.

Satyendra Huja, Kathy Galvin and Dede Smith won the party’s three nominations to City Council in Saturday’s voting, but fourth-place finisher Paul Beyer has called for further verification of the results after trailing Smith by just 29 votes. Some see the result as a repudiation of Mayor Dave Norris’s strong support for candidates who largely share his views, while Norris says voters delivered a mixed verdict.

Critics have called attention to Norris’s involvement in the campaigns of Smith, Brevy Cannon and Colette Blount, and one sitting councilor said Sunday that Norris’s heavy involvement may have done more to hurt than help.

“In some ways, the mayor turned this into a referendum on himself, and I don’t think he fared well with that,” said Councilor David Brown, who’s stepping down from the council at the end of the year. “I frankly think that it was a strong group of candidates that ran on his ticket. Those were solid, well-considered candidates, and I think that they would have done better without such a hard push from the mayor.”

Norris gave his analysis of the election results Sunday afternoon.

“I’m very happy that Dede Smith won nomination,” Norris said. “She’s going to be a great addition to City Council. Obviously, I wish that Brevy Cannon and Colette Blount had prevailed, but the voters have spoken.”

The mayor congratulated all the winners, but said the results showed a “split vote.”

“I don’t think anybody really came out of it with a mandate per se. The incumbents almost always win. I think that was largely to be expected. And then the two open seats were split between the more moderate faction of the party and the more progressive faction of the party,” Norris said. “The progressive candidates had a bit of a challenge in terms of arguing that we need to change the status quo, when a significant portion of the people who came out to vote I think are fairly happy with the status quo.”

Norris said the result will likely have a big impact on the issue of public-housing redevelopment, which he said will be “flashpoint” over the next few years in light of the primary results.

“The last several years have been very successful in sort of charting a course for addressing the issues of poverty and housing redevelopment in our community that was sort of coming from the grassroots up,” Norris said. “I think what you’re going to see now, given what happened last night, is a much more top-down approach ... I think it’s going to be a different mentality about how to go about addressing the issues of poverty in our community.”

A number of local political figures have expressed concern that the Democratic Party did not nominate a black candidate this year, breaking a trend of black representation on Charlottesville’s governing body that spans decades.

Blount was the only black Democrat in the field, and her exit leaves Andrew Williams, an independent, as the only black candidate in the mix for the general election, barring any last-minute declarations of other non-Democratic candidates. (The deadline to be certified as a candidate is Tuesday.)

Councilor Holly Edwards, the only current black member, is not seeking re-election.

Norris said the primary results should serve as a “huge wakeup call” to the black community and residents who support “racial and economic justice and representation.”

“That’s huge,” Norris said. “I think you’re going to see … even more disaffection from the African-American community given the fact that the party establishment heavily pushed a slate that would have stripped the black community of any representation on City Council. We already have a Planning Commission now that is all white.”

Former city Mayor Blake Caravati, who went to bat for Huja, Galvin and Beyer during the primary campaign, said the lack of a black candidate is the “biggest fallout” from the election, but he suggested Blount suffered by hitching herself to the Norris-endorsed group.

“It was pretty clear that she should’ve run by herself,” Caravati said. “By her getting talked into running on that ticket, in that kind of lockstep, both in the policies and the words that they used, it really kind of took away from her.”

Blount could not be reached for comment.

Brown suggested that a silent majority rendered judgment on two of the most controversial local issues: the Meadow Creek Parkway and the water-supply plan.

“My main thought is that the results, where two of the candidates were clearly identified with moving forward on the parkway and moving forward with the dam ... it kind of confirms to me what I’ve always felt, that you can’t judge public opinion by the number of people who show up in council chambers,” Brown said.

Despite the continuing intra-party disagreements, Norris said experience suggests that the Democrats will eventually pull together to form a unified front.

Democrats shouldn’t get “complacent” as they prepare to face the independents in the Nov. 8 general election, Norris said, even though the high number of independents running makes an upset more unlikely, because the vote will be split into “narrow slivers” of the electorate.

“Mathematically, I just don’t see how independents pull it off,” Norris said.