There is a reason campaign season is sometimes called “silly season.” Because during the run to Election Day, candidates come up with silly stuff, hoping that the voters won’t notice. This year, one theme has emerged from candidates across the region that falls into that category: “I’ll be a full time member of council.”
Hogwash.
Outside of the City of Richmond, there is no such thing as a full-time mayor, let alone a full-time council member, in Virginia.
I think The Daily Press summed it up nicely in its endorsement of McKinley Price for Mayor:
[Pat] Woodbury offers a false contrast when she says that, as a retiree, she can devote more time to the job than Price, who must maintain his dental practice. Newport News, like most cities in Virginia, long ago moved to the city manager form of government, with professionals overseeing operations under the elected council’s direction. The mayor and council members are meant to be part time, and a “full-time” mayor overly involved in day-to-day affairs is actually something to be avoided.
It’s one thing to hear candidates make the claim that they will be “full-time.” It’s quite another to hear it repeated by business leaders who should know better, as I have heard over the course of the last few months. Norfolk’s city charter, just like all of the other cities in Virginia except Richmond, dictates a city manager form of government.
A part-time, citizen legislature – on the local level, the council – is part of the rich history of our nation. James Madison wrote that legislators should be “called for the most part from pursuits of a private nature and continued in appointment for a short period of office.”
Saying that they will be “full-time” doesn’t make it so. A quick look of the composition of councils around Hampton Roads reveals members that work in sheriff’s departments, members who are school teachers, members who are attorneys, members who are doctors, and yes, members who are retired. All of them have the same goal: to serve the public. And because of the part-time nature of council (not to mention the related part-time pay), they are able to do so.
So it’s time to stop attacking candidates on the basis of their holding another job. It’s the way our local government works. Don’t like it? Petition council to request a charter change.
Oh – and at the very least, be consistent. You can’t attack one candidate for holding another job while simultaneously supporting another candidate who also has another job.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Funny enough, a GOP-Green-Union coalition (yes, really) is complaining about the city manager form of gov’t in Arlington, and is spreading all sorts of silly falsehoods in an attempt to change our form of gov’t to get rid of the city manager.
They may be successful in getting rid of the city manager – that happened in Newport News and in Hampton – but it won’t change the fact that a city manager will continue to run the government.
If the city council doesn’t request – and the General Assembly doesn’t approve – a charter change, it’s simply a waste of energy. And after Richmond, I doubt the GA is willing to do it.
Wrt Arlington, it’s a complete waste of energy. It won’t go anywhere. But it’s not like the GOP has anything else to do up here (and the Greens – who could actually apply useful political pressure, if they were smarter – are just helping the clown show along).
Pat Woodbury says she is a business owner on one hand and says she is retired on the other. She is all over the place.
I guess she thinks that someone can’t work and be mayor. Just who would that leave? It wouldn’t be a citizen that represents the city. Just who would that be?
There are distortions on both sides in Newport News! Anyone believing either should seek immediate psychiatric help! On the one hand you have Price who will tow the Joe Frank line and on the other you have Woodberry who has been a pain in the hind end to the status quo. So you can have more of the same or shake up the system. Hyperbole on both sides, but the choices are very clear.
Clearly, Price has out-spent and has hired campaign staff running out his ears. But as Stall proved, if you can put a grass-roots campaign together with poll workers, you can beat the good ol’ boys in Newport News. Dems did a horrible job of supporting West last year and are weak in the north of the city. Price will take the south end but if Woodberry rallies the north, he’s toast.
Should be another fun-to-watch election in Newport News.
And Stall proved what? If you lose by 700 or 7, she lost. In a republican district.
The only support pat has is from the right wing fright machine. She says she only has volunteers and her campaign shows it.
Distortions? No. Pat does not have a business and price does. Can you understand that. That is not a distortion, that is a lie.
She is part of the tea party crowd and would do nothing for Newport News but drive business away.
http://articles.dailypress.com/2010-03-18/news/dp-local_sierraforum_0318mar18_1_candidates-forum-pat-woodbury-global-warming
Who is distorting there? How can she be a member of the “right Wing Fright Machine” after that? Most in the Tea Party agree with the lawsuit against the EPA and want to stop Cap & Trade. That little episode cost her with the Tea Party, Cuccinelli supporters, and dumped her from at least one fundraiser in one not-so brilliant move.
Things really are more complicated under the surface, Linda. I’m sure there are many in the Sierra Club that don’t understand why many many conservationist Tea Partiers were on their side with the King William Reservoir, Buckroe Beach, and Fort Monroe, yet part ways on Cap & Trade.
Kinda like if you talk to many Tea Partiers, they’ll just as easily criticize Bush’s fiscal policy as anyone else’s. It is more principle than any thing else. We don’t care to be cover for Bush nor do see the benefit in Al Gore becoming even more insanely wealthy off of carbon trading. Results are more important than politics or cult of personality.
Pat Woodbury……., don’t count on my support either.