Sunday, January 23, 2011
Little dissension on Salem council
Bloc voting has occurred 99 percent of the time in recent years. Does it produce positive results?
Salem City Council member Lisa Garst
Salem City Council member Vice-Mayor John Givens
Salem Byron R. "Randy" Foley
Salem City Council member Jane Johnson
Salem City Council member Bill Jones
Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times
Salem City Council members (from left) Bill Jones, Jane Johnson, Mayor Randy Foley, Vice Mayor John Givens and Lisa Garst discuss an issue during a council meeting in September.
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From The Roanoke Times
In the summer of 2008, the Salem City Council seemed on the verge of reaching a key landmark.
Jane Johnson, the second woman of just three to serve on the council, announced interest in succeeding outgoing Mayor Howard Packett. Salem had previously been led by 22 mayors, all of them men, and Johnson, from the showroom of her jewelry store on South College Avenue, told a reporter that residents had encouraged her to step up for the job.
Vice Mayor John Givens, the council's senior member, with well more than a decade of experience, also expressed a desire to lead.
Near the end of June, the five-member council went into closed session to appoint the position, sat down at a table and later emerged with a new mayor -- Randy Foley, then 38, a University of Virginia-educated family man and nine-year Air Force veteran. The council's newest and youngest member, he was tapped without dissension, drawing votes even from both Johnson and Givens.
"At the end of the day, we all have to work together," Johnson said recently of the appointment. "I think it would've been real negative to come out and vote against that decision.
"I feel like being a good sport is a good thing. I'm a team player. I was disappointed. However, we've had no problems. It's all well and fine," she said.
Givens said that during the discussions, he initially voted for himself but later changed his mind.
"My fellow council members, on a majority, when we got into that closed session, decided they wanted to cast their votes for Mr. Foley, and I said, 'What's the point of coming out in open session and making a brouhaha?' " he recalled.
It's not unusual for a council to seek unanimity on personnel matters, particularly on the decision to fill a top positions.
But that instance is the closest the Salem City Council has come to a significant open disagreement in some time.
Whether they're approving or denying something, consensus seems to come naturally.
***
Over the past six years -- since January 2005 -- the city council has voted on approximately 900 items and, during that period, council decisions have been split by disagreement on just 10 occasions, or 1.1 percent of the time, according to records from the city manager's office.
That solidarity translates to an average of 1.7 nonunanimous votes annually over the past half-dozen years, although the last time "nays" and "ayes" intermingled in Salem was on a rezoning issue in July 2009. There were three split votes in 2008, five in 2007 and one in 2005, council records indicated.
Subtract those instances and you're still left with nearly 1,000 decisions on which five members governed in what would seem to be complete agreement according to the final vote, a trait that goes back much further than 2005.
"One percent nonunanimous sounds unhealthy in almost any context," said Brian Richardson, a professor of journalism who teaches a course in state and local government at Washington and Lee University. "Ninety-nine percent unanimous votes means that the city basically believes elected officials and the city staff are getting it right all the time.
"I'm not sure anybody's that good, with all due respect," he added.
Mark Flynn, director of legal services for the Virginia Municipal League, said the habits of individual councils can be as varied as their numbers.
"If you did an analysis in the 39 cities in the state, you would find the [voting] history to be all over the map. It all depends on what's going on locally," Flynn said.
Of the Salem council's record, Foley said: "I don't know that it's been an issue, that there's not more dissension. Perhaps it's not as entertaining.
"I would argue 200 of those [900 votes] were substantive. The rest of those were resolutions. Probably a fourth of those were decisions," he said.
The council voting order runs from the least senior to longest-serving members -- currently Lisa Garst to Bill Jones to Johnson, then Vice Mayor Givens, followed by the mayor, who votes last.
"In many ways, it's done when it gets to me," said Foley, who in July was reappointed for a second term. "I'm not going to vote 'no' on something just to vote 'no' on it."
During the past half-decade, however, he cast more contrary votes than anyone else on the council -- most notably his solo opposition to 2007-2008 real estate and personal property tax rates.
"I actually thought we should lower rates," he said recently.
In all, Foley went against the tide in seven of the 10 split votes documented, with all but one of those decisions made before he was appointed mayor, when seniority dictated he vote first.
"I don't see how a 3-2 vote or a 5-0 vote or a 4-1 vote changes anything. You're still demonstrating your concern," he said. "If it comes to me, and I've voiced my concerns, but with the evidence I think it's best we do this, I'm not going to vote 'no' just to voice my concerns."
Others said that the push-and-pull is a natural process of politics.
"I just have never approached it, and will never approach, trying to keep everyone happy with 7-0 votes," Roanoke City Councilman Court Rosen said. "At the end of the day, if you really feel strongly about something, even if six other people don't, you've got to vote your conscience."
Robert Matson, director of the Senior Executive Institute of the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, said it's natural for groups that work toward a common goal to want to support each other.
"The downside, of course, is: Are they simply doing 'group think,' [in which] some people do their homework and others depend on others to do their work for them? That's one of the things that could lend itself to those kinds of numbers. That's not always the healthiest, because some people don't think for themselves."
He said the process of building a consensus can be an extremely positive instrument for a city council.
"It really depends on how good the debate is before the vote, if they have taken time on the issues," he said.
All Salem council members pointed to public work sessions, launched in 2008, as a key tool in their decision-making processes. Prior to each meeting, City Manager Kevin Boggess details agenda items for members and fields questions about pending issues, and his office regularly distributes information packets, with staff recommendations on most issues.
"I talk with most council members [individually] throughout the week," Boggess said, but he agreed the work sessions were a valuable forum: "From sort of a selfish perspective, it makes my job a little easier, so I can talk to five people instead of one person at a time."
He said he agrees with the council "almost all the time" on their votes.
The council meetings themselves tend to move quickly, often last less than an hour, and almost never see argument before or behind the dais, save for occasional issues that spark public interest, usually those involving zoning decisions.
"Even some of the rezonings aren't contested," Foley noted.
"If people were more upset with our decision-making process, I think they'd be showing up," he said.
Polls indicate a lack of enthusiasm as well. Voter turnout for city council elections -- which Salem holds in the spring instead of fall -- was 36 percent in 2000; 23 percent and 24 percent in 2004 and 2008; and the 2010 race saw just 15 percent of Salem's 16,260 registered voters cast ballots.
***
The council's unanimity, too, has also led some residents to question exactly how and when decisions are reached. As members are prohibited from privately meeting each other in groups greater than two without giving notice, their consistent decisions are occasionally the subject of quiet debate, particularly when contentious issues hit the agenda.
"I would enjoy a call like that," said Garst, who added she's never been directly asked about unanimity.
"I think for people to say it's all fixed when they get there, I don't quite agree with that statement," said Jones, likening the votes to a test. "If everybody gets 100, does that mean they all understood the same way?"
Johnson said any suspicions were "a false perception," adding, "This is my seventh year. I have never had a situation where I called someone [on the council] or they called me."
Givens, too, dismissed the notion of illegal discussion.
"We don't get together and talk on the phone or behind anyone. We just seem to come to our own conclusions," he said.
Givens who, after Foley, has the second-largest number of contrary council votes over the past five years (one in 2008 and another in 2009) said he doesn't see a united front as a disadvantage:
"I'm not throwing stones at any other locality, but sometimes when you get into knock-down, drag-out fights over an issue ... I can see that can raise animosity."
The city's larger, busier neighbors know something about that.
In 2009, after a 3-2 vote by the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors halted a proposal to replace the Glenvar Library, Catawba District Supervisor Butch Church accused Hollins District Supervisor Richard Flora of not actually living in the district he represents.
"He's going to find himself with a defamation of character suit," Flora replied.
The library renovations were eventually approved, again by a 3-2 vote, but the dust-up typified the kind of public disagreement Salem has long taken successful pains to avoid.
Salem's sister city, Roanoke, is about four times larger in population, and has a metropolitan sprawl by comparison, but over the past year, its seven council members have opposed one another on plenty of issues that would seem right up Salem's alleys -- allowing street vendors on city land; relocating council meetings; moving voting precincts; selling property; and easing light and noise restrictions for a local high school.
Roanoke's council has also had high-profile splits on bigger key issues -- in August 2009, it opted 4-3 to remove a commercial amphitheater from its capital spending plan, only to reverse that decision the following week, again by a 4-3 vote; the demolition of Victory Stadium, one of the most hotly debated issues in city history, was famously a 5-2 call after a series of 4-3 votes leading up to the final vote; and former City Manager Darlene Burcham was chosen by a 4-2 vote in 1999, a kind of division some see as bad for business.
"Many people won't move to a community where they got a 3-2 vote on [hiring] a city manager," Matson said. "If you start out with two who didn't want them in the first place, would you want to go to a community like that?"
Council members in both Roanoke and Salem are also elected at large and don't represent one specific portion of their individual cities, a distinction that plants them on similar footing, even as the demographics they serve differ.
This, Richardson said, could be another factor behind the two councils' different voting habits:
"Increasing diversity in society of those who can vote and do tends to mean that they look for people who will represent their interests and agendas," he said. "Constituencies with different needs and interests put pressure on in different ways.
"Unless you have an enormously homogeneous community ... it's less and less common to get that kind of unanimity," Richardson said.
"If you can reach consensus, chances are you can bring more people's views into the process," said Bob Gibson, executive director for the Sorenson Institute for Political Leadership. He said consistent agreement is not necessarily a bad thing, but added, "It just leads people to wonder whether perhaps all the voices are heard."
On the other hand, intentional disagreement can also be used by some simply to gain an advantage.
"There's no question that there have been a number of votes in the city where positions were taken based on political considerations," said Rosen, the Roanoke councilman. "What you see ... is the creation of wedge issues to motivate your base and turn down your opponent's base.
"It's really part of the problem with the system," he said.
Disagreement can come with other costs, too. The same week Roanoke reversed its amphitheater decision, Salem announced it, too, would build an outdoor concert venue.
Vastly smaller in scale -- built with about $50,000 in Jaycee-donated funds, compared with Roanoke's $15 million project -- a modest stage was nevertheless quickly assembled in Salem's Longwood Park. It's capable of serving up to 2,000 spectators, hosts the city's Jazz in July festival and is slated for upgrades and expansion, which are also expected to be paid for by a civic group's donation.
Roanoke's proposed venue, meanwhile, has burned through hundreds of thousands of city dollars in consulting fees, yet remains stalled in development as its arrival grows less and less likely.
"I think the city benefits from the fact that we're able to work together," said Garst, the Salem councilwoman. "A lot of times, people will say, 'I'm really glad we're different,' or 'We don't get bogged down in things.' "
***
While its council succeeds statistically at projecting harmony, Salem, like any other city, has hot issues -- the cost and location of its massive electric plant and storage house; concerns over cable service; the commercial sprawl of West Main Street; the mushroom-shaped water tower that looks down on the east side. On those and other points, local observers are less than unanimous.
"I'm pleased that Salem City Council is more inclusive, I think," said Bob Copenhaver, 78, former rector of the city's St. Paul's Episcopal Church. But a decade ago he was among those outspoken over the council's 1998 move to rezone parts of Elizabeth Campus for development.
"I was disappointed with the decision, but I was even more disappointed with the defensive kind of tone that some of the city council members seemed to take back then," he said.
Copenhaver said he's more approving of the current council: "Female, younger. Our mayor, a younger guy. It's not the old guard all the way.
"Having women on city council is such a fine thing," he added. "There's a sensitivity there that was needed."
Others voice less satisfaction. Community High School founder Michael Bentley, who lives on Broad Street in Salem, said he believes the council favors the business community, and he was angered by a September decision to rezone part of Roanoke Boulevard.
"A business owner wanted his house rezoned, and so they did it," Bentley claimed. "There's no concern for the character of the city, its history and its culture.
"The individuals change, but the philosophy pretty much goes from council to council, it seems."
Each council member owns and operates his or her own business, but each also cited city welfare as the primary political motivation.
"It doesn't appear to me that anyone is answering to any special group," Johnson said. "I think we represent all the citizens."
Garst said her council has been one of the most transparent and cited the availability of agendas and the open work sessions, but also the breadth of the job.
"Votes aren't the sole measure of council," she said, offering examples such as economic development and the Roanoke River Greenway. "There's work that we do, issues we support, that will never come before a city council meeting.
"It's kind of like church," she said. "You've got that one hour where you're there, but that one hour is not the sole function of church. It is the most visible hour."
