Avoiding conflict makes Roanoke's mayor less effective

Note: Unlike many of my media colleagues who often criticize politicians on a very personal level, my criticisms of Mayor Nelson Harris (and of people in similar positions) are limited to his behavior in public life as Roanoke’s leader.

When Roanoke Mayor Nelson Harris was running for office just five months ago, he pledged to bring a new tone and “civility” to city hall.

I wouldn’t exactly call hand-picking a seventh city council member without public input, excluding members of the media from press conferences because he doesn’t like how they report about him, and skipping out of important meetings with PTA officials to avoid seeing someone he doesn’t like, as civil conduct.

I wrote about the appointment of city council’s seventh member before, but it bears repeating. Roanoke’s elections last May left an open seat on council, as Nelson Harris left his seat to take on the mayor’s job.

A few days before he was officially seated as mayor, Harris held a press conference to name his pick (not the people’s pick) to fill the open seat on city council. Many, including me, had argued that the person who filled that position should have been the next highest vote-getter in the May elections, not someone the other six members of council picked.

At the very least, citizens requested public input. That didn’t happen, as the decision was made behind closed doors and arrogantly announced to the public before the new council even took office.

Even the Virginia Coalition for Open Government called this closed-door appointment “politics as usual” and not in the best interest of the citizens.

At that very same press conference, according to other news media present, Harris opened by saying that he would begin the conference because all the “real” journalists were there – because he hadn't invited WSLS News Channel 10.

Channel 10 also wasn’t notified about the investiture ceremony where members of council were sworn in to office in July, although other media outlets were alerted.

The station had interviewed Harris during the campaign about the issues of his poor attendance at city council over the last four years and his changing votes on Victory Stadium, and these were apparently sore spots for him. So he started what seems to be a campaign to exclude the station from city hall news conferences.

In September, Channel 10’s Jay Warren says he spent a day trying to get in touch with Mayor Harris on a Victory Stadium story. He left e-mails and phone messages and spent more than an hour in his office waiting on him. According to Warren, Harris’s secretary said he was in the building, and his truck was in the parking lot. After an hour, the reporter checked to see if the truck was still there. It was gone. Apparently, the mayor had ducked out the back door.

According to the reporter and his cameraman, when Warren confronted the mayor the next morning about it, Harris said, "I wasn't avoiding you yesterday, I was ignoring you."

As someone who deals with the media for a living, I can tell you that one of the basic rules in media relations is not to pick a fight with the press. Especially if you have to work with them on a regular basis, as the mayor does.

Governments at all levels rely on the media to get important information out to the public. By not telling WSLS about press conferences and other media events, Harris is making it much harder for Channel 10 to get information from city hall to its viewers – a large segment of Roanoke’s citizenry.

Another apparent “avoiding” incident occurred over the school safety issue, but not with the press – instead it was with a school group.

In August, the Patrick Henry High School Parent-Teacher-Student Association sent a letter to city officials asking them to reconsider the reorganization of the School Resource Officer program. The group saw potentially negative effects on school safety if the program became decentralized under a new plan from city hall.

The group’s letter expressed frustration, stating that, “previous efforts to discuss these issues with city officials have been met with resistance we can only describe as counter-productive and contrary to the purpose of building community in Roanoke.”

According to Alice Hincker, chairman of the PTSA’s School Safety Committee, Mayor Harris canceled a meeting to discuss the issue with the PTSA board in mid-September.

Although Hincker – Harris’s former opponent in Roanoke’s mayoral race – was integral to the meeting and was invited by the PTSA president to attend, she was later told that the mayor would not meet with representatives with Hincker present.

The well-known school safety advocate was told that Harris wanted to have a relaxed meeting where he wouldn't have to worry about being quoted to the press or criticized, so if she was going to be there, he wasn’t.

Boy, that’s leadership! Choosing to duck out when our kids’ safety is at stake.

These are just a few incidents we know about. Closed door politics, alienating the press, and refusing to meet with constituents on pressing issues – all this just in the first three months of his term!

Acting this way while carrying out the duties of mayor has become a serious issue. As the top representative for Roanoke’s government, Nelson Harris needs to be mature enough to set aside his personal squabbles so he can perform the job he was elected to do.