Roanoke Democrats lack core values

The humorist Will Rogers was noted for saying “I am not a member of any organized party. I am a Democrat.”

If Rogers were alive today, he would have to amend his famous dictum since many contemporary Democrats have organized around “the finger-in-the-wind” political strategy. They will take a policy position and abruptly. This strategy leaves them open to accusations by Republicans that the Democratic Party has no “soul” or “core values.” This strategy also means that the “core values” guiding the Democratic Party are “no” core values at all.

Sen. John Kerry’s “I voted for the war before I voted against the war” statement epitomizes the lack of moral clarity that currently plagues the Democrat Party. Kerry supported the war in Iraq until Howard Dean ran an anti-war campaign during the Democratic Primary. The senator then “put his finger in the wind” and concluded that, in order to win the nomination, he too had to be against the war. All of this occurred against the backdrop of American soldiers dying and being maimed in Iraq. This type of moral ambiguity eventually cost Kerry the presidential election.

Unfortunately, we see this same type of political strategy from Democrats at the local level. The Cove Road methadone clinic in Northwest Roanoke offers a good example. State Delegate Onzlee Ware had a historic bill passed during the last session of the legislature that restricts placing methadone clinics in close proximity to public schools. The legislation, in effect, bans these clinics in most urban communities throughout the state. That’s a very good thing.

Yet, this summer, Delegate Ware held a series of meetings on the opening of the controversial Cove Road clinic (his legislation did not have a grandfather clause) and concluded that, since the clinic’s opening was inevitable, he would push for community residents to have jobs there. At the time, I asked him about his apparent switch in positions. He replied that it really wasn’t a change but a recognition that because the clinic was going to open anyway, area residents should benefit from jobs at the facility.

Ware’s rationale is certainly plausible and clearly makes sense in a Machiavellian context in which politicians do what is expedient. Still, his actions beg a fundamental ethical question: Are a few jobs worth abandoning this moral cause at precisely the time when (1) city leaders were under fire for duplicitous behavior (in comparison to their counterparts in Roanoke County for not offering a legal challenge to the clinic’s opening and (2) hundreds of Northwest Roanoke school children would be exposed to the daily influx of drug addicts, and accompanying drug dealers, in exactly the way Ware’s legislation will prevent in other communities?

I also long ago understood that the clinic would open on Cove Road. Given the sequence of events -- NIMBY opposition in Southwest Roanoke County, a historical pattern of “dumping” in the black community after a NIMBY episode, and a city administration that treats black residents as second-class citizens -- how could I assume otherwise?

None of these factors, however, changes the inherent unfairness of locating the clinic in NW Roanoke. Thus, my January 26, 2004 column,  “When public health becomes a public nuisance,” outlines legal strategies (based on federal court opinions) on how to close a methadone clinic based on public nuisance laws.

While my tactical position for keeping the clinic off of Cove Road had to change because of inaction by the city manager and congressional Rep. Bob Goodlatte (his Salem constituency opposes having the clinic at the VA Hospital), my moral position that Roanoke’s black community should not be “dumped” on hasn’t been altered one iota.

I now understand that Councilman Alfred Dowe publicly opposes the location of the methadone clinic on Cove Road as well. His open opposition would have been more effective a year ago. As the only African American (at that time) on Roanoke City Council, his voice would have been an effective symbolic and substantive counterweight to City Manager Darlene Burcham’s position (because of NAACP co-optation) that the black community accepted the clinic’s location. Dowe clearly would have had the moral high ground in that debate.

Now, newly elected (black) Councilman Sherman Lea is also openly challenging the proposed drug treatment facility. Again, this raises fundamental ethical questions:

Wasn’t it always amoral to open the clinic in Northwest Roanoke after Southwest County residents cited evidence showing an increase in crime, drug trafficking and lowered property values that accompanies the location of methadone clinics in residential neighborhoods? Did Dowe reach this epiphany after Lea used his voice on city council in an attempt to protect the property rights of black citizens in Roanoke? Why was Dowe so silent for so long on behalf of constituents who represent his political base?

Lea is not a “finger-in-the-air” Democrat. Although I oppose his position concerning Victory Stadium, at least you know where he stands on that issue. The same is true concerning the methadone clinic controversy. Lea has asked U.S. Attorney John Brownlee why he opposed the opening of the methadone clinic in Southwest County, but has been silent on the opening of the same clinic in Northwest Roanoke (I have asked the same question in several columns). Brownlee, appointed to his post by a Republican president and is a Roanoke County resident, responded that he was invited to the supervisors meeting last year by county officials but Roanoke officials have yet to invite him to speak on the criminal and social hazards of having the clinic in the city.

Brownlee’s response doesn’t pass the “laugh” test. Neither does City Manager Burcham’s argument that Roanoke had no legal recourse to stop the clinic’s opening, although her counterparts in the county threatened legal action following a similar scenario. Apparently, neither Brownlee nor Burcham quite understand that, as public figures, they live in a transparent world where apartheid-type answers magnify administrative discrepancies.

However, at least it is clear where they stand on the methadone clinic. And that is the point. Brownlee knows that he doesn’t want 90 addicts a day coming to Roanoke County and he went to bat for a county neighborhood to prevent that from happening.

If those same addicts end up in Northwest Roanoke, that’s just the way the “cookie crumbles.” Although he is the U.S. attorney for all of the Western District of Virginia, Roanoke city residents in Northwest neighborhoods should accept that he is not concerned about their welfare on this problem and expect no help from him. Energies wasted pining for either his or Burcham’s even-handedness on this issue can be better used elsewhere.

Delegate Ware and Councilman Dowe are the products of a political party and culture that has lost its moral compass. Nobody is sure exactly what Democrats stand for. This makes Democrats like Sherman Lea (and Sen. Joseph Liberman at the national level) outsiders in their own party.

I recently wrote a column praising Ware’s legislative accomplishments during his first year in the House of Delegates. I still think he did a great job in Richmond. It is his logic on the opening of the Cove Road clinic that concerns me. Dowe’s silence on the clinic raises the same type concerns. The black community is not a monolith, so differences over policy issues are to be expected. Jesses Jackson’s notion of “agree to disagree’ should guide discussions about these differences.

I simply believe that the public policymaking process should be guided by egalitarian, normative values. However, many Democrats are now purely Machiavellian in their policymaking approach. Despite Jackson’s axiom, that divide leaves little for us to “agree to disagree” on.