Thursday, May 08, 2008
Editorial: What will Bowers be for?
Roanoke has elected a new mayor who surely won't be able to keep all his campaign promises. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
From the RoundTable blog
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David Bowers has an opportunity to bring more openness and public involvement to city government when he regains office as Roanoke's mayor in July. That is the positive promise of a populist campaign that won over the majority of city voters.
To be an effective leader, though, Bowers will need to have a vision of where he wants the city to go and how he expects it to get there.
Voters Tuesday knew only what he was against.
Bowers' campaign gave voice to opponents of various city initiatives. And, though voter turnout was low, disaffected Roanokers went to the polls in great enough numbers to elect him by a wide margin over incumbent Mayor Nelson Harris.
As Bowers sang out once again in his victory speech, he is against an amphitheater on the old Victory Stadium site, against a restaurant on Mill Mountain, against cutting the Fire Department's budget, against putting Forest Park Elementary and Oakland Intermediate schools to different uses.
During the campaign, he told many constituencies what they wanted to hear. And Tuesday night, he promised supporters "there's a roar of a wind of change" set to blow through city hall.
Yet the only change he has outlined thus far has been his desire to stop changes -- including some the city badly needs.
Bowers, for instance, shamelessly incorporated opposition to the school changes into his populist spiel, though those decisions were the school board's, not council's, to make, and the board has made them responsibly.
Mayor Harris can leave office justifiably proud that when educational and political interests clashed, he stood up for education.
The new mayor, too, will be able to use his office as a speaker's platform -- in his case, we fear, one from which to harangue school officials and keep dissension at a boil. The prospect bodes ill as the district prepares to address school attendance zone changes.
Still, Bowers can play only the indirect role of critic, if he chooses, in those potentially controversial decisions. And on matters city council actually decides -- budget cuts and amphitheaters and development on Mill Mountain -- his will be only one vote of seven.
He'll need to show leadership skills thus far not evident to get anything done, or undone.
For a populist like Bowers, campaigning's easy. Governing well will be hard.
