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The four Democrats running for three Roanoke City Council nominations enter the party's March 2 primary with a variety of political experience and personal backgrounds.

All but one will go on to the May 4 general election and may well enter that campaign as frontrunners, given Roanoke's Democratic leanings.

David Trinkle, the lone incumbent, formally announced his re-election campaign in mid-December. Valerie Garner, a freelance journalist and news blogger, followed suit when she posted a video announcing her candidacy shortly after the new year.

Ray Ferris, a lawyer making his first run for elected office, has made no formal announcement but has already started to actively campaign.

Former councilman Bill Bestpitch formally announced his candidacy Saturday at Jefferson Center. Bestpitch, who was a council member from 2000 to 2004, is a U.S. Army veteran and serves on the city's Architectural Review Board.

Flanked by outgoing councilman Rupert Cutler and former Councilwoman Linda Wyatt, Bestpitch laid out a platform based around economic opportunity, education and budget issues. He called for an economic development ombudsman to assist Roanoke businesses with city services.

He also said the city needs to build up its reserve fund -- a recommendation made Monday by city officials to help the city preserve its bond rating. He said the council needs to take a closer look at its capital improvements list as well.

"Frankly I think we need to re-evaluate everything on the plan except for the City Market Building," Bestpitch said on Friday.

Bestpitch, Ferris, Garner and Trinkle still must get through the Democratic primary before they can begin to campaign in the general election.

The winners, and their path to victory, will likely be defined by several questions to be answered between now and Election Day.

n How important is name recognition?

Bestpitch and Trinkle have both served as council members. But that can also be a double-edged sword, as the rough-and-tumble nature of council debates can create as many enemies as friends. Vice Mayor Sherman Lea, for instance, is the only current member who's serving a consecutive term.

Garner ran as an independent in 2008 and finished fifth in a six-way race for three council seats. Since then, however, she has worked to spread her name by covering city news as a freelance journalist and blogger. She said she's putting her blog on hiatus until after the election.

Ray Ferris, meanwhile, is a Roanoke native whose roots in the Lebanese and legal communities give him an initial voting base. He's also appeared in the news recently, but for a reason that may work against him: He served as a defense attorney for neo-Nazi William A. White, who was convicted on four of seven federal charges for threatening people from Virginia Beach to Canada.

Ferris, who said he believes in a constitutionally based system of government that guarantees defendants the right to a fair trial, doesn't believe that will hurt him, even in heavily black districts: "I think the African-American community in Roanoke and nationally knows the importance of having an attorney that will champion an issue that is not popular at the time."

n How will the candidates fare throughout the city's quadrants?

City council elections don't draw the voter turnout that national elections do; that's especially the case for local party primaries. So it's important for each candidate to turn out voters not only in their own neighborhood, but to make inroads elsewhere as well.

"If you're going to be on council, you've got to broaden your view," said Lea, the top vote-getter in the 2008 council election.

Each of the four has a different home base: Bestpitch in Old Southwest, just a few blocks from downtown; Ferris in Southwest Roanoke's Greater Deyerle neighborhood; Garner in Northwest Roanoke; and Trinkle in South Roanoke.

And although heavy turnout in key precincts can swing an election -- Trinkle's big wins in the two South Roanoke precincts helped carry him and his "For the City" colleagues to an electoral sweep in 2006 -- a more conventional route involves winning at home while holding one's own elsewhere.

Trinkle said he isn't relying on his home base to carry the day.

"Every part of the city matters," Trinkle said.

Northwest Roanoke is always intriguing, and particularly so this year.

Garner has won support in the quadrant based in part on her residency and her advocacy for Countryside Golf Course. But in 2008 she also fared worse in three of the quadrant's precincts than anywhere else in the city.

Garner's blog and attendance at Sweet Union Baptist Church may have shored up those areas, however, and community activist Jeff Artis is pushing his followers to vote for Garner and no one else.

n Will other Roanoke politicians get involved?

Only two of the four council members who will be serving with the winners of this year's election have made any endorsements so far, and even those have been limited to one or two candidates.

Mayor David Bowers said he will support only the incumbent Trinkle in the primary.

"He's kind of the glue on council," Bowers said. "The prospect of having two new council people, it's important to maintain some stability. The other three Democrats, I'm not going to endorse any of them."

Councilwoman Anita Price is supporting Trinkle and also Garner. Price said Garner asked her for support, and she's happy to lend it: "Valerie and I share some of the same kinds of opinions and outlooks, some of the same concerns for neighborhood issues and specifically in the northwest quadrant."

n Is Victory Stadium still relevant?

No other issue of the past 25 years has divided Roanokers quite like the debate over whether to tear down or renovate Victory Stadium.

The question helped push Bestpitch from the council during the 2004 primary, and Trinkle won the 2006 race partly by endorsing demolition and effectively shooting the gap between two slates of pro-renovation candidates.

The 2006 election helped resolve the issue, and a final decision was made just before Trinkle took office -- but Roanokers have long memories.

"People are still talking about it," Ferris said. "Should it be an issue? Absolutely not. The decision has been made. Let's move on."

Bestpitch had a different take, but the same conclusion: "People who bother with elections tend to understand an election is about the future, not the past."

n What issues will take center stage?

The candidates tend to agree here, listing the economy and its effects on the city budget, schools and the council's five-year capital improvements plan. Those issues will likely be resolved by the time any new council members take office on July 1. But the primary and general election campaigns could influence decisions.

The list of capital projects could be a lightning rod. Last week the council was told it will have to make decisions to delay or even cancel projects. Among those up for discussion: an amphitheater in Elmwood Park, a new pool at Washington Park and construction of a new library on Peters Creek Road.

The candidates also said they will be talking about fiscal responsibility, reducing the city's use of out-of-town consultants and economic development.

"I don't see anything that's injected any excitement in this race, at least right now," Lea said. "It may get interesting, but they're going to have to work to get people to get active and interested."