Who’s on your ballot this fall? See our updated 2024 Voter Guide. We’ve sent each candidate a questionnaire and will be posting their responses soon. If you’re a candidate in Southwest and Southside and haven’t received your emailed questionnaire or need it resent, let us know at elections@cardinalnews.org.
The most contentious politics in maybe all of Virginia the past two years have been in Lynchburg, where two warring Republican factions on the city council have battled with the same intensity as the two rival House Targaryen families on “House of the Dragons,” just without the benefit of fire-breathing flying lizards.
In the HBO production of the George R.R. Martin fantasy series, the cause of the conflict is clear: The king died, and two branches of the family are locked in a struggle over who should succeed him on the Iron Throne.
In Lynchburg, the political disputes are harder to figure out. Some of this may just be personality conflicts and stylistic differences, but the drama that has ensued has been quite real. Council member Marty Misjuns has now been censured twice, council member Jeff Helgeson once. The Lynchburg Republican executive committee has censured Vice Mayor Chris Faraldi, an action overturned later by a larger meeting of Republicans (although some insist that meeting wasn’t valid). Misjuns and Helgeson recruited a primary challenger to Faraldi; when that challenger lost, and the margin was outside that which allowed for a recount, he filed a lawsuit to void the whole election (a suit since withdrawn). Helgeson was heard mumbling into an open mic that Mayor Stephanie Reed was “the stupidest person on earth.” Reed has said Helgeson is simply miffed that she was chosen by her colleagues to be mayor, not him.
Maybe all those problems would have come up anyway, but that split mayoral vote in January 2023 — where the council voted 4-3 for Reed as mayor — was certainly the first time the friction on the newly elected Lynchburg council became public.
Lynchburg will have another round of council elections this fall — the four ward seats are on the ballot — but only one of those wards has historically been a competitive one. That’s Ward I, where MaryJane Dolan is retiring and there are three candidates running to replace her: Democrat Randy Smith, Republican Jacqueline Timmer and independent Cameron Craddock Howe. As I’ve pointed out in a previous column, none of these elections will resolve the basic tensions on the Lynchburg City Council, but the outcome of the Ward I seat could change the balance of power on the council. Dolan was part of the 4-3 majority that backed Reed over Helgeson. It’s been expected that Lynchburg council might face a similar choice between the two next year, although that was rendered moot Monday when Helgeson unexpectedly announced his retirement.
Cardinal has asked all three candidates who they will support for mayor as part of our Voter Guide questionnaire; we haven’t heard back from any of them yet. However, Timmer recently made a very different proposal as it relates to Lynchburg’s mayor: She proposed that the city charter be amended to have voters elect the mayor, not fellow members of the council. She believes this will lessen tensions on the council: “There’s a lot of debate around the current dynamic on council,” she told WSET-TV, “but I’ve met with a lot of former council members, and the way that the mayor has been selected historically in Lynchburg is largely through backroom deals, and the citizens aren’t privy to that. So we need to be able to bring that out in the open, and that’s where we’ll create accountability and involve citizens in local government.”
Smith has opposed the change, saying: “The suggested solution of an elected mayor is a strong mayor system. But here’s the issue, in a strong mayor system, the mayor typically has additional responsibilities and power such as the ability to veto actions taken by city council, line-item veto on the budget, and the ability to hire and fire department heads. If you think there’s in-fighting now, over a largely ceremonial position, imagine what it will be like if that position has some additional power.”
Howe has not weighed in yet.
Here’s a good opportunity to provide some context.
An elected mayor is not a “strong” mayor
In major cities across the country, the mayor is an executive who runs the city government, akin to how a governor or a president runs the executive branch of their respective governments. With just one exception, Virginia has what’s known as a “weak” mayor system, in which the mayor is just one of multiple members of the council. The mayor has some ceremonial duties and a certain symbolic weight, but executive duties are vested in the city manager. Whether a mayor is elected by the people or elected by fellow council members has no bearing on this. The lone exception is in Richmond, which does have a “strong” mayor system where the mayor is an executive.
Most Virginia cities elect their mayor directly
Virginia has 38 independent cities. Of those, 22 elect their mayors directly, 16 don’t. Of the cities that have council members choose one of their own to be mayor, Lynchburg is by far the biggest — population 79,009 in the last census. The next biggest in that category is Harrisonburg, population 51,814, followed by Charlottesville, population 46,553.
In addition, there are many towns that directly elect their mayors. Like many things, there’s not a “right” way or a “wrong” way, just different ways. Whichever way Lynchburg goes, it will have a lot of company.
Split votes for mayor are unusual
On the councils that elect their own mayors, votes are rarely contentious. In fact, I’ve had a hard time finding split votes, at all. They’re generally unanimous — and magnanimous. One obvious exception is Salem, which in 2020 elected Renee Turk as mayor on a 3-2 vote. However, that vote does not seem to have produced any rancor, at least none visible to the public. In this regard, Lynchburg is doubly unusual — a split vote that seems to have had a lasting impact.
That leads to a question for Lynchburg voters to consider: Would a structural change in how the mayor is elected change the current political dynamics on the council? Or does Lynchburg simply have such a volatile mix of personalities that they’d clash no matter who wields the gavel?
The next council will elect a mayor regardless
Timmer proposes a change to Lynchburg’s charter to allow for direct election of the mayor. Because Virginia law regards local governments as creatures of the state, that means the General Assembly would have to approve such a change. If Lynchburg leaders are in accord (something that admittedly has been hard to achieve), that might not be a big deal. However, in terms of timing, the Lynchburg City Council will hold another election for mayor before the General Assembly even meets again. The council will hold another mayoral vote in early January when it convenes for the first time after the ward members elected in November take office. That’s not to say that the proposal to change the method of election is good or bad — that’s up for Lynchburg residents to figure out — but simply to point out that there will be at least one more council-elected mayor so proposing a different system doesn’t absolve candidates of the responsibility of saying how they’d vote for mayor in January. In other places, that wouldn’t even be a question worth asking. In Lynchburg, the past two years have made it one.
Voting starts in less than three weeks
Early voting in Virginia begins Sept. 20. Want more political news and analysis? I write a weekly political newsletter, West of the Capital, that goes out every Friday afternoon. You can sign up for that or any of our other free newsletters here:
