May 1st, Roanokers will have an opportunity to vote for a Mayor and 3 City Council seats.
The incumbent Mayor, David Bowers faces a Republican challenger this time, in local entrepreneur Mark Lucas. As his platform suggests, Mr. Lucas seems interested in actually doing something in that job besides ceremonial ribbon-cutting. Roanoke City should be a target-rich environment for someone with such aspirations.
As far as City Council goes, the choices are pathetically slim. One Independent, Brandon Bushnell, who identifies with the Occupy Roanoke group, has stepped forward to run. Though his positions render his candidacy a non-starter for us, we salute the effort. There are no Republican challengers to the 3 incumbent Democrats. None, Zilch, Nada, Zip. That is plainly unacceptable.
The question has been posed several times, what role if any, Roanoke Tea Party would play in shaping this election. I’m sorry to report, the answer is; none.
Though Roanoke Tea Party has never shied from any task because it seemed difficult, it takes a substantial amount of lead time to develop a slate of candidates for City Council races. Due to the way council races are structured, a single candidate running alone is at a severe disadvantage. Our offer to the Roanoke Republican Committee to assist in recruiting viable candidates for this election cycle was met with an assurance that they had things under control, and by the time it became clear that only a single candidate was on board, there was simply not enough time to be of any assistance. That’s not finger-pointing – that’s just the way it was. Assigning blame at this late hour is pointless.
On a brighter note, we do have some assurance from John Brill, the newly elected Chairman of the Roanoke City Republican Committee, that in the future there will be an open and regular dialogue between the Committee and various Liberty groups in town. We hope that will ensure these circumstances will not be repeated.
As always, if you, or someone you know would like to run for public office in either Roanoke City or Roanoke County, we would very much like to meet with you.
Please remember to vote tomorrow.
Gregory Honeycutt
President, Roanoke Tea Party
