Harrisonburg can do better
2026 council elections offer chance of rescue
Someone once described GM’s Vega as a vehicle completely unencumbered by the engineering process. And then there was the country mechanic who once suggested to the driver of a Vega that they fix a particular problem by jacking up the radiator cap and driving a new car in underneath it.
We’ll get back to that.
There are a number of issues with the current Harrisonburg City Council. Many of them nest under the umbrella of Proverbs 29:18. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”
It is not clear who’s driving and where they’re going. Another way of looking at it, as several dozen people have agreed in the past three years, is that the city is headed in the wrong direction.
Start with the Bluestone Town Center, approved based on vague promises by a firm that’s had a hard time keeping them, here and elsewhere. That one, at least two years late getting started, is morphing into just another Ryan Homes project.
Move on to the tax increases. The hikes are blamed on the new high school, but that’s only a small part of the story. They’re also driven by rising assessments, administrative growth, and a council still spending as if federal covid money would last forever.
Conclude with The Link, a project so controversial the City Council was afraid to vote on it, even before it was delayed, possibly junked, because the city government didn’t meet the minimum legal standards of presenting it to the city’s residents.
One thing the two housing developments and the tax hikes have in common is that nobody on the City Council has been eager to take responsibility for them. None of the members has been willing to say these are problems or failures that they should do something about, because that’s the job they asked for, the commitment they made, and the accountability they owe.
The City Council, among its other shortcomings, does not have a radiator cap. There is no quick fix. As with the warped engine block of an overheated Vega, the solution is more complex.
In its simplest terms, somebody has to run for City Council. In slightly less simple terms, potential candidates need to decide now if they’re up to the task, and begin preparing for the Democratic primary in June or, less likely, a party caucus sometime in April or May.
The Democratic nominees will almost certainly win the general election, a contention supported by at least ten years worth of election returns. Leave aside whether you want the party nominees to win, or whether you think it’s right, or whether it’s best for the city. It’s not certain, but it has passed likely and is gaining on probably.
Running and winning as a Democrat doesn’t commit a person to obtain the permission or adopt the platform of the party. It does commit the Democratic Party to support the candidate’s election and not run anyone against them. Glenn Youngkin, just for instance, could file to run in the Democratic primary. That is only a for-instance, however, and I don’t think he should or will. More to be desired is a person who understands a core Democratic principle that has been lost in the polarized rhetoric of recent years: We expect certain things of government, and somebody has to make those things work. The best council member is one who has effectively run something, a business or organization, and not one who talks a good fight and votes for ideological instead of practical reasons.
The two most effective members of council, Deanna Reed and Nasser Alsaadun, are not on the ballot this year. As to those who are, the kindest way to put it might be that we have little to lose by replacing the two members elected in 2022, Monica Robinson and Dany Fleming. Neither has, so far as I know, announced reelection plans, but that shouldn’t matter. Neither has been a strong enough candidate in the past to significantly frighten a potential challenger.
The city has leaders in the fields of business, medicine, education, and agriculture, to name a few, who would have to give up time, treasure, and opportunity to take on the task of running for City Council. No blame should accrue to anyone who simply doesn’t want to do it. But blame should accrue to us as a city if we don’t face up to the fact that we could and should do better.