Danville City Council Race – Incumbent Overview

It’s that time again. SouthsideCentral will be covering the Danville City Council race throughout the duration and will wrap it up with our endorsements before election day. Our first update will introduce the field then we’ll take a look at the incumbents and their strengths,  weaknesses and a general opinion of them at this early stage of the campaign. We’ll do the same thing for the challengers in the next article. Let’s get it started.

I know most of the candidates and I’m friends with a lot of them. That goes out the window now, as I’m going to brutally objective (as I always am).

We’ve got three incumbents running with Adam Tomer choosing not to run again. Gary Miller, Alonzo Jones and John Gilstrap are all going for another 4-year term. We’ve got five challengers this year and they’re Dawn Witter, James Buckner, Joyce Glaise, Madison Whittle & Thomas Motley. We’ll start with the incumbents here in this article.

Incumbents (selected in random order):

Gary Miller:

• Strengths:  Six years of city council experience, local cardiologist, current vice-mayor, known for environmental causes, shouldn’t have a problem with campaign financing, Democratic party alliances,  good support in the old-people voting bloc.
• Weaknesses: Just lost the latest House of Delegates race, Democratic party alliances (yes, both a good & bad), light support in the black voting bloc, and my perception of a bit of sneakiness at times (hard to quantify, but I get that feeling some).
• Thoughts: You’ll see this often as I go through the incumbents. There’s a lot of challengers which will dilute the “votes for change” then will inevitably be cast. Miller performed strongly in his election and there’s no reason to think he won’t pick up the same performance this time around. he’s vulnerable (as all incumbents are with this many challengers) but as for now I’ll rate him “Leaning Safe“.

Alonzo Jones:

• Strengths: Youth, great in public relations, outgoing attitude, high strength in black voting bloc, good support in old-people voting bloc.
• Weaknesses: If there’s anything, it would be him getting the fundraising needed to run a good campaign. He nailed that one as a rookie, so I can’t really think of any other weaknesses now.
• Thoughts: Jones performed extremely well in his first election and it wouldn’t surprise me for him to be the top vote-getter in this one. It’s early in the campaign, but I’ve got no problem rating him as “Strongly Safe“.

John Gilstrap:

• Strengths: City government experience, city employee experience, well-liked in the community, well-involved in the community, strong support in the old-people voting bloc.
• Weaknesses: Fair support in the black voting bloc, a few vocal “Anybody But Gilstrap” haters.
• Thoughts: As much as he was backstabbed by people as being “Another City Crony” during  his first election campaign, Gilstrap shook that off quickly by standing out as somebody who wasn’t afraid to express his own opinion. He strongly surprised me and quickly earned my respect. Unfortunately, with so many candidates in the field, he’s not the lock that he would be in a smaller field. Along with Gary Miller, Gilstrap will have to work hard to get his voters to the polls. I’ll start his rating off as “Leaning Safe“.

This 2014 race is the most interesting Danville City Council race that I can remember. The challengers bring a lot of differences into the field and that’s why we’ll feature them in their own article to keep it fair.  You’ve got three incumbents and three sets of thoughts about them now. We’ll do the same with the five challengers in the next article in this series.  The comment box is open if you agree or if you think I’m an idiot. I love to hear that, too. More on SouthsideCentral… after this!