Not-so-brief Look At Council Candidates

High Point voters going to the polls face not only 25 candidates for High Point City Council seats, including five for mayor, but a ballot that is sure to shake up the usually stable and cozy City Council, on which few seats change occupants in most elections.

This year, the mayor and at least four other councilmembers will be replaced, resulting in a quite different City Council. Depending on your perspective, it's either a much-needed shakeup of the status quo or a loss of years of cumulative experience.

For years, High Point Mayor Becky Smothers has governed High Point with a coalition made up mostly of moderate Republicans and Democratic Ward 1 Councilmember Bernita Sims, a moderate Democrat. Two elections in a row have scattered that stable coalition.

Smothers is giving up the mayor's chair and running for an at-large seat. Most of the councilmembers who made up her coalition have left, are leaving or are gambling on campaigns for mayor.

In 2010, Councilmembers Bill Bencini and John Faircloth moved on to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners and the North Carolina House of Representatives, respectively. This year, At-large Councilmember Latimer Alexander lost a race for the state Senate and is not running for reelection as a councilmember. Councilmember Chris Whitley and Sims are gambling on runs for mayor and will be off the City Council if they lose.

Add to that the fact that one-term Councilmember A.B. Henley is not running for reelection, and that Ward 3 Councilmember Mike Pugh has serious competition for a change, and you've got a High Point City Council election that is harder to predict than any in recent memory.

High Point Republican Party Chairman Don Webb has done High Point a service by holding two debates at city hall, one on Thursday, Oct. 25 for candidates running for the two at-large seats and those in Wards 5 and 6, and one on Tuesday, Oct. 30 for the candidates running in Wards 1 through 4. That helped voters size up the candidates.

The Macedonia Family Resource Center and High Point University held a free-for-all candidates' forum on Monday, Oct. 22 that gave City Council candidates a chance to be seen, and a few of them a chance to be heard. Smaller ward forums added to the candidates' exposure.

The debates and forums helped define the candidates, giving voters a somewhat clearer picture of their choices. One issue was on every candidate's lips: jobs, jobs and more jobs. With a 10 percent unemployment rate and a vast class of former factory and mill workers that needs to be trained for modern jobs, High Point is a city in which everyone running for office wants the city to have more companies, more jobs and more worker training. Beyond that, here is a primer on the non-mayoral City Council candidates:

At Large

Cynthia Davis has served one term on the High Point Planning and Zoning Commission, where she showed zeal. She has commented on many issues at City Council meetings, which she attends regularly and may be the only person in High Point, NC, except for some councilmembers and city staffers, who has read the entire city budget.

Davis is brash and thoughtful by turns. She is annoying to other commission members, but does her homework. High Point politicians either love her or hate her; there seems to be no middle ground. She has argued for getting rid of High Point City Manager Strib Boynton, as has her mentor, Councilmember Mike Pugh.

Davis said: "I know there is a lot of waste in our budget, because I'm the only candidate who attended every budget session."

Elijah Lovejoy is a minister best known for creating a company that arranges events, such as Party on the Plank, to draw people downtown. He rails against taxes, although he has sought funding for his events from the city. Lovejoy is young, friendly and associated with High Point University President Nido Qubein and Qubein's choice for mayor, Coy Williard.

Lovejoy said he would ask High Point City Manager Strib Boynton for a menu of 2 percent, 4 percent and 6 percent budget cuts. He has promised not to vote for tax increases in his first two years on the City Council if elected.

Lovejoy said: "I'm not saying you have to make those cuts, but it lets you see what's most valuable and least valuable in each department."

Britt Moore has served one term as an at-large councilmember. He is a self-employed property manager from a textile and furniture family. Moore is straightforward and well-liked and argues for bringing manufacturing back from other countries. One term on the City Council has made him more realistic about the power of one councilmember and the need to build coalitions. He told an audience that this year's proposed city budget was cut twice before passage, and accurately explained the effect of property revaluation on taxes.

Moore said: "I believe the overall [City Council] record has been pretty good. From my perspective, there's a whole lot to stay in High Point for. We have an excellent city. We've done excellent things in a tough economy."

Becky Smothers is the 900-pound gorilla of High Point politics. She has been on the City Council since the 1970s, mayor for all but four years since 1992. Smother has the name recognition of the gods in High Point, with the ability to draw votes in Wards 1 and 2, the majority black wards. She has a well-known record – if you like it, vote for her; if you don't, vote against her. Confident going into the race – perhaps overconfident. She is likely to win anyway. Smothers is sardonic, knowledgeable and (some argue) hidebound. She attacks demagoguery over taxes, saying other cities cost-shift by charging larger fees.

Smothers' main argument is that the City Council needs continuity and that her long experience and knowledge are too useful to waste.

Smothers said: "I urge you to watch the next council. Do not let them wipe out our financial stability."

Ed Squires is the owner of the Squires Group floor-cleaning and supplies company and director of A Child's World Day Care's High Point branch. He has appeal in minority wards and elsewhere. Squires is eager and enthusiastic but claims little knowledge of government. He ran in 2010 and lost.

Squires said: "I do not claim to have all the answers. But I'm a workaholic. I'm going to promise to give you all I can to make our city better."

Ward 1

The Ward 1 race is a real donnybrook, and virtually impossible to call. There are several candidates with appeal in the ward, and it's another five-way race. Sims running for mayor left the seat open.

Mary Lou Andrews Blakeney is well known and respected in High Point as one of the planners of High Point's Woolworths sit-in, which took place only days after Greensboro's better-known one. She is a career nurse and served one term as an at-large councilmember before being knocked off by Britt Moore in 2010. She was only moderately effective in her one term, but she seemed to have learned a lot by the end of it and might be more effective in a second term.

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Blakeney's political downsides are that she is more respected than exciting. She may not be as well known to younger voters as to their elders. Her main issue is caring for seniors, which is not one that is foremost in voters' minds.

Blakeney said: "Youth and literacy are key pieces. As I talk to children, I tell them I don't want dummies taking care of me when I go to the nursing home."

Willie Davis is a truck driver for Murrow's Transfer. Davis was redistricted into Ward 1 last year, which may limit his appeal there. But Davis is a strong advocate for neighborhood issues – cleaning up dilapidated neighborhoods, working with the Guilford County Board of Education to improve High Point schools and improving policing in neighborhoods hard hit by crime. He also has a sense of humor.

Davis said: "I apologize for being late. The High Point Police Department doesn't like you driving around with a headlight out."

Larry Diggs is also known for advocating for neighborhood issues, and has done so before the City Council. An Air Force veteran, he argues for demolishing boarded up houses and otherwise improving High Point's core city. He has made a campaign issue of expanded bus service, arguing that most of High Point's development is in northeast High Point, but that High Pointers in old neighborhoods can't get there to compete for jobs. He argues against high taxes and excessive regulation.

Diggs said: "We've just got to come up with some new ideas on how to jump-start High Point's economy."

Jeff Golden is probably the best known of the younger generation of black candidates. Golden ran against Sims in Ward 1 in 2010 and lost. Since then he has served on the Parks and Recreation Commission and the Citizens Advisory Committee. Golden is considered Sims' favorite, although she has not endorsed a candidate. He argues for teaching trades in schools so that students who aren't going to college will be prepared for jobs. He supports non-monetary incentives for small businesses, such as temporarily subsidized electricity.

Golden's large family is well known, which matters in Ward 1. He is one of five brothers who were athletes at Andrews High School. He is reportedly mounting a strong and organized ground campaign. Unlike other candidates, he said he can't promise not to raise taxes. He supports a small-business incubator for economic development.

Golden said: "All my interests seem to be community based."

Orrick Quick is another member of a large, well-known Ward 1 family, Quick is a physical trainer and ordained minister in High Point's Miracle Temple of Deliverance. Slim, impeccably dressed and quiet in conversation, Quick is a heck of an orator when he chooses to cut loose. Quick argues that the city should fix up and rent out more abandoned houses, that city employees shouldn't have gotten a raise this year, and that High Point needs more services for the elderly.

Quick said his passion is working to re-integrate the homeless and ex-convicts into the community, and argued that High Point needs to do more on that front.

Quick said: "I am here because I simply want to be a servant. I want to help my people ... The one thing the Lord has shown me is that no one wants to die unappreciated, so while we are here, we must make every person feel like they are part of the community."

Ward 2

Foster Douglas is running unopposed. He supports economic incentives for businesses and argues for lower taxes. He made fun of the city for recently buying an armored assault vehicle, and argues that the city can get more use out of its vehicles before selling them.

Debate moderator Don Webb said: "Don't believe him if he says he needs your vote. He only needs one vote."

Ward 3

Mike Pugh is a working-class firebrand incumbent who has little respect for the city government and is concerned mostly with serving his constituents one on one. He would love to fire High Point City Manager Strib Boynton. He votes against every budget, but rarely participates in the budget process, so has little impact on what is in the budget. He is strongly anti-tax and a strong supporter of redeveloping southwest High Point. Pugh will never be an insider, which makes him both a useful counterbalance to status-quo thinking and an endless source of entertainment.

Pugh said: "I was born to godly parents on the south side of High Point where things are a little different than they are on the north side of the tracks ... If you have a valid issue I'm going to come back here to city hall to fight for you and I'm going to fight until your problem is resolved. I've done it many times. They say you can't beat city hall. I know you can ... My name is Mike Pugh. I will not change. You know what I am."

Judy Mendenhall is the anti-Pugh. Mendenhall is a former High Point mayor and city councilmember. She served as head of the High Point Chamber of Commerce and the High Point Market Authority. She has served as business manager of the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival and worked for both Open Door Ministries and West End Ministries. Mendenhall is credited with foresight, because, when she was mayor, the City Council voted to run water and sewer lines out into the middle of nowhere to create what is now the thriving Piedmont Centre office park. Mendenhall is connected, has a deep knowledge of government and has repeatedly attacked Pugh for his hands-off approach to serving as councilmember.

Mendenhall said: "The greatest regret that I have is that it is my understanding that there was not active participation in the budget process by all elected officials ... Just simply to say, 'I voted no,' does nothing to serve the people you represent."

Ward 4

Brett Moore is no relation to At-large Councilmember Britt Moore. In 2005, then still in college, Brett Moore ran against Ward 5 Councilmember Chris Whitley and did surprisingly well, receiving 46 percent of the vote to Whitley's 54 percent. Brett Moore since then has graduated from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Elon Law School and has been an attorney in private practice for two years.

Moore argued that his legal experience would make him a better councilmember. He argued for more aggressive efforts to attract business and for selective use of economic incentives. Brett Moore is pro-business and anti-tax, like many of this year's candidates – but unlike most candidates of that stripe, he argues that constituent services are the most important role of a councilmember.

Brett Moore said: "Probably my number one issue is that my taxes are too high. So if you ask me to lower your taxes, I will lower them. If that's what the people want, that's what the people are going to get."

Jay Wagner achieved strong name recognition by running for mayor against Smothers in 2010, although he lost, getting only 36 percent of the vote to Smothers' 55 percent. He is vice chairman of the High Point City Project, which works to redevelop old High Point neighborhoods, and head of the Uptowne High Point Association, a business group that is trying to make North Main Street a replacement for High Point's old downtown.

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Wagner served seven years on the Planning and Zoning Commission, including two years as chairman. He is an attorney whose practice focuses on land-use and corporate law, and he frequently represented clients in zoning requests before the City Council. Wagner supports budget-cutting and lower taxes and said he reluctantly supports economic incentives, although he is philosophically opposed to them.

Wagner said: "Leaders lead. That seems like a very simple statement, but it's really true. I feel that the next step for me is to lead by sitting up here."

Ward 5

Jim Davis is a general contractor who now sits on the High Point Planning and Zoning Commission and the High Point Parks and Recreation Commission. He is well known and liked in his ward.

Davis argued that the City Council does not get budget information early enough to do proper line-item reviews, and that there is fat in city departments that can be cut. He said the city may have to pass more health care costs through to its employees.

Davis said he is a commonsense candidate who has lived in High Point all his life, and, having served on other boards, knows that serving on the City Council is a position of "long hours and tough decisions."

Davis said: "I'm the only candidate running for Ward 5 tonight who has taken the opportunity to serve our city."

Gerald Grubb is the owner of Southern Cross Mortgage. He ran unsuccessfully for the Ward 6 seat in 2010 and has since been redistricted into Ward 5. He also ran unsuccessfully in the Republican primary for the North Carolina state House District 61 seat and lost to former High Point Councilmember John Faircloth.

Grubb promises to be "a conservative voice in city government," voting against tax rate increases and utility rate increases, and attempting to eliminate the business license tax. He has attacked limitations on carrying firearms in parks as "just another eroding of personal freedoms" and said he would have supported a pay raise for city employees on the low end of the pay scale, if that could have been done without raising taxes.

Grubb said: "Before you push that button, stop and think who on that list that you can pick from is going to have new ideas, fresh ideas."

Rodney Joslin badly lost an attempt to unseat Whitley in 2010, coming in third of three candidates with only 730 votes. He runs the quality control department at TE Connectivity and volunteers with NC Baptist Disaster Relief. He said he was motivated to run both times because of high electric rates.

Joslin said: "Our electric is much higher than Duke Power, which serves the rest of the state."

Ward 6

Jim Corey is the incumbent, and a retired political science professor from High Point University.

Corey railed against last year's county property revaluation, saying it was the worst year possible in which to do one, and said High Point lost $2.1 million in property tax revenue. He said he went through the city budget line by line – and showed every sign of having done so in budget sessions, to the exasperation of other councilmembers. He has been a strong supporter of renewable energy, including switching the city's fleet of vehicles to hybrids and, when it becomes practical, to electric cars.

Corey supported this year's budget, saying the property tax increase was revenue-neutral and the city has reduced staff through attrition.

Corey said: [On the revaluation] "That explains why the property tax was raised a small amount to make up that loss of revenue. We could have raised it more, but we didn't."

Jason Ewing ran for the Ward 6 seat in 2010 and only barely lost to Corey. Corey won 1,693 votes to Ewing's 1,647. A real estate agent for eXp Realty. He attacked the city for taking years to tear down a dilapidated apartment complex in the 500 block of Meredith Street. He said that High Pointers poll percent below the regional average on the overall image of their community, and that is much of High Point's problem.

Ewing said further tax increases aren't an option in the near term and that High Point should cut its budget. He also said the city should look for other sources of revenue, such as dog licensing or raising its license plate fee. He said that High Point citizens aren't calling for service cuts.

Ewing said: "I strongly believe in 'by the people and for the people,' and constituent service is very important."