- Holly Edwards in April 2007. By Brian Wheeler, Charlottesville Tomorrow / CC BY 2.0
Vice Mayor Holly Edwards is stepping down at the end of her first term, Brian Wheeler reports for Charlottesville Tomorrow. In her announcement, she didn’t cite any single reason why she’s not running for reelection—is basically sounds like she’s done. Although Edwards was enormously active in the community prior to her candidacy four years ago, she’d never been politically active. She’s one of three councilors whose terms expire at the end of the year. Councilor David Brown has already said that he’s stepping down after this, his second term, while Satyendra Huja has not said what his plans are.
Presumably this should have a correlative increase in the number of people interested in running. There are a handful of people said to be considering running—all Democrats—and those who intend to do so should be tossing their hat into the ring in the next few months. Although the election is in November, the whole election process is in turmoil across the state, a result of redistricting. With the 2010 census data having just become available, the state legislature still needs to draw new district boundaries, and those have to be approved by the Department of Justice, the result of which is that primaries can’t be held until August, resulting in a significantly abbreviated general election period. Of course, redistricting won’t affect a city-wide council election, but this election will follow the same cycle as the statewide elections this fall, so anticipate an awkward process as a result.
If “abbreviated election period” means “abbreviated campaign spam” then this is the best news I’ve heard all week.
The length of the election period won’t make any difference with the City Council race. The city Democratic clique will get together, handpick its crony candidates, and the vote on Election day will just be a formality.
Hate to be so cynical, but afraid that once again thats how it will be.The city has become like some Third World country where there is only one political party that stands a chance of elcting its candidates to office.
Maybe a ward system is the answer-couldn’t be any worse than the present setup.
Please, please, please run again Peter Kleeman!
She got Maurice appointed, so her work is done.
What if the justice dept doesn’t approve the at large system in the city?
The Justice Department isn’t reviewing the at-large system, because they have already reviewed it, many years ago, and approved it. (Otherwise we wouldn’t have one now.) The DOJ only reviews changes.
According to the DP, she said, “Lame duck? I quack
not.”
That quote alone makes me want to have her stay in
office.
I had the same reaction. :)