Republican-endorsed candidates swept the race for two city council seats in Radford on Tuesday.
W. Guy Wohlford won nearly 37% of the vote, with incumbent Kellie Artrip coming in second with 34%.
Wohlford, a longtime insurance agent, was previously elected to city council for one term in 1988 and served on the school board from 1993 to 2002. He has also served on the city’s electoral board from 2019 to 2023. Wohlford hadn’t initially planned to run for council, but when he saw no one had registered to run with two weeks to go before the deadline, he decided to throw his hat into the ring.
“I’m tired. I’m relieved. I’m ready to go to work again,” Wohlford said late Tuesday. He stressed that he was “grateful and honored” that voters “put their trust in me to go on the council and work for them.” He said being a lifelong resident of Radford may have benefited his campaign, but he also knocked on more than 2,000 doors.
Wohlford pledged to grow the city’s income sources and reduce its liabilities and named development of the former Foundry site, filling vacant Main Street properties, and promotion of the city as priorities for accelerating economic development.
Democrat-endorsed Carl Mitchell trailed with 25%. The city has 540 provisional ballots that need to be tallied, registrar Lindsey Williams said Tuesday night, but Wohlford and Atrip were at least 800 votes ahead of Mitchell as of 10 p.m. on Tuesday. Mitchell did not return a phone call on Tuesday night.
Artrip, in the second place spot, said that she was more nervous running for a full term than she was in 2022. Then, she finished third in the city council race and won one of two unexpired terms. “I knew what I had to lose, what was on the line a little more than last time,” she said Tuesday night.
Artrip said that despite the negatives stacked against Radford’s financial situation, she tried to focus her campaign on her two years of experience on council and the positive impact she’s had so far.
The incumbent cited revenue generation, through the management of the recently city-owned West Radford Commerce Park (the former Foundry site) and by considering the possibilities for using vacant city-owned properties, as a priority for the city’s economic growth. Artrip said in her Cardinal News candidate questionnaire that improving the city’s finances, paying off its revenue anticipation note and building up financial reserves are the biggest challenges for the small city. She has worked for nearly 10 years as auditor manager of National Bank of Blacksburg. Artrip said she was driven to run for a full term after hearing residents’ concerns about whether Radford’s financial challenges could put its independent city status at risk.
The city’s financial stability was the primary talking point during the campaign. All three candidates for the two seats expressed a desire to strengthen the city’s finances as it pays off a $4 million loan to cover city expenses in anticipation of future tax revenues. The city agreed to take out the short-term loan in September 2023 and expects to pay it off by June 2025. The city has raised taxes and increased electricity prices to increase revenue since taking the loan.
Wohlford said taxes may need to be increased further to strengthen the city’s finances but that he’s committed to reducing taxes again once the reserves are refilled. In his Cardinal News questionnaire, Wohlford cited the city’s transit system as a potential place to cut costs, writing, “I have my eye on researching how utilized is our city transit system and if the cost is justified.”
Wohlford said Tuesday night he was looking forward to working with the other four members of the council “to come up with a path to get us back on track.”