From now until Aug. 4, Roanoke voters will decide which three of five Democratic city council candidates will advance to the November election.
The outcome of a Democratic primary often sets the course for the general election in a city where Democrats have dominated council races for decades. In 2024, Nick Hagen was the first Republican to be elected to the council in over two decades.
The five Democratic candidates in the race this year include incumbents Vivian Sanchez-Jones and Peter Volosin, along with newcomers Harvey Brookins, Danny Clawson and Raekwon Moore.
A key question hanging over the Democratic primary: Will the city’s recent issues — from two years of major city and school budget cuts, to a plan for a casino in the Berglund Center, to a zoning code that’s been changed numerous times — cost Sanchez-Jones and/or Volosin a nomination?
And, over the past week, a public dustup between Volosin and fellow Councilman Phazhon Nash and confirmation of a past assault charge against Brookins have become part of the race, but weeks after the start of early voting.
Brookins was charged with a misdemeanor of assaulting his then wife in 2017 over a reported argument over french fries, according to a story first reported by The Roanoke Times.
He said in a recent interview that he takes full responsibility for his actions, but declined to comment on what exactly happened.
“I understand how domestic violence impacts families and communities and take full responsibility for my actions,” Brookins said. He added that he was going through a “painful separation and divorce that was not amicable.”
“I make no excuse for my behavior and it pushed me to… learn how to handle things better. I ask voters to look at my entire body of work and not just one incident that is a painful part of my past,” Brookins said.
The incident involving Volosin and Nash occurred in early July when Volosin told Nash, the only Black person on the council, that another member “owns” him — which Volosin said landed “differently than he intended.” Volosin publicly apologized to Nash during a July 20 council meeting.
As of July 22, 425 had cast ballots during early voting, and, earlier this month, the city had received over 500 absentee ballots the primary, said Nicholas Ocampo, city director of elections and general registrar, via email.
A party primary for a council election is normally held in June. But the state’s congressional redistricting referendum, held in April, delayed the process this year.
Awaiting the three chosen Democrats in the general election campaign are a mix of old and new faces from former mayor David Bowers, former city councilwoman Stephanie Moon Reynolds, and retired Temple of Emmanuel Rabbi Kathy Cohen, who are running as independents, along with the lone Republican candidate, businesswoman Amanda Marko.
The third incumbent whose seat is on the ballot — Councilwoman Evelyn Powers — chose not to run.
In advance of the Aug. 4 primary, the Democratic candidates talked about what they offer and addressed numerous issues:
Peter Volosin
Volosin said that numerous issues candidates are talking about he’s been pushing for in his four years in council — for example, transparency.
“It’s easy to run on those things,” Volosin said in a recent interview. “It’s hard to run on the fact that you did those things. Because every decision we make, there’s going to be somebody on the other side that says, ‘I don’t like that decision.’”
For instance, Volosin said, when Bob Cowell was the city manager, Volosin said he noticed a negative cultural shift taking place in departments throughout the city. Cowell resigned from the city manager job in 2024, following several high-profile personnel issues in city hall.
“When I saw something was wrong with the organization, that’s when I started to get my councilmates on board with changing the administration, because there was no transparency,” Volosin said.
Volosin works in real estate as an associate broker, and serves on the board of Local Colors. This will be his first reelection campaign. He said in his past four years on the dais, he’s been most proud of the citywide zoning code changes that the council passed twice in 2024.
He expressed frustration during a July 6 meeting that the council voted to send residential density recommendations back to the planning staff for the third time — Volosin is in support of higher density housing, and said that is what developers need to bring more of it to the city.
Volosin said the goal is to build homes that are affordable for residents to buy — like townhomes and condos.
“We have over 60% of our citizens that are renters, and so that means we’re not generating as much wealth as we could,” Volosin said. “If you own your own home, you’re building equity. But when you’re renting, you’re giving 100% of that to somebody else.”
Regarding the city schools, Volosin said he wants people to know he’s for education, which he called “the great equalizer.”
“We’ll continue to focus on education, and as we continue to improve our revenue status, and we improve our financial status, then we can start to say, OK, what more can we start to do for the schools.”
He said he wouldn’t have supported the changes made to school funding — a new formula that the division says will result in less money over time, and a new policy on surplus revenue — unless he “knew it had to be made for the city to have a better future.”
He said he has seen more anti-incumbent language and aggressiveness in the last two years, since President Donald Trump was voted into office.
“We have seen our daily lives change in so many different ways that I don’t blame anybody for being upset about anything, because there’s always something to be upset about,” he said. “I don’t feel like it’s a normal day in America.”
Volosin said his main concern for the city at this point is creating revenue by increasing the city’s population and bringing in business. He said he’s always been a supporter of a casino coming to Roanoke, but that the idea is “on the back burner” for the city right now.
Last year, Volosin introduced to the council the idea to reutilize the Virginia Recreational Facilities Authority to address long-term capital and maintenance funding gaps for regional assets, like Carvins Cove, Mill Mountain, River’s Edge, the Roanoke River Greenway and the blueway.
“If we’re able to take those costs off of the city by having the VRFA maintain and update those, it’s going to lead to quality facilities,” he said.
Volosin said he considers the last two years a “budget reset.” He said the council wasn’t told by the prior administration about millions of dollars in deferred maintenance, among other issues, which were brought to light by Valmarie Turner when she became city manager in 2025. Volosin also said he and Turner have worked on a data dashboard that will launch soon, that will show the public various aspects of the city’s health and help the council to make data-informed decisions.
Volosin emphasized that despite financial issues, there is a lot of good happening in the city — like the opening of RoVa labs or Ringana’s announcement that it will come to the city — Ringana is an Austrian skincare company — and forward motion in affordable housing.
“Those things wouldn’t happen if the city was falling off a cliff,” he said.
Vivian Sanchez-Jones
Sanchez-Jones acknowledged that she’s quieter than some others on council, and that she’s not usually first to snap photos at events she attends.
But she said just because she’s quiet, this doesn’t mean she’s not advocating for her community.
“I want to make sure I do a good job, and sometimes that’s not all about talking, it’s all about doing,” she said.
Sanchez-Jones, who has lived in Roanoke for 24 years, is in her sixth year on the council. She was appointed in 2020, and elected in 2022. She said some of her work that she’s proudest of was increasing language access for vaccinations during the pandemic.
She is a student support specialist for Roanoke City Public Schools, where she handles truancy issues for students at Patrick Henry High School.
Because of her employment with RCPS, Sanchez-Jones is unable to vote on matters related to the school division.
She said in a recent interview that she believes that we should support our schools, even if she cannot influence her councilmates or vote on school issues.
“It hurts me to think that people say this doesn’t affect me,” she said. “I had friends who lost their jobs.”
Sanchez-Jones said that she sees herself as someone “opening the door for other people who look and sound like me.” Sanchez-Jones is the only Hispanic member on the council at this time.
During the pandemic, she said she increased language access for people who speak Spanish, Nepali, Haitian and Creole for vaccinations through Carilion. She also said she pushed for the option to speak to someone in Spanish when a resident calls the city’s phone number. She said she’s pushed for benches at the Amtrak train station downtown, pay raises for fire and EMS employees, an ambulance at Fire Station #14 and a bulk trash pickup in Southeast Roanoke, she said.
She also noted that she advocated for the handicap-accessible ramp recently installed in front of the city’s municipal building.
Sanchez-Jones said over the last six years, she has learned the importance of collaboration and respect among council.
“We need to work together and respect each other’s decisions,” she said. “If somebody doesn’t vote the way I would, I respect it.”
Sanchez-Jones said the city’s biggest priority now needs to be finding new sources of revenue. She suggests opening a sports complex, so that families can travel into Roanoke for soccer tournaments and other events, which would subsequently bring in other streams of revenue.
She said prior to Turner becoming the city manager, the council was not fully aware of the shape that the city was in financially.
“We got presented with this beautiful package,” she said, of the budget documents, “but the manager failed to tell us what we had to leave behind.”
Sanchez-Jones also said she’d like to continue improving the city’s “customer relations.” She said some residents think the city is acting behind closed doors.
“I think the more we are transparent, the more information we have out there, I think that might change a little bit,” she said.
She said she is still in support of a casino at the Berglund Center site, among other aspects of an entertainment district, including other facilities for concerts and a conference space.
She’s also supportive of the citywide zoning changes that were made to increase more housing options, and said a lot of the opposition boils down to NIMBYism — the not-in-my-backyard idea factor. The city needs to hold landlords accountable to adhere to tenant rights, which she said isn’t happening right now in the city.
Harvey Brookins
Brookins said he was pushed by peers, coworkers and current city employees to run. He said the council is in a “storm” phase right now, and if he were on council when its members voted to take substantial salary increases several years ago, he would have proposed foregoing the raises. A leadership consultant should have been hired with that money instead — to help the council get to a better place, he said.
“I think everyone is really well-intended and passionate about improving things, but they get stuck on communication styles and jockeying for positions,” he said.
Brookins is a vice president at the National Bank of Blacksburg, and is one of the city’s representatives on the Western Virginia Water Authority’s Board of Directors. He also serves on the Roanoke Blacksburg Innovation Alliance’s board of directors, and is a mentor for the Regional Accelerated Mentoring Program, or RAMP.
Brookins said he hopes to bring a level of fiscal understanding to the council. Its current makeup might be missing that with Evelyn Powers’ term ending in December — Powers was also the city’s elected treasurer for years.
“My 30 years of experience in banking has taught me that if there’s something going on at the main company, there’s things going on in the divisions as well,” Brookins said. He said the city should do a “deep dive” of all of its areas to make sure there is no waste or overspending anywhere.
Working in finance, he said he’s developed skills in problem solving, negotiation and communication.
He said he helped start the Authority Cares initiative through the WVWA, which provided support to families facing water disconnections due to not paying the water bill. He said most of the WVWA’s water disconnections take place in the city.
He said the city’s idea to build a casino in the aging Berglund Center is “worth looking into.”
“You can’t just keep doing the same things and expect a different result,” he said of the city’s civic center. “Something needs to change.”
He said another area of economic development the city should be prioritizing is looking at the real estate the city owns and whether or not that land could be repurposed for affordable housing, including evaluating some of the city’s land used for parks and recreation.
As far as the city’s zoning amendment package, originally passed in 2024, Brookins said he would have “stair-stepped” the plan — starting with smaller changes that grow over time.
Brookins also talked about Evans Spring in Northwest, the last undeveloped tract of its kind in the city with a future that continues to be debated.
Brookins said there needs to be a balance. “I do think Northwest Roanoke needs development, commercial development and job opportunities,” he said.
The city council voted in May to amend the years-old Evans Spring Plan to allow for conservation as an acceptable use in the city’s largest undeveloped piece of land.
Raekwon Moore
Moore, who was born and raised in Roanoke, was laid off last year from Wells Fargo after working there for over seven years, which he said in an interview is a large reason why he is running for council — to help bring more businesses and jobs to the city.
Moore now works for Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare in electronic health records systems. He’s on the board for the Grandin Theatre, and mentors with the Young Doctors Project in Roanoke. He’s also on the United Way Community Impact Committee and the planning committee for Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare, and served as an officer of election for the city for 11 years.
“I’ve always had an interest in politics,” Moore said. “I knew that if I was ever going to run for a leadership position, I knew it was important to be able to serve the community first.”
Moore said he brings the perspective of someone without a college degree who lives and owns a home in the city — an important lived experience, he said, because “most of this city does not have a degree.”
He said while the city’s finances are now too “chaotic” to get back to a policy where the city funds the schools at 40% of its revenue, that he would push for maintaining the meals tax rate that was increased last year — and using that funding for education.
The 1% increase in the meals tax last year — bringing the tax to 6.5% — was done to address deferred capital improvement needs in the city, but is set to end in 2027.
“Ultimately, most taxpayers will not mind paying a little bit more for food if it ensures our kids will have activity buses, and free lunches and teachers in the classroom,” he said.
Moore said every bus stop in the city needs a covering and a seating area — “I think people deserve to be able to ride the bus with dignity and not be standing out in the rain,” he said, adding that the bus stops should be easily accessible to those with disabilities.
He said the city’s public parks, which are essential to bringing in businesses and improving quality of life, need improvements — especially with Roanoke becoming a medical hub.
“We have an incredible medical school here, and I want every single one of these doctors to want to live here.”
On the future use of Evans Spring, Moore said he held forums himself with the public in 2022 and 2024, and is in favor of a land grant option to offer housing to protect elders living in the area, and to keep trees and shade to lower electricity costs for the surrounding community.
“For me, first and foremost, it comes to what the people in that area want.”
While he said he loves the idea of bringing more entertainment to Roanoke, he doesn’t think a casino is a realistic idea at this point with the “hurdles” ahead — Roanoke would need approval from the General Assembly and a majority vote through a local referendum.
When bringing businesses into the city, he said, leaders need to look at “how the people at the bottom are going to be treated.”
Moore said a primary goal as a council member would be to streamline the city’s permitting process by boosting the planning staff. About one third of the city’s planning staff is vacant, and it’s leading to major delays for developers in getting building permits back.
Danny Clawson
Clawson is the executive director of the Virginia Harm Reduction Coalition, a role they’ve had for four years, and has a history in organizing down ballot political campaigns in communities without strong resources, they said.
For example, Clawson was the campaign manager for Samantha Newell’s 2023 write-in campaign for the Roanoke County School Board that garnered about 12% of the vote after only starting campaigning in August — “That was really exciting,” Clawson said.
In 2024, Clawson was arrested for trespassing at a Roanoke County School Board meeting, where the board was discussing new state policies regarding transgender students. “I’m very proud of that arrest,” Clawson said in a recent interview. “It was impulsive but I made a choice to stand up for children that were being put in harm’s way.”
They grew up in Upstate New York, surviving on state and church welfare programs, they said. They spoke in a recent interview on the importance of elected officials understanding the struggles that their constituents see on a daily basis.
“One of the things I bring with my candidacy, and hopefully with my public service, is that I know what it feels like to eat rice and salsa for dinner, because that’s all we had,” they said. “I think so much of the privileged politics in our country … it’s not malice, it’s just a lack of understanding when people come from a position of comfort.”
Clawson worked in the Peace Corps, serving in Cameroon, and worked at Georgia Equity in Atlanta as a statewide outreach organizer before moving to Roanoke with their wife.
Clawson has a master’s degree in public health and worked as a treatment counselor for HIV testing in Utah. They said that experience taught them how to make effective decisions using data, and how to use data-driven information to build an intervention.
They said the budget grew at the Harm Reduction Coalition by about 400% in four years, and that in their role, they are “used to a high degree of fiscal scrutiny” — which is something they noted that citizens are currently concerned about with our current city leaders.
Clawson said proper city support of public education is a must.
“And whatever has to happen at the city level to bring that budget up to fully funded, that’s what needs to happen.”
Education in America has been “under attack” for years by Republican politicians, Clawson said.
They said they’d push to bring back the formula that gave 40% of the city’s annual revenue to the schools, and said it’s important to have a stable formula the schools can plan for the future with.
Clawson said they’re “value neutral” on the idea of a casino, but that they would need to ensure protections were in place to keep the money in the city.
The best way to generate revenue, Clawson said, is to attract young professionals. They said they’d suggest the city bring in new revenue through improving the city’s music venues, existing outdoor spaces, athletic franchises, and by working with the city’s state legislators to implement progressive tax policies and a more “aggressive” tax structure toward corporations.
Clawson said they’re “thrilled” about the progress that’s been made in changing the plan for Evans Spring, and that they look at the space through the lens of the importance of conservation for potential climate disasters.
Regarding housing, Clawson is supportive of the first set of citywide zoning amendments, passed in 2024.
“Trying to undo that right now is absolutely hampering us,” they said. “We made these steps, leaps forward as far as undoing racist policies, and now we are stepping back on those.” The city needs more of all types of housing, Clawson said.
Clawson said they believe the city administration is “lifting up rocks” and that they would expect that the situation gets worse before it gets better.
“It’s frustrating that the city council is writ large getting blamed for the mistakes of the past that they’re trying to fix,” they said. Because of that, transparency and letting the public see “the decisions that are being made behind the scenes” is important to Clawson.
For more on the Roanoke council race and other elections in the region, visit the Cardinal News voter guide.
