Candidates running for three open seats on the Lynchburg City Council answered a question about what civility means to them at a forum Wednesday, and many challengers agreed that it’s the council’s lack of professionalism that encouraged them to run in the first place.
The question came after years of heated city council meetings, often filled with insults and interruptions that stem from a divide within the body’s 6-1 Republican majority. Just last week, council members called their meeting and each others’ actions “political theater” and “show,” as voices overlapped at the dais with claims to the floor and calls for order.
Some candidates stressed at the forum that the council’s culture needs to change, with a new focus on respect and collaboration; others said they don’t want council members to silence each other or themselves for the sake of keeping waters smooth.
This fall, there are nine candidates seeking the open seats, and early voting starts Friday.
The three incumbents, who currently hold seats as Republicans and are hoping to again secure the spots, are Marty Misjuns, Larry Taylor and Stephanie Reed. The challengers are Chris Boswell, Veronica Bratton, Christina Delzingaro, Dave Henderson, Nat Marshall and Eli “Shawn Hunter” Rybinni.
Delzingaro, Henderson and Marshall are running as a team of Democrats. The remaining candidates are running as independents.
Misjuns, Reed, Taylor, Boswell and Bratton all sought the Republican nomination in a May nomination process run by the Lynchburg Republican City Committee. Misjuns, Taylor and Bratton secured the nominations, but those results were thrown out by the Republican Party of Virginia’s State Central Committee after the nomination process was appealed. All candidates involved in the process were allowed to file as independents in the general election.
Reed, Taylor and Boswell are running as a team, opposite Misjuns and Bratton’s team, as they did in the lead up to the Republican nomination process.
Rybinni is running as an independent without a team and was not involved in the local Republican party’s nomination process.
Boswell was out of town during the forum, hosted by the Lynchburg Voters League, the Lynchburg Branch of the NAACP and the League of Women Voters of Central Virginia. The other eight candidates answered the question: “Should you be successful in your bid to become a city council member or be reelected, what is your personal commitment to conduct yourself and perform your duty with decorum and professionalism?”
Find the candidates’ takes on that prompt below, along with their thoughts on general topics like education and economic development. To learn more about the candidates’ stances on 10 local topics, visit the Lynchburg page on Cardinal News’ voter guide.
Incumbent Misjuns: ‘We get elected to ask tough questions’
“We get elected to ask tough questions on your behalf,” Misjuns said to the audience at the forum, when asked about decorum. “What I think is extremely disrespectful is when you don’t give elected representatives of people an opportunity to ask questions and get answers from the staff.”
Earlier in the night, Misjuns described his personality as “abrasive” and said it aligns with his goal to fight for his constituents. Tough conversations have to be had in public, he said, to maintain transparency.
During the forum, Misjuns’ remarks centered on accountability for those involved in city government and city schools, including parents who set the tone for children’s education. He said the key to economic development is lowering taxes so businesses feel encouraged to set up shop, and that lower taxes are also needed to improve access to affordable housing.
“I’m a Republican. I believe in lower taxes, limited government. I believe in protecting and defending all of your rights,” he said in his closing remarks.
Incumbent Reed: ‘Every person deserves to be spoken to respectfully’
“I’ve learned from my mistakes, but I’ve also maintained the fact that every person deserves to be spoken to respectfully — every person, all of our city staff, whether you agree with them or not,” Reed said in response to the civility question. “We can say that we have abrasive personalities. That does not justify bullying, that does not justify degrading, that does not justify tearing someone down.”
She said differences can be worked out in private, but when it comes to a city council meeting, “We vote and we go. No meeting should be three hours or five hours.”
When answering other questions at the forum, Reed said she’s prioritizing literacy and hopes to get literacy teachers and programs in the city’s middle and high schools. Workforce development is also crucial for the city’s teens, she said, and can be accomplished through community partnerships that she seeks to build. She also said she has a goal to encourage homeownership, with the help of the city’s existing programs focused on rehabilitating dilapidated properties into affordable housing.
“I also am a Republican, but I also believe that that does not define how we treat each other in this city. Every single one of you, regardless of affiliation, should be able to approach me and know that I care about your concerns,” Reed said in her closing remarks.
Incumbent Taylor: ‘Stay the course’
“All I can say is, I stay the course,” Taylor said in response to the question about civility. He did not expand, and passed the mic.
Taylor emphasized the importance of involving parents in children’s education, and instilling in every child the hope that they can get out of poverty if they apply themselves. He said that there are jobs available in Lynchburg, and the problem lies in getting children ready for them.
In terms of housing, Taylor said he’s addressing his community’s concerns by rolling up his sleeves. He recently bought a condemned house on Tulip Street, he said, and is renovating it for a local family.
“I’m willing to continue to work with city staff to move our city forward,” he said in his closing remarks.
Bratton: Professionalism is working toward a common goal
“As someone who spent 20 years in a corporate management environment…I’ve learned professionalism is working with the people that you were elected or appointed or hired to work with. I didn’t always like my peers, but it didn’t matter. We had a goal,” Bratton said to answer the decorum question. “So on city council, that will be the same thing that I bring to city council.”
Bratton continued to say that city council members shouldn’t be silenced by each other, and that it’s good to ask questions of each other and the staff.
When answering other questions throughout the forum, Bratton emphasized the need to spend taxpayers’ money more wisely so that taxes can be lowered. She said she would support the school board and the city’s teachers, and find incentives for housing developers and first-time homebuyers.
“We can make things more affordable for our community, for our citizens, for our business owners,” she said. “And education is the cornerstone to our safe streets and to our economic development.”
Delzingaro: ‘You can disagree without being disagreeable’
“I believe in kindness. I believe in partnership,” Delzingaro said when asked about civility. “I also believe that you can disagree without being disagreeable, and I think that that is a key element of serving on city council.”
She added that one of the main reasons she decided to run for city council was that she was “absolutely fed up” with the lack of decorum in meetings.
To strengthen education, Delzingaro said she would make sure teachers are well paid and facilities are well maintained, and she’d work toward universal pre-K. She also said she’s focused on building connections across the community to secure better access to health care, strengthen affordable housing programs, and create workforce development opportunities such as internship programs.
“I think that people who teach, protect and care for Lynchburg should be able to afford to live here,” she said in her closing remarks.
Henderson: Leading a community means treating it with respect
“The one thing that you cannot get away with is to be rude and disrespectful and treat your coworkers like trash. That’s just not acceptable,” Henderson said in response to the decorum question. “No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, it is your responsibility as a leader of this community to treat your community with respect.”
Henderson also said the incivility on city council was his main inspiration to run for an open seat.
He added that his focuses for Lynchburg’s education system are literacy and kindergarten readiness, and he supports having pre-K in every elementary school. Retaining teachers and strengthening career and technical education programs are also a priority, he said, and he wants to expand the stock of “missing middle” housing in Lynchburg — like townhomes, that fall in the middle of the spectrum between large apartment developments and single-family homes, and provide more variety in options for affordable housing.
“We have a vision and we are able to actually work together to execute that vision. We have the ability to lead teams. We have the ability to bring people together and work in the same direction,” Henderson said in his closing remarks, of his running mates Delzingaro and Marshall.
Marshall: ‘Keep a cool head’
“I am a fifth degree black belt in Taekwondo, and so what we learn is, the best fight is the one that you don’t have to throw a punch,” Marshall said when asked about civility. “Keep a cool head.”
Marshall’s main priority is education, he said, because it requires collaboration across the entire community and can have impacts across the entire community, especially when it influences workforce and economic development. Another focus, he said, is rehabilitating Lynchburg’s oldest homes to create more affordable housing stock.
“If not today, then when, and if not me, then who?” Marshall said of his decision to run for city council to support his community.
Rybinni: Working hard leaves no time for arguing
“If you go there with the people’s agenda on your mind, I shouldn’t have time to argue with anybody because I have an agenda that we’re working on,” Rybinni said when asked how he would conduct himself at a city council meeting. “I’m a worker, and so I don’t have time to argue.”
Rybinni said his priority is to address the educational achievement gap between African American students and their white counterparts, while also making streets safer — work that he already does in the Peacemakers organization he leads, he said. When it comes to affordable housing, he wants to guard against the “quiet gentrification” that he sees in Lynchburg’s neighborhoods.
His goal is to focus on the topics that are often ignored, he said in his closing remarks: “I’m going to address these issues with homelessness, with poverty, with crime and violence.”
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Correction 9:15 a.m. Sept. 18: A quote from Stephanie Reed was incorrectly transcribed in an earlier version of this story. The correct version is: “We can say that we have abrasive personalities. That does not justify bullying, that does not justify degrading, that does not justify tearing someone down.”
