By Maya Lora
The Challengers
A month before the filing deadline in May, Molly McCluer had no intention of running for Lexington City Council.
She had surveyed the candidates: two incumbents, David Sigler and Charles “Chuck” Smith, and outside challenger Dennis Ayers, who would be the first openly gay elected official in Lexington if he were to win.
But she was still waiting for somebody else to enter the race. She wanted to see someone who would be the voice for Lexington neighborhoods like her own Rebel Ridge with interests outside those of institutions like the colleges and Kendal.
Kendal is a retirement community that last year overcame neighborhood opposition for a major expansion. McCluer, who shares a property line with Kendal, was one of the citizens active in fighting the controversial decision.
McCluer, a now-retired law librarian who returned to her childhood home of Lexington two years ago after working in several states across the country, wanted to hold out for someone who had been in the city longer. But when she realized no one else was going to compete for the seat, she put herself in the ring.
“I have a breadth of civic experience that will keep me from becoming part of the group-think that is council today,” McCluer said.
On Nov. 6, Lexington voters will be choosing among four nonpartisan candidates for city council running for three available seats. The three candidates who garner the most votes will win, regardless of what percent of the vote they capture.
Among those candidates are two outside challengers and two Lexington council incumbents, pitting fresh ideas against a nearly 12 years of combined experience.
McCluer stressed that her goal of giving neighborhoods more of a voice to balance institutional influence is much broader than her previous involvement in the Kendal fight. For starters, she said, she would support replacing the current council-supported city manager, Noah Simon.
She said Simon has favored the advice of his own consultants over feedback from Lexington citizens regarding council decisions, such as during the development of a comprehensive plan in the past year.
“The public has been squeezed out of the conversation,” McCluer said.
The other challenger, Dennis Ayers, shares McCluer’s interests in representing “boundary” neighborhoods such as Lime Kiln and bringing more voters into active conversation with the council.
“Rightly or wrongly,” Ayers said, “citizens have the perspective that city council has already made up its mind about all the big decisions.”
Ayers, a paralegal for the Rockbridge County and Lexington Commonwealth Attorney’s Office, said he can represent an often hidden community: LGBT residents in Lexington. Ayers said that while he hasn’t made it a major campaign issue, his presence on the council as a gay man would show the city is a “welcoming community.”
If elected, Ayers said, he wants to continue to stress fiscal responsibility and make plans to address issues with infrastructure, such as water and sewer lines that “are about 100 years old” in some places.
He added he would still join the council with an open mind and focus on reaching out to citizens for their input.
The Incumbents
Incumbent David Sigler said that as a member of council, he’s always listening.
Sigler, who is finishing his first four-year term, said he treats serving on council like a full-time job in addition to being assistant director of financial aid at Virginia Military Institute.
As the youngest candidate for city council, Sigler said he represents citizens in their 30s and 40s as well as those with school-aged children.
“I see Lexington through the eyes of a young parent who is concerned about the schools, concerned about the parks, concerned about our kids being able to safely walk through the neighborhoods, concerned about the job opportunities,” Sigler said.
Although he wants to continue to represent those issues on the council, he doesn’t think he’ll be guaranteed the chance, describing himself as the “underdog” of the race.
Sigler said the same thing in 2014. He came in second in that race with 916 votes, beating out incumbent Mary Harvey-Halseth alongside Smith and J. Patrick Rhamey Jr. Rhamey, an associate professor of international studies and politics at VMI, is retiring this year after his first and only term.
Sigler said he still doesn’t have a lot of name recognition, nor does he have the temperament he said that can dominate politics.
“I’m a glass half-full guy,” Sigler said. “[The current climate] attracts people to say ‘something is wrong and only I can fix it’.”
But Sigler likes his obscurity.
“I don’t like to make waves,” Sigler said. “I work behind the scenes.”
Sigler said his approach enables him to be a good communicator on the council, which he called a “team sport.”
The other member of the team running for reelection, Chuck Smith, said he is looking to Lexington’s future, especially in terms of its business. This is of personal interest to Smith as the owner of Washington Street Purveyors, a gourmet wine, cheese and sundries shop.
He added that as a council person, business owner, and father to a son still in the school system, he can help Lexington “grow and develop and be a better place than it already is.”
“I have a lot of skin in the game,” Smith said.
Smith said he wants to prioritize attracting younger people to Lexington as the current population ages. He also wants to find the most suitable piece of property in Lexington for development and “put it to work.” Lexington residents indicated in a comprehensive plan citizen survey that the most pressing residential issue for citizens is affordable housing.
Smith is currently running for this third term on the council, and that’s where he wants to stay. He previously ran for mayor and lost, but he won his second term on council by the largest margin, 1,043 votes.
Like the other three candidates, he said he has no political aspirations beyond doing his part in local government.