David Bowers, Roanoke Mayoral Candidate, on Police Pay, Zoning Reforms, and Why He Thinks Roanoke Isn't Segregated

Ahead of Roanoke’s municipal elections on Nov. 5, The Rambler once again sits down with each of the candidates — this time with a twist.

Three candidates for mayor and seven City Council candidates agreed to videotaped chats as we probed them on Roanoke’s past, present and future. To distinguish our questions from those frequently asked of the candidates, we focused on budgets, segregation, climate, housing and more. (Of course, we also had to touch on where they like to dine out.)

For mayor, Vice Mayor Joe Cobb is running as a Democrat, Councilwoman Stephanie Moon Reynolds as an independent and former mayor David Bowers as a Republican. For City Council, the candidates are Democrats Terry McGuire, Phazhon Nash and Benjamin Woods; independents Evelyn Powers and Cathy Reynolds; and Republicans Jim Garrett and Nick Hagen. Voters can choose up to three Council candidates.

This interview features David Bowers, the Republican nominee for mayor. Bowers, 72, served four terms as Roanoke mayor, elected in 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2012 as a Democrat or independent. A resident of the Riverland area, Bowers works as a defense attorney. 

Candidates did not receive copies of the questions beforehand. Transcripts of the interviews have been condensed and edited for length and clarity.

View the candidate's full video interview here:

Why do you want to be Roanoke’s next mayor?

I want to first of all say, I have a great interest in Roanoke. To me, it's something of a mission to be involved in public life. I get this question quite often. It's also very exciting. I love the people of Roanoke. They’re very interesting to me. There's all sorts of different kinds of people that live in Roanoke, and so they've always been very interesting to me. That's why I enjoy representing them, for the most part in court, and down at city hall. But it also can be very exciting, because you get to deal with such big things. 

The very first big project I worked on was the reopening of The Hotel Roanoke, and then we've gone through the building of two new high schools, the development of the medical complex at Carilion, at Virginia Tech, over on Reserve Avenue, the Greenway system. When I first became mayor, we didn't have greenways. We didn't have designated paths up on Mill Mountain. I was at the meeting where finally I had to ask somebody, What's a greenway? I knew what a parkway was. I knew what a driveway was. But I didn't know what a greenway was. And developing a path, a paved path, through the city, along the river and other places in the city, those are all very exciting things to be a part of. 

The other motivation I have had is this card, which was sent to me by a lady I don't know, in April. And the card says, “Dear David, Thank you for running for this thankless job. Please save our city. I have loved this city for 84 years.” I find, for a lot of Roanokers this year, Henri, that there's a lot of discontent in Roanoke. People are not happy with the City Council. They're not happy with some of the things that are going on in Roanoke, and I hear a lot of concerns about their own safety. I never heard those things before. So those are some reasons that I was motivated to get involved in the campaign this year, and I look forward to working with people again if elected.

Let’s talk policy priorities. If you’re elected, what’s one of the first actions you would push for City Council to take?

I think there's two initial priorities. I want to meet with the chief of police, the sheriff, the fire department chief. I'd like to know what's going on with our public safety, because, again, that's what I'm hearing as I'm going door to door, going out into the neighborhoods, people are concerned about their safety in Roanoke. 

So I think one of the first priorities is to figure out what's going on with our public safety departments. I'm concerned that we are not keeping pace with other jurisdictions, with competitive salaries for policemen, firemen. I can't speak for the sheriff's office right yet. But we need to be more competitive. We also need to make sure that our police department is fully funded and fully staffed. I don't have current figures, but in April, I was told by a very reliable confidential source in the department that the police department was down to 59 officers. [A city spokesperson said in October that the department is down 42 sworn officers.]

My question to the press, in fact, is have we had a fully funded police department here in Roanoke for the last several years? If we have, and we're still down 59 officers, what happened to the surplus money that wasn't spent on not hiring 59 officers? If we haven't fully funded it, then I'd like to know why. So that's the first issue. 

The second issue is the issue of this rezoning. As you know, I've been very much opposed to this proposed rezoning that was approved by Roanoke City Council just in the last several days. My concern is this: The new law does not protect single-family homes and does not preserve residential neighborhoods. Let me explain why I think so. When people go out to buy a home, they're going to buy a home that they can afford and that they like. They like the home, but they're also going to buy the home where it is because they like the neighborhood. They look around and they check the neighborhood out. 

Under the old law, which was in effect for about 50 years, if somebody wanted, for instance, my wife and I live on the corner, if we wanted to chop up our house and turn it into six apartments, under the old law, we have to file a petition. We have to ask for a variance of the zoning law. There would be notice given to all the neighbors. My neighbors would be in an uproar. They don't want to have a six-unit apartment there on the corner. [The maximum number of units the new law would allow in Bowers’ house is three units.] I told my wife, if we did something like that, the neighbors would not be inviting us to the next neighborhood Christmas party. They'd be furious with us. So if they are furious, then they could come before the Board of Zoning Appeals and say ‘We don't want Bowers to do that.’ And more than likely, the Board of Zoning Appeals would turn it down. Under the new law, basically, the option of having neighborhood input into what you might be able to do in your home is gone. There is no process. You have, under the new law, an automatic right to do whatever you want to do with your property. And that may work out well in the rural setting, but I don't think it works out very well in the urban setting, again, because people buy their property because they can afford it, they like the home, and they like the neighborhood, and they want to stay there. So those would be the two primary priorities that I will be looking at if I take office. 

The mayor is only one vote of the seven-person City Council. How do you persuade other members to agree to your proposals? 

I learned a long time ago, Henri, I don't get to decide who sits on Roanoke City Council. The people get to decide that. What I get to decide is whether or not I'm going to work with those persons chosen. And I always decide that that's what I'm going to do, some way or another. I'm going to work with them.

There are going to be four seats up, and if the city, if the voters, if the people, want to see that rezoning issue change back the way it was, and they want to see the issue of public safety as a primary issue in Roanoke, then they need to elect four new people. And let me say this: When I was the mayor, we had Democrats and Republicans and independents. We'd have our tiffs every now and then, but we were friendly with each other for the most part. We got things done, and there was a diversity of opinion on that Council, and we respected each other's views, and there was a balance, if you will. And I don't know whether I've said this — sometimes it sounds a little silly, I guess — but I came up with, years ago, what I call the Christmas Tree philosophy. Did I ever tell you that?

You have, yeah.

Well, I mean, it's right up there with Aristotle's philosophy of government, I say facetiously. I think I had children at home, and I was wrestling with some things when I was a young mayor, back in the ’90s, with what needed to get done in the city, with the City Council. And it must have been towards Christmas. And I came to the conclusion that it was important for me to make sure that just like on Christmas morning, there was something under the tree for every little boy and girl. And the same thing with Council members. I had to package things together so that this person might not want what this person wants, but if I can package it together, they both get something under the tree. And that was my philosophy of government, and that's what my philosophy is today.

Roanoke’s residential neighborhoods remain highly racially segregated. What role should city government play in dismantling that legacy? 

Well, I don't know that I agree with the premise of the question. I'd have to see statistics on it, frankly. I find that most neighborhoods of the city are integrated. That's my experience. And may I remind everyone that there is a federal fair housing law that prohibits discrimination in the purchase of housing. So the main issue in the purchase of a house should be, and is still, can you afford the house? Do you like a house? And do you like the neighborhood? 

So I've been hearing that recently, and by the way, let me just say one of the things I really would like to address in the next several days, I want to tone down the rhetoric on that issue. My colleagues and I were offended with the accusations that we might be racist. First of all, it's not correct. I think it's absurd, and it’s just not the way I'd like to conduct the civil discourse within our city. My—

That was related to the zoning issue. But if you look at like, the city is 30 percent Black but there are some neighborhoods that are 80 to 90 percent black. There's some neighborhoods in Roanoke that are 90 percent white. You don’t think that’s segregation? 

No, I don't think it’s, not if it’s only 80 percent. If it were 100 percent, it might be. But I find a lot of, in my clientele, white people and Hispanics who might live in Northwest. I find African Americans who live in our neighborhood down below Mill Mountain. I find Raleigh Court and Williamson Road to be a real polyglot. So if it was 100 percent, as it used to be, I might agree with you. But again, this isn't determined by government. Well, it is, in a way, because the government has stated in the fair housing law that there will be no discrimination. 

And let me just say this about toning down the rhetoric. My faith, I'm a Catholic, my faith teaches, condemn the sin, not the sinner. And so even though we might disagree on issues or disagree on all sorts of things, that's okay. We can be respected. We can be respectable to each other in our disagreement, but calling each other names and things like that, I don't think there's any place for that. And one other thing, you know, I'm reminded — I'm running as a Republican this year after being a long time Democrat — but I'm reminded that the most popular and honored mayor in the history of Roanoke was Mayor Noel C Taylor. He was an African American Baptist minister, and he was a Roanoke Republican. So this party, both parties, I think, in Roanoke, have a long history going back, certainly not into the days of segregation and Jim Crow in the 1950s and 60s, but since then, I think both parties and Roanoke in general have been very open. One of the things that I did as mayor was to make sure, back in the ’90s, that we hire women and African Americans in all the departments of the city and increase the number of minority employment within the city government.

Let's talk about your time as mayor. You served as mayor for 16 years. Looking back over your time in office, what is your proudest accomplishment, and why would that not have happened had you not been on Council?

That's a good question. There's two things. One's kind of a personal one, and one's more of progress for the city. I remember when I ran for mayor in 1992, I said, What we need to do is to have more tourism in Roanoke. And I remember people laughing. Somebody came up and said, Why would anybody want to come visit Roanoke? Wow, there's been a whole turnaround on that issue over the last 30 years. We reopened The Hotel Roanoke, and that was a real economic generator for our downtown area. So I remember we had 60 businesses created within hotels and restaurants and shops, around The Hotel Roanoke. So that was a big improvement. And the development of [Visit Virginia’s Blue Ridge], I think, and having Landon Howard here in Roanoke has been such a good thing. Developing our ecotourism now with bicycle races and the marathon and all of those kinds of things. It’s a good question. I don't mean to take credit for, but I think I was able to help focus our city on the need to create Roanoke as a tourism center and compete with the Ashevilles and Chattanoogas and Knoxvilles of the Appalachian Mountains. 

The second thing is a little bit tied into it, and that is the development of the Greenway system and our park system. There were Indian trails, I'm told, on Mill Mountain. Of course, there were Indian villages here, the Saponi and the Tutera Indians were in this land, in this valley, when ... explorers came here from Williamsburg, and I want to say, I think it was 1752. So there were some Indian trails, but nobody really knew where they were. And now we not only have identified 10 miles of trails on Mill Mountain, but I’m told they're going to expand it to another 10. I don't know all the details yet. And we've extended the  Greenway along the Roanoke River from Niagara Dam on the east all the way almost to the city of Salem. And so that whole concept has encouraged people to do something that I think is important. I'm not a good athlete like my brothers were, but I believe in getting out, walking, hiking, swimming. I think those are good things. And in fact, in my recent article in The Roanoke Times, I talked about the Blue Zones. The Blue Zones is a concept that is now in Hopewell, Virginia, the first city in Virginia to adopt a Blue Zone project, and that is to make sure that we have our churches, our schools, our neighborhood civic groups, getting together with senior citizens and promoting a good lifestyle, not only of healthy foods, but exercise and getting out and being sociable with their neighbors. So I would say those two things.

You have been in and out of public office since 1984 first served as a city council. What would you say to voters who think it's time for the next generation of leaders to take over?

Well, I would say that I have discovered over the years that there's some things that the younger folks could learn from me. And there's some things I could learn from them too. So I think, again, I'm interested in real balance. I'm a senior citizen now, but I have the energy, the enthusiasm to continue to practice law and to be involved in public life. I get a great response from people who've known me over the years and trusted me, but I also want to encourage young people to come along as well. I'm ready for this job. I'm excited about winning, and I'd like to give it a shot again. By the way, I was in for eight [years], out for eight, in for eight. Now I've been out for eight, so I'm ready to come back.

You left public office in 2016, and it came a year after an infamous statement rejecting the resettlement of Syrian refugees to Roanoke and speaking positively about the internment of Japanese-American citizens during World War II. Do you regret that?

Oh, I sure do. I said the wrong thing at the wrong time, in the wrong way. I made a mistake.

Do you think what you said was wrong, your position? 

Oh yeah, I said so at the time. I didn't at the time. I mean, it took me, you know, a day or two to realize what I had said, but once it came to my attention that people were upset, and I looked at what I had said, and it's not what I intended to say, but I did say it. And so I, within just a day or so, I acknowledged that I had said, just what I've said now. ‘I said the wrong thing at the wrong time, in the wrong way. It was a mistake.’ 

I apologized for it, and then I went on about doing something about it. I tried to make amends. I didn't just try to sweep it under the carpet or something. I tried to make amends. We brought George Takei to Roanoke. We developed a welcoming city approach. I can't remember exactly the campaign that we joined in on that. So I tried to right that. It was a bad week for me and for our city. And I understand people were offended, and people are offended, even to this day, I guess. Some folks still take offense with that. What I like to think is that I had 16 good years as mayor and one bad week. If this was baseball, that'd be a pretty good record.

You’re going out to dinner in Roanoke. Name one place — where do you go?

My wife and I like Evie’s on Fourth Street. We like Montano's, Marty Montana's place. What, you wanted one place?

Mmhmm.

We like The Outback, the Bloomin' Onion.

What books are on your night stand? What are you reading currently?

I’m right now reading a book, it’s called “The Pilgrim of Hate” by Ellis Peters. It's a part of the Brother Cadfael mystery murders. Brother Cadfael is a fictional Catholic monk of the 12th century, and the writer, whose name is Ellis Peters, has written 20 of these volumes, and they're nice, little, simple murder mystery types. It's kind of like Agatha Christie-type books.

A book I really enjoyed recently, and maybe this is more prevalent, or whatever, important, to your question is what's called “Dinner with the President.” It's by a guy named [Alex] Prud’homme who has some relation to Julia Child, and so he has kind of a gastronomic background, and he's interested in history, and he's written a book detailing some of the private and public meals that the presidents have had going back to George Washington. He doesn't cover all the presidents. He says in his forward some of them are just boring. But he covers, you know, Jefferson, of course, he covers Eisenhower, he covers Franklin Roosevelt and Teddy Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. So I found that to be a very fascinating book. 

And the last book I've been reading is called “The Vanishing.” It's not a Stephen King book. There's actually about 17 titles of books called “The Vanishing,” but this has to do with the disputes between Christians, and I guess it's the Muslim faith in the Middle East, and all the complications of that, and all the history of why that has happened all these years.