Political firsts are nothing new to Wilder, who has
run for public office as a Democrat and as an independent,
but whose politics sometimes strike a decidedly conservative
tone. He became the state’s first black senator
since Reconstruction after winning election to the Virginia
Senate in 1969. He grabbed national headlines in 1989
when Virginia voters narrowly made him the first elected
black governor in the United States. Now, setting aside
a decade of semiretirement in Charles City County, Wilder
is back in the spotlight after a landslide victory in
November that makes him Richmond’s first popularly
elected mayor in 60 years.
The strong-mayor form of government separates powers
in a manner akin to the federal system, a restructuring
Wilder helped champion. City Council continues as a
legislative body, but the executive powers now reside
in a mayor with greater centralized authority.
Wilder captured nearly 80 percent of the vote by running
a scathing, throw-the-bums-out campaign to clean up
a city government beset by recent corruption scandals
and swamped by various social ills. His support cut
across political parties, religious affiliations and
ethnic groups. Richmond business leaders are practically
giddy over Wilder’s star quality and ability to
mobilize public opinion. Much of Wilder’s $544,000
campaign war chest resulted from donations from the
business community, according to the Virginia Public
Access Project. Among the notables was grocery store
magnate James E. Ukrop, who donated $5,500 to Wilder’s
campaign, and insurance executives Anthony Markel and
Steven Markel, who combined to give $7,500.
Figures from the business community are on board to
help ease the transition to the new operating structure.
Not since Harry Truman occupied the White House have
Richmond residents had an elected mayor. In Trumanesque
fashion, Wilder says the buck now stops with him. Spearheading
change is never easy, and he expects to take his lumps.
But why, at a time when many people his age would be
content to enjoy retirement, is Wilder trading his golden
years for the political hurly-burly of running Virginia’s
capital? Nattily dressed in brown trousers, a brown
suede sweater and tan cowboy boots, he rocks gently
back in a leather armchair at his downtown city hall
office and quips, “I’m doing this primarily
because I’ve lost my mind.”
Self-deprecation aside, Wilder’s mind is as sharp
as ever. And his plans for transforming city government
are not a laughing matter. Wilder hopes to bring the
same deft touch to Richmond government that he used
when running the state. Caustic political opponents
joke privately that Wilder’s velvet glove conceals
an iron fist. Indeed, Wilder wants to consolidate agencies,
eliminate duplicate services, and institute performance
benchmarks for city employees, especially department
heads.
Trying to plug a $6.5 million expected revenue shortfall
in the city’s budget, he is asking panels of business
and community leaders to examine every aspect of city
government to help spot waste and inefficiency. Eva
Hardy, senior vice president of external affairs and
corporate communications with Dominion Resources, co-chairs
a special human services committee hand-picked by Wilder.
She credits him with launching a new discourse between
city officials and other stakeholders in metropolitan
Richmond, including corporations.
“Finally the business community feels welcomed
as a partner to help the city grow and solve its problems,”
says Hardy, who was secretary of health and human resources
for Virginia under former Gov. Gerald Baliles. She also
serves on Wilder’s transition team.
At the same time, the Wilder administration must stem
an alarming rash of murders. While the city’s
crime rate dropped 12 percent in 2004 in every major
category except homicides, murders continued to rise
with 95 reported last year, one more than the 94 reported
in 2003 and nearly 15 percent more than the 83 murders
reported in 2002. In fact, based on 2003 crime statistics,
Richmond was listed as one of the 10 most dangerous
cities in the U.S., according to one annual survey that
compares cities of similar size.
Underachieving public schools are equally worrisome.
Students at some Richmond public schools continue to
miss state-mandated Standards of Learning requirements
for reading and math. Another intractable problem is
growing income disparity between Rich-mond’s richest
and poorest residents. Education and poverty are intertwined
issues that could hinder economic growth. “Em-ployers
[considering] coming to Richmond need to have confidence
they can find a cadre of skilled people. It’s
more important to them than taxes, transportation, or
just about anything else,” says Hugh Keogh, president
of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce.
Already Wilder has visited Virginia’s congressional
delegation in Washington to try and wring more federal
money for Richmond. He also articulates a vision of
greater accountability and fiscal restraint for the
city that harkens to his belt-tightening days as governor
from 1990 to 1994. He refused to raise taxes to balance
the state budget during a recession, overcoming boisterous
opposition from fellow Democrats to slash spending by
more than $2 billion. That included some of the largest
higher-education cuts in the nation. But is it possible
that being mayor of Richmond presents an even greater
challenge? “When a new governor comes in, the
bureaucracy is already in place, so it’s a matter
of just putting the people in place … that fit
the mold of the new administration,” says Wilder.
“This [job] is totally different. We’re
moving into recharting the course of government in Richmond
as to how it operates and for whom it operates.”
Wilder’s chief goal now is surrounding himself
with people who can carry out his reforms. Putting the
right people in place is both a “long-term and
short-term goal. We’re focusing on what we want
this administration to be [now] and when we’re
gone. We’re asking, ‘What do we want the
city to look like four years from now?’”
Many business leaders believe Richmond’s government
is long overdue for such change, for the good of the
entire metropolitan region. Wilder has the cult of personality
necessary to lead the transformation. “People
tend to respond to energizing leadership, and we have
the good fortune to have an energetic leader who can
mobilize the community,” says James W. Dunn, president
and chief executive officer of the Greater Richmond
Chamber of Commerce.
Building on momentum
It’s not as if everything was gloom and doom
in the Richmond area, though, before Wilder ascended
to his new office. Since 1994, more than 300 businesses
have relocated to the region, investing about $5 billion
and producing 86,000 jobs, according to the Greater
Richmond Partnership. More than $600 million worth of
new investment is ongoing downtown, including a revived
James River waterfront and new life along the Broad
Street corridor, including restaurants, downtown apartments
and commercial activity.
Philip Morris USA moved its corporate headquarters
to Richmond last year, resulting in about 270 new jobs.
After a merger with New York-based Prudential Securities,
Wachovia Securities chose Richmond as its headquarters
for the combined company, creating more than 1,000 jobs
in the region. Virginia Commonwealth University has
kick-started the Broad Street corridor almost single-handedly
with $1 billion in investment, and plans another $1
billion infusion during the next 15 years. All the activity
has helped Richmond win accolades in recent years as
a good place to do business. Forbes magazine last year
ranked the region No. 10 among the most business-friendly
metro areas in the U.S., based on a survey of 150 of
the nation’s largest population centers.
Nevertheless, parochial squabbles often landed Richmond
in the news for the wrong reasons. Controversy over
the placement of the Arthur Ashe statue on Monument
Avenue — a pantheon for Confederate Civil War
heroes — attracted international media coverage.
Also drawing unwanted attention were flaps over a floodwall
mural bearing the likeness of Confederate Gen. Robert
E. Lee and the installation of a statue of President
Abraham Lincoln and his son at the site of a former
Confederate munitions plant.
Doing worse damage to Richmond’s image was a
string of high-profile scandals. Between 1999 and 2004,
three council members were packed off to federal prison.
They include Councilman and former Mayor Leonidas B.
Young, who pleaded guilty to fraud, obstruction of justice
and tax evasion in 1999; Councilman Sa’ad Al-Amin,
who was found guilty of several felony tax-related charges;
and Councilwoman Gwen C. Hedge-peth, who was found guilty
by a federal jury of three bribery charges and one count
of lying to the FBI, all felonies. Moreover, federal
probes into city financing uncovered graft that resulted
in convictions of three other city officials. In one
case, an assistant in the city manager’s office
managed to steal a million dollars from the city.
Richmond business leaders hope Wilder’s election
will begin to polish Richmond’s tarnished reputation,
especially since all Virginians have a stake in the
capital city. “I think it’s terribly important
to make Richmond a bright shining star, because it’s
helpful to the rest of Virginia,” says Dunn.
In response to the corruption scandals, Wilder and
retired Republican Rep. Thomas Bliley Jr. launched a
ballot initiative in 2002 to change the city charter
to allow direct mayoral elections. Previously the mayor’s
role rotated between the nine city council members.
In typical Wilder fashion, he threw his hat in the ring
at the 11th hour — after disavowing interest in
the job early on. He entered the race reluctantly, he
says, after repeated urgings by people he met when traveling
around Richmond. Besides, he wants to give back to a
hometown that gave him “a good livelihood [for
years Wilder ran a law practice in Church Hill where
he grew up] and a good political base to do other things.
There’s no room to say, ‘Okay, I’ve
done my bit and now I can relax.’”
Yet adding another chapter to his storied political
career almost certainly proved too great a temptation
to resist. The strong-mayor form of government provides
Wilder and his successors with unprecedented clout,
including the authority to hire and fire city staffers.
It is a privilege Wilder is not shy about using. Within
weeks of his mayoral triumph, he purged Andre Parker
as police chief and Calvin Jamison as city manager and
last month eliminated three small city agencies. Richmond’s
daily affairs will be run by a full-time chief administrative
officer who is hired by, and answers directly to, the
mayor.
City bureaucrats also are on notice. Department heads
or higher must reapply for their current positions.
Wilder says he hopes no jobs will be cut, but he’s
making no promises. “I have said I don’t
want to see any curtailment of essential services, including
police, emergency services or [helping] people who might
be caught in the cracks. But by the same token, we do
have fat. We can trim in any number of circumstances.”
Business leaders applaud Wilder for adopting a top-down
style of management that mirrors the private sector,
including setting goals and holding people accountable.
“This is an organization structure that makes
business sense,” says James Cherry, regional chief
executive officer of Wachovia Bank in Richmond and a
member of Wilder’s transition team. “What
[preceded it] was unworkable.”
Wilder is walking a fine line between tightening city
spending, including economic investment, without alienating
developers. A case in point may be Wilder’s early
reaction to a proposal by the Richmond Braves and a
private development company to build a baseball stadium
and village-type complex in the city’s Shockoe
Bottom area. Wilder has withheld his support until further
information is provided, citing the plan’s lack
of detail on traffic and impact studies. Meanwhile,
the ball team is hinting that it might pull out of Richmond
if its plans for a new stadium aren’t endorsed.
Even staunch backers are unsure if Wilder will reciprocate
the business community’s rousing support. Keogh,
who served as Virginia’s economic development
director under Wilder, wonders if his old boss has a
“fire in his belly” to make economic development
a top priority for the city. “He didn’t
play those cards to the fullest as governor,”
says Keogh.
Starting and finishing
The change to a strong mayor is welcomed by Virginia
Commonwealth University President Eugene Trani. Trani
came to Richmond 15 years ago to head up VCU after serving
as vice president for academic affairs at the University
of Wisconsin in Madison and before that as assistant
vice president for academic affairs at the University
of Nebraska in Lincoln — capital cities both governed
by strong mayors. “One of the things strong mayors
are better able to do is represent the interests of
the city to state governments,” says Trani. “That’s
a very important role that I see Mayor Wilder performing”
in Richmond, especially since he dealt directly with
legislators as governor.
Wilder’s election ripples beyond Virginia as
well. He brings certain intangibles to bear, including
name recognition and friends in high places (comedian
Bill Cosby has pledged $1 million to Wilder’s
slavery museum project in Fredericksburg). Robert C.
Bobb, who served as Richmond’s city manager for
11 years before leaving in 1997, calls Wilder’s
election a boon for all cities. “With mayors in
other cities, it’s like turning a flashlight on
in the community. With Mayor Wilder, it’s like
a turning on a floodlight,” says Bobb, now city
administrator in Washington, D.C.
Yet, Wilder has a history of not always finishing what
he starts. He flirted briefly with seeking the Democrat
presidential nomination in 1992. Then, in 1994, Wilder
ran for the U.S. Senate as an independent before quitting
the race. The mercurial Wilder raised eyebrows again
in 1998 by accepting — then backing out —
as president of his alma mater, Virginia Union University,
after the school’s board objected to Wilder’s
plans to seek the resignations of about a dozen administrators.
Wilder is inured to such speculation. He says that
he was “within three days of taking the job”
at Virginia Union but declined because the school’s
board of directors “did not want me to have my
own team.” The only venture he admits to not finishing
was his presidential run, joking that “the loudest
ovation I ever got was when I announced [in the General
Assembly] that I would not be pursuing the presidency.”
Wilder’s re-emergence also is rekindling some
old animus. If his term as mayor mirrors his governorship,
Richmond’s black community shouldn’t expect
special consideration from Wilder. So says W. Avon Drake,
an associate professor of political science at Virginia
Commonwealth University and a frequent Wilder critic.
“He has no legacy of having done anything significant
to help the African-American community. I know he likes
to say he represents everybody, but that’s an
easy way out.”
Even greater powers are coming Wilder’s way,
too. The Virginia General Assembly passed a series of
charter changes in January. Included is a line-item
veto for specific items in a city budget — which
a council majority can still override — and broader
say-so by city council over the Richmond School Board’s
budget. Detractors say Wilder’s request for more
muscle confirms what they suspected all along: that
the strong-mayor referendum was a pretext for a naked
power grab. “The system hadn’t even had
a chance to work before he pushed the General Assembly
to make more changes immediately,” says former
Mayor Rudolph McCollum, who opposed the strong-mayor
proposal but later ran against Wilder, finishing second
in the four-way race. “I think we need to think
about the impact of this new form of government on [other
cities] in the commonwealth.” Wilder dismisses
such talk as sour grapes, claiming the expanded authority
is necessary to rein in wasteful spending. “Politics
is money. If I’m going to be held accountable
for what the government does, and have nothing to say
[about spending] priorities, then it’s an empty
job,” Wilder says.
Notwithstanding his pre-referendum screed that Richmond
government was a “cesspool of corruption and inefficiency,”
Wilder carries his own set of political baggage. The
Internal Revenue Service hounded Wilder for years regarding
a $1 million inaugural committee fund surplus, which
it claimed he owed taxes on. He reportedly settled with
the IRS several years ago, but recently new questions
have surfaced about a lack of reporting to the state
Board of Elections on money left over from Wilder’s
campaign for governor — a filing Wilder has said
was the responsibility of his son, who served as the
campaign’s treasurer.
Four years may not be enough time for Wilder to enact
all his reforms. The revised city charter allows a second
term, although Wilder would be 78 then. Depending on
the success — or lack of it — during his
first term, Wilder may elect to pack it in and return
to his riverfront estate in Charles City County. Few
things are ironclad in the protean world of Doug Wilder.
This much, however, seems certain. For at least a while,
Virginians get to witness a legend mount the stage for
possibly his final performance. Sit back and relax.
If nothing else, Wilder is bound to be entertaining.
