The Shadow
COVINGTON Va. (VR) – With the Nov. 5 election day upon us, three candidates for Covington City Council held an event Saturday morning in a late push to allow the voting public a better understanding of the reasons they want to hold a seat on Covington’s City Council.
Coffee with the Candidates began at 8:30 a.m. at The Rail Restaurant and council hopefuls Lee Roe, candidate for the District Three seat; Susan Crowder, candidate for the District Five seat; and Susan Shifflett Wolfe, candidate for the District Four seat, shared coffee and pastries with the good residents of Covington. Every person was greeted with a warm welcome and hearty hello. What followed was several small groups all chatting with different candidates about many different issues that are important to the voters.
Roe, from hearing him speak with those in attendance, wants to be a part of a council that the people of Covington have faith in. He is not into smearing council members who came before him. He understands that being on the council means having to make some huge decisions and sometimes making those decisions before all the facts are known. He’s dealt with the government a lot and understands how it works. He is described by others as a very generous and humble man. It’s important to him that the people in office are there because they want to help the city so it in return can help all of those people who call it home.
Talking with Wolfe, you come to understand that she is a salt of the Earth, no-nonsense type of person. She believes in honesty no matter what the situation is and wants to see the City Council be more involved and inclusive of the community. She has been a hard worker throughout her life and wants to help create more recreation programs for our city’s youth. She wants to encourage kids to play sports but also wants to get the city involved in other types of youth endeavors like the arts and perhaps some educational programs. She wants to make sure that every child feels included and no child ever must feel excluded. A testament to Wolfe’s passion for becoming a council member can be found in the fact that before getting all the signatures she needed to be on the ballot she fell and fractured her shoulder. Instead of admitting defeat and resting she pushed forward and in extraordinarily little time while in a great deal of pain got the signatures she needed and did not miss a beat.
Susan Crowder comes off as one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. She moved around the restaurant constantly making sure that everyone there had been taken care of and that their coffee cups were still full. When you get her to stop and speak with you one thing evident from the start is that she has done her homework. She has extensive knowledge of issues the previous board dealt with and some things she may have done differently. She has spent the last two years completely immersing herself in Covington politics and she’s ready to serve her community. The biggest thing she wants if elected is to bring transparency to the City Council. She believes that too much is being kept from the people of Covington and she vows to change that.
The meet and greet ended up running a little later than was first anticipated, but everyone was okay with that, the candidate’s main concern was to make sure that every voter who wanted to ask them something or even shake their hand had the opportunity to do so. All three council hopefuls have big plans for the city.
