SouthsideCentral has listened and talked to all of the candidates in the 2012 Danville City Council race and now it’s time for our endorsements.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
To start the endorsements off, I want to be clear that all seven people running for the race are qualified for the office and would make good councilmen is elected. Unfortunately, I have only five votes to cast for seven people so let’s get it started.<\/p>\n
David Luther<\/strong>: It’s hard to ask for anything more out of a city councilman than what Luther brings to the position. He’s highly prepared on everything that comes in front of council and shows that preparation whenever he speaks. Luther is strongly conservative when it comes to spending taxpayers’ money in the city budget and has no problem “speaking the painful truth” without caring who he might offend. In its true form, the city is a business and Luther knows how to run a business. Luther was getting ready to retire off of city council but decided to run at the last minute, and Danville needs to take advantage of that change of mind and get four more years of the dedication, responsibility and fiscal conservatism that he will bring back to the city council. <\/p>\n SouthsideCentral gives our highest endorsement to David Luther and strongly urges you to vote for him.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Fred Shanks<\/strong>: Shanks is a local business owner who has first-hand knowledge of the recent tough economic times. Shanks has brought that expertise to council for his first term and SouthsideCentral feels that he is very much deserving of another term. Having served for 12 years on the planning commission, Shanks also has a great knowledge of how local government works. Shanks is one of the toughest councilman when it comes to being the “watchdog of the treasury” and has no problem vocalizing his opinions, even when nobody seems to want to listen to him. Shanks also gets the concept of running the city like a business as well. Shanks has highly impressed SouthsideCentral during his first term and is highly deserving of a second term. <\/p>\n SouthsideCentral gives our highest endorsement to Fred Shanks and strongly urges you to vote for him.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Lee Vogler<\/strong>: There’s a short list of young people that have the desire and knowledge to run for local office. Lee Vogler fits into that ultra-minority classification by being a local resident who left Danville to go to college and actually came back to live in the city. There’s no doubting Vogler’s political aspirations once you meet him and when that happens, you’ll be amazed at the man’s dedication, beliefs and charisma. Although Vogler’s tendency to promote himself and his beliefs have alienated some people, SouthsideCentral is a firm believer of “If you don’t believe in yourself, how can anybody else believe in you?” We know that Vogler has zero real-life elected office experience but that doesn’t factor into our belief that he will make an excellent councilman. I believe that Vogler will get a rude awakening when he realizes that he will only be 11% of the council makeup, but I believe that will only firm his resolve to work on Danville’s problems. Vogler is a rare chance for Danville to inject some new thoughts and ideas into city government and I believe that voters should make that happen. <\/p>\n SouthsideCentral strongly endorses Lee Vogler and strongly encourages you to vote for him.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Larry Campbell<\/strong>: It’s hard to believe that a man that’s as quiet as Larry Campbell can be such a passionate and powerful fighter for Danville, but that’s what you get with him. Campbell brings the “care and compassion” to the city’s issues while also maintaining the reality check of budgetary constraints. Campbell is also one of the rare candidates that have support from all sector of the community and is upwardly mobile. Campbell has had chances to progress further in politics but he seems quite content to stay where he is and given his track record, Danville has reaped the rewards from his leadership. Campbell is also well-deserving of reelection. <\/p>\n SouthsideCentral strongly endorses Larry Campbell and strongly encourages you to vote for him.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Buddy Rawley<\/strong>: Rawley brings a mix of business and educational experience to the city council, and has a strong background in the finance department. Rawley is relatively quiet during the council meetings but don’t let that fool you into believing that he’s only there for the ride. Rawley carries a strong desire to improve Danville and it shows whenever he speaks. Rawley has a high degree of support from the “important people” and that has been demonstrated in his fundraising for this election cycle. Rawley has also shown plenty of reasons why he deserves another term on council and I believe that voters should make that possible.<\/p>\n SouthsideCentral endorses Buddy Rawley and encourages you to vote for him.<\/strong><\/em> <\/p>\n Now let’s look at the two candidates who didn’t get our endorsements.<\/p>\n Sherman Saunders<\/strong>: Saunders is a terrific man who has done well on his council tenure and his smiling face makes him Danville’s Ambassador. Saunders is always ultra-positive on all things Danville and refuses to admit that Danville has problems. Unfortunately, Danville does have problems and I haven’t been pleased with Saunders’ inertia to actively confront the serious issues. I made a speech in front of the council 3 weeks ago and concluded by telling Saunders that he indeed was listening, but nothing had been accomplished. As I’ve said before, Adam Tomer was totally justified in calling Saunders out during last year’s budget vote for Saunders’ last-minute flip-flop “No” vote after agreeing with the group in the multiple work sessions. Although I have a high degree of respect for Saunders, I won’t be voting for him this year. However, if he does get reelected to office, Danville will have a great councilman returning to office.<\/p>\n Thomas Motley<\/strong>: I really want to bottle up Motley’s passion and desire for Danville and sell it. Motley is a strong man who has overcome obstacles in his past to become a charismatic social and spiritual leader. I also really would like to vote for Motley in this year’s election but I can’t because of the other candidates that are running. If Motley is elected to council, he will be the loudest yet quietest man on the board. That’s what makes Motley who he is. This isn’t the election for Motley, but I hope he continues to push for the betterment of the city. <\/p>\n So there you have it, folks. I want to hear who you are supporting in this election and if you agree or disagree with my endorsements. You know the drill…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SouthsideCentral has listened and talked to all of the candidates in the 2012 Danville City Council race and now it’s time for our endorsements.<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,60,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danville","category-endorsements","category-politicscentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-1VJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8565,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/04\/30\/endorsements-danville-city-council-race-2014\/","url_meta":{"origin":7423,"position":0},"title":"Endorsements: Danville City Council Race (2014)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"SouthsideCentral has listened and talked to all of the candidates running in the 2014 Danville City Council race and it's now time for our endorsements. Incumbents Gary Miller, Alonzo Jones and John Gilstrap are running along with challengers James Buckner, Dawn Witter, Joyce Glaise and Thomas Motley. There are four\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":94378,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2020\/05\/16\/endorsements-2020-danville-city-council-election\/","url_meta":{"origin":7423,"position":1},"title":"Endorsements: 2020 Danville City Council Election","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"May 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"We're wrapping up two weeks of election overtime, so it's time to get the SouthsideCentral endorsements out for the Danville City Council election. Nine candidates, five seats and all five incumbents running for another term. Let's make these endorsements happen. We're going a little off the board with these endorsements.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/sclogo200.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8569,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/04\/30\/endorsements-danville-school-board-race-2014\/","url_meta":{"origin":7423,"position":2},"title":"Endorsements: Danville School Board Race (2014)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 30, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"SouthsideCentral is ready to make our endorsements for the Danville School Board race. In this year's school board election, we have three open seats and five candidates. Incumbents Philip Campbell and George Wilson are facing challengers Henry Walker, Sharon Dones and Steven Gould. Let's get the endorsements started. Philip Campbell:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7409,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2012\/03\/19\/danville-city-council-race-2012-update-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":7423,"position":3},"title":"Danville City Council Race (2012) – Update #1","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"March 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 So now we know who's running for Danville City Council. Let's take a look at the field and see what's out there. Five spots are open and all five incumbents have filed for reelection (told you that you would, David Luther), and two challengers make it a seven person\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":88359,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2018\/04\/27\/2018-danville-city-council-endorsements\/","url_meta":{"origin":7423,"position":4},"title":"2018 Danville City Council Endorsements","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"It's that time of year again. Here's my SouthsideCentral endorsements for the Danville City Council election on May 1st We've got five candidates for four available seats. John Gilstrap isn't running for reelection but James Buckner, Alonzo Jones and Gary Miller are. Sheila Baynes is making her second run for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Endorsements"","block_context":{"text":"Endorsements","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/politicscentral\/endorsements\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":88393,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2018\/04\/28\/2018-danville-school-board-endorsements\/","url_meta":{"origin":7423,"position":5},"title":"2018 Danville School Board Endorsements","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"April 28, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Seven candidates. Three open seats. This one is tough to choose from Time's running out with the election coming up on Tuesday, so let's get to the rundown. We'll do this based on the endorsement level. Let's start at the top (in no particular order). Crystal Cobbs: Cobbs is making\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Endorsements"","block_context":{"text":"Endorsements","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/politicscentral\/endorsements\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7423"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8564,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7423\/revisions\/8564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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