Wilder had hits, misses as Richmond mayor

Four years ago, Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder breezed into City Hall with great fanfare and broad support.

He promised to shake up city government and did just that. But the jolts came at a substantial price.

Now, Wilder -- Virginia's first and only black governor -- is closing another chapter in his storied political career.

Depending on who's talking, his legacy is one of petty squabbles or accountability, bullying or decisiveness, unmet promise or accomplishment. Under Wilder, Richmond saw crime fall to historic lows, and the departure of the Richmond Braves.

Wilder spent his term trying to deliver his vision for an office he helped create -- a strong mayor under a new form of government. He'll step aside Wednesday, with questions remaining over how far those powers extend.

"We've got to start determining who runs the city, bottom line," Wilder said this month on a tour of development projects initiated under his administration.

"A lot of what we see didn't come easy. You can figure out the rest," Wilder added, as he burst into laughter and walked away from a reporter.

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Wilder, 77, declined to seek a second term in last month's election, and he is leaving City Hall in unWilder-like fashion, nixing any kind of send-off and declining repeated requests for an in-depth interview. Wilder has kept a low profile locally for months, even as he has freely made himself available to the national media to discuss the presidential race and other issues.

Wilder was an early supporter of President-elect Barack Obama, whose story as the first black president parallels Wilder's as governor.

The mayor's muted exit should not be viewed as him slipping out the back door, said Michael Byrne, a Shockoe Slip restaurateur and a longtime friend.

"It's a confidence that, 'I did a lot. I'm not going to sit here and . . . keep pounding my own story,'" Byrne said. Mayor-elect Dwight Clinton Jones "is going to find out when he gets in, and Richmonders are going to know."

Some observers say the friction of the past four years was inevitable, as Wilder and the City Council were forced to sort out new roles while also attempting to tackle the city's persistent problems with crime, poverty and schools, and crumbling roads, sewers and other facilities.

But others say Wilder was unnecessarily combative, and they wonder what the city could have accomplished given his prestige and national stature if the tone had been different.

"So much opportunity, so little gain," said City Councilman Bruce W. Tyler, who has been a critic and a target of the mayor.

Richard Cullen, a lawyer and former Virginia attorney general who represented Wilder in clashes with the council, contends that no one could have done a better job shaping the role and expectations of the mayor.

"It is a grand experiment," he said. "The term 'strong mayor' means different things to different people. I don't think the drafters of the legislation realized there would be as many unanswered questions about how strong the mayor should be or would be."

"Unfortunately," he added, "the courts are going to have to decide that issue, but it's an important issue."

Former Commonwealth's Attorney David Hicks agreed that it was good that Wilder was the first elected mayor, but he added a caveat.

"We have a taste of what 'too far' is," said Hicks, who is leading Jones' mayoral transition team and clashed with Wilder as recently as last week over his role in a lawsuit against the city. "Doug was a bit too imperial."

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Some who supported Wilder, namely Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, former mayoral adviser Paul Goldman and community activist Melvin Law, declined requests to assess Wilder's performance in City Hall.

Wilder also declined but noted that critics suggested he had done little as governor when his term ended in 1994. "They don't say that now," he said, pointing out that the feeble economy is forcing the state to dip into the rainy-day reserve fund of which Wilder was an early advocate.

In assessing his performance, Wilder said, residents are the only ones who matter, and he noted that a recent city survey indicated that 81 percent like the direction Richmond is headed.

"That's pretty high cotton," he said.

The survey also found that 44 percent of respondents were satisfied with how their tax dollars are spent.

Wilder didn't mention a separate poll in which 61 percent of voters rated his performance in City Hall as fair or poor. Thirty-five percent gave a grade of excellent or good, while 4 percent weren't sure. The poll was conducted for the Richmond Times-Dispatch this fall during a mayoral race that was largely critical of Wilder and his methods.

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The mayor's skirmishes with the City Council and others included scrapes over who has the final say over the city budget and hiring decisions. However, none was more dramatic than an after-hours attempt to evict the school administration from City Hall on Sept. 21, 2007.

Wilder had demanded that the school administration vacate the top floors of City Hall and move into leased space at 3600 W. Broad St. School officials, however, pointed to a council-approved lease allowing them to stay.

The episode cost taxpayers nearly $1 million, according to a council investigation, and the move was ultimately blocked by Richmond Circuit Judge Margaret P. Spencer.

The incident spawned one of two court rulings by Spencer reining in the mayor's powers. Although Wilder will no longer be in office, appeals filed with the Virginia Supreme Court are scheduled for arguments in the spring.

The cases could help determine whether the mayor has the broad authority sought by Wilder or whether it is significantly checked by the council.

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Wilder's road to City Hall began in 2002, when the Democrat -- eight years after his gubernatorial term ended -- joined with Republican Thomas J. Bliley Jr., a former U.S. representative and Richmond mayor, to push for a change in the city's form of government.

Since 1948, Richmond had been led by a City Council, which elected a largely ceremonial mayor from among its members and hired a city manager to run the city's daily operations.

Wilder and Bliley called for a mayor who would be elected citywide to lead the government, on the notion that person would be accountable to voters and provide a singular vision for the city.

In the run-up to a referendum on the change, Wilder seized on recent scandals in the city government, calling it a "cesspool of corruption and inefficiency." Voters overwhelmingly approved the change.

Wilder had campaigned for the new form of government, saying he wasn't promoting himself for the office. But five months before the election, he reversed himself and announced that he would run.

He moved from his James River estate in Charles City County to Richmond and was elected in a landslide, with nearly 80 percent of the vote against three opponents.

Wilder carried that support into office, making speeches that elevated the office and tapping local expertise for committees that examined a variety of issues, said John V. Moeser, an urban-studies professor who closely follows city politics.

Wilder "was a chance to move this whole region forward because of this whole new leadership," Moeser said.

But the tone in City Hall changed, he added, when Wilder began turning on people who had supported him.

The clashes started with business leaders who were struggling to raise private money for a downtown arts center, a city-supported project that was later scaled back and reworked at Wilder's insistence. It is now one of the few major projects under way in the City of the Future initiative that Wilder announced three years ago to invest $305 million in schools, parks and other public facilities.

Moeser said Wilder initially seemed to be signaling that his administration would not allow business as usual, but the conflicts continued and ultimately brought turnover and low morale to City Hall. In addition, Wilder's administration seemed increasingly cut off from the council, Moeser said.

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Kim Neal, senior policy adviser to Wilder and a liaison to the council, disputes the characterization of a secretive administration. She said it simply took time for the two sides of city government to get a feel for their roles and establish a protocol for communication. She said Wilder allowed employees to do their jobs but also made it clear they would be held accountable.

"Folks had really high expectations, but you have to put it in perspective," she said of Wilder's four years. "You can't turn several years of problems around in four years."

She credited the administration with reducing crime and the number of vacant buildings, and with attracting economic development and boosting minority participation in city contracts.

"If people can't feel and touch it, it doesn't feel as real as it is," she said.

But even the dramatic reductions in crime weren't without a stain. One of Wilder's initial and most popular hires was Police Chief Rodney Monroe, whose focus on sector policing is credited with lowering crime from levels that once brought national scorn.

But this summer, soon after Monroe resigned to become police chief for Charlotte/Mecklenburg County, N.C., a scandal erupted over the degree that Virginia Commonwealth University awarded him even though he had not met all of the academic requirements.

Wilder, who has been a part-time professor at VCU and will return to full-time teaching next month, has denied pressuring university officials to approve the degree.

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Moeser sees parallels between Wilder's terms as mayor and governor, in part because he seemed unable to resist petty squabbles. As governor, Wilder once held up the issuing of prized, low-numbered license plates to aides and allies of predecessor and fellow Democrat Gerald L. Baliles.

Ultimately, "it became much more about Doug Wilder than about Richmond," Moeser said of Wilder's term as mayor. "It became much more about 'me' than 'we.' It's inexplicable to me."

Richmonders who watched Wilder as governor should have known what they were getting, said Larry J. Sabato, a political analyst at the University of Virginia.

"Wilder has always been a change agent, with the pluses and minuses associated with that term. He never has been a go-along-to-get-along [politician]," Sabato said.

Though Wilder's popularity has suffered, history will remember him only for changing the city's form of government and serving as its first elected mayor, Sabato said.

Bliley takes a similar, long-term view. "If you put it to the people of Richmond today, they like the idea of having a directly elected mayor."

Working with Wilder, the City Council recently established a nine-member commission to review and recommend changes to the city charter. Proposals are expected to be submitted to the 2010 General Assembly.

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School Board Chairman George P. Braxton II said Richmond is clearly better off than it was when Wilder came into office, but Braxton credits residents for pushing the progress. "It really comes down to what the citizens have demanded."

Braxton sees the City Council and the School Board as working together better than ever before -- in part out of necessity. He argues that more could have been accomplished with cooperation but concedes a counter argument also can be made "that out of the fire the metal is hardened."

Beverley W. "Booty" Armstrong, vice chairman of CCA Industries and a corporate power broker, credited Wilder with cutting crime and financial mismanagement but said too much time was wasted on disputes.

"It's a darn shame, because it was an opportunity missed," he said.

Byrne, the Wilder friend and local restaurateur, noted that Wilder "said he was going to hit the ground running, and he said he was going to make changes. I don't think he's ever veered from that."

Now, asks Byrne, "are we running back to another place? What is the president of council's role? Is it to find a super-majority to overrule the mayor? That's what it seems like."

Harry E. Black, who served as Wilder's deputy chief administrative officer and chief financial officer until resigning last month, said the administration and the council accomplished a lot despite their political tensions. He regards them as natural byproducts of the change in the government.

"The legacy will be accountability. . . . The question will always be asked, 'Are we willing to pay the price for the change we desire?'" Contact Will Jones at (804) 649-6911 or wjones@timesdispatch.com.