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Norfolk voters will have six candidates to choose from during a special election in November for the Superward 7 seat on Norfolk’s City Council, ranging from an anti-establishment firebrand to the job’s temporary incumbent.
All six have been verified by Norfolk’s voter registrar and will appear on the November ballot next to the governor and attorney general.
The seat, which represents much of Norfolk’s east and south sides as well as neighborhoods like Lambert’s Point and Park Place, is up for grabs now after Angelia Williams Graves was elected to the 90th District House of Delegates seat in a special election in January.
Graves first took the Superward 7 seat in a special election in 2010, beating out three other candidates. She held a firm grip on the seat in three subsequent elections, including in May 2020 when she ran unopposed.
After Graves’ victory in the House race, Norfolk’s City Council appointed 31-year-old financial advisor Danica Royster to the Superward 7 seat until an election could be held.
Originally set for the city’s standard local elections in May of 2022, Norfolk pushed the special election up when the General Assembly forced local elections to move to November.
In the few months she’s been on council and overseeing the city’s St. Paul’s Redevelopment Advisory Board, Royster has pushed the city for more answers on the neighborhood’s overhaul and criticized a revised bus route plan that she felt didn’t adequately address the needs of poor and Black residents. She announced in April she’d run to keep the seat, based on encouragement from constituents.
Joining Royster on the ballot in November will be five other candidates all looking to make their mark on Norfolk’s city council and fill the seat for the remainder of what will ultimately be a four-and-a-half year term.
Michael Muhammad is perhaps the most well-known of the roster. A long-time activist and political consultant, the 44-year-old has both helped get current members of council elected and locked horns with them over issues both public and personal.
A lifelong Norfolk resident, Muhammad ran unsuccessfully for the mayor’s seat in 2014. He said after he agreed to sit out later mayoral races, establishment figures turned their backs on him, breaking promises to appoint him to boards and commissions and bring him more generally into public discussions and work on community violence.
“When I win, they’ll have to deal with the conversation we bring to the table that represents the public,” Muhammad said last week.
Jackie Glass is another vocal activist. She was a leading force in the citizen fight against the Pamunkey Indian Tribe’s casino deal with the city, first out in front on a petition effort to reverse City Council’s decision to ink the deal with the tribe and then later advocating against the voter referendum that ultimately passed last November.
That fight is, in part, what led her to want to run.
“There’s a lack of citizen input (in local government),” Glass said. “Bottom line, it is about voices and invitations and being a part of the process, but it is also representation and leadership.”
The 37-year-old Navy veteran and small-business owner narrowly lost election to Norfolk’s School Board in 2018. Carlos Clanton, who now represents Ward 3 on the board, beat her out by just 34 votes.
Fred McRae, a 48-year-old contractor and barbershop owner, said he’s getting into this fight with no political experience. He was born and raised in Diggs Park, one of Norfolk’s public housing communities, and has coached sports in that area for years.
“There are certain issues there I’ve been trying to talk to my representatives about … and they wouldn’t listen to me. This is a way for me to represent my people is to run for office,” McRae said.
Like McRae, Jason Inge is also running for office for the first time.
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The 33-year-old, who works as the transportation mobility manager for Senior Services of Southeastern Virginia, has served on state and local boards and commissions. He’s also the president of the Urban League of Hampton Roads Young Professionals.
“The transparency and accountability of Norfolk’s city government is lacking,” Inge said. “It’s time for progressive leadership. It’s time for progressive millennial leadership, to be exact.”
Phillip Hawkins Jr. is a Norfolk Public Schools teacher and the president-elect of the Education Association of Norfolk.
The 51-year-old ran for the Superward 7 job in 2010, when Graves first took control of the seat. He finished second in that field of four.
He said the coronavirus pandemic — and specifically, how it laid bare startling inequities that existed in the city — prompted him to run again.
“It basically took the covers off things we need to focus on with leadership at the local level,” Hawkins said.
Ryan Murphy, 757-739-8582, ryan.murphy@pilotonline.com