“It doesn’t look good,” said Rob Bell, frowning at news coming from a radio in Lord Hardwicke’s restaurant. Local Republicans gathered around the bar on Tuesday, May 2, hoping to celebrate a second term for Republican City Councilor Rob Schilling. Yet Bell noted that early results showed Schilling far behind in Venable and Walker—two precincts he won in 2002—and, with that, the GOP all but knew theirs would not be the victory party that night.
The final result of last week’s election was a resounding thumbs-down for Schilling, who lost in every one of the city’s eight voting precincts. The final total was 3,835 votes for Democrat Dave Norris, 3,637 for Democrat Julian Taliaferro and 2,389 for Schilling.
Tuesday’s election marks the end, for now, of Schilling’s improbable story.
Before he announced his candidacy in 2002, he and his wife Joan decided to leave California, and they picked Charlottesville on a whim. Asked then why he was running, he told a story about receiving a rude letter from the City regarding the condition of his house, which he had just bought from an elderly woman.
He certainly didn’t fit anyone’s Republican stereotype: a laid-back Left Coaster, a Christian rocker with a piggy bank big enough to buy at least nine local properties and, of course, the Ted Nugent hairdo that became his trademark. Schilling was also a charismatic campaigner, and he capitalized on a fractured Democratic party to win by fewer than 100 votes in 2002.
Schilling set the tone for his term on Council during his first budget session in 2003. After Council voted to lower the City’s real estate tax to $1.09 from $1.11 per $100 of assessed value, Schilling held a press conference to announce that the tax rate was still too high. “As a Council, we could have worked harder for the people in this community,” he said.
“From Belmont to Greenbrier, from 10th and Page to Alumni Hall, I hear you loud and clear,” said Schilling. “Enough is enough.”
Councilor Kevin Lynch fired back: “If Rob spent as much time getting his ideas across to Council as he does getting in front of the camera, he might make some progress.”
Schilling’s ideas never soared quite as high as his rhetoric, yet he succeeded in ticking off his fellow Councilors, and many of his supporters appreciated that accomplishment alone.
However hard he worked (or not) at actual City business, Schilling made good on two important Republican agenda items.
When he entered office, Schilling’s sole campaign promise was to work for a school board that would be elected, rather than appointed by Council Democrats. When former City school superintendent Scottie Griffin, through general high-handedness, turned public sentiment against the board last year, Schilling took advantage. He got a referendum for an elected school board on last November’s ballot, and it passed by a wide margin. Last Tuesday marked Schilling’s personal defeat, but in his concession speech at Lord Hardwicke’s he celebrated the election of Juandiego Wade, Ned Michie and Leah Puryear as the first elected City School Board members in decades.
Perhaps more important for the Republican party, Schilling can rightly claim that the City’s real estate tax rate is 12 cents lower than it was when he took office. Over the course of four budgets—all of which Schilling voted against—the Democrats have lowered the property tax rate to $.99 from $1.12 per $100 of assessed value.
“I don’t think Council would have been as motivated to cut the tax rate without Schilling,” says former Republican candidate Jon Bright. “When I ran for Council six years ago, I proposed a 2-cent reduction, and the Democrats ran an ad stating that a 2-cent reduction would close the public schools.”
There was nothing so lofty as tax proposals on the table in this election. For Dem insiders, it was personal; for many local voters the choice was probably as simple as discerning a “D” from an “R.” Yet Democrats may not want to assume too much political capital. Maybe it was all talk, but Schilling’s criticisms obviously spoke to more than just Republicans.—John Borgmeyer
