District 5 race visible in yard signs

There are no scientific polls conducted in Wilson City Council elections, but the prevalence of yard signs might give some indication of how the election is going. In District 5, challenger Sam Lanier seems to have already claimed victory in the number of yard signs. His bright red signs are as common as pine cones in the Cavalier neighborhood where he lives. Lanier got off to an early start and has his signs in front of every house in some blocks.

Incumbent Donald Evans has recently begun planting his own yard signs, also bright red, but his signs are, thus far, not as numerous as Lanier's, from what I've seen. This weekend I passed one house that had both a Lanier and an Evans sign.

Evans last week sent a mailing to District 5 voters touting his experience and the many positive developments in the city during his two terms on council: Police are nationally accredited, the Fire Department's rating has been updated (saving property owners on fire insurance), the unique All-Children's Playground has been installed at Gillette Park; new businesses are moving downtown; and a new comprehensive plan is being implemented. He addresses the most-frequent complaint against the city, its high electric rates.

Evans offers a brief and not entirely clear explanation of how Wilson and 31 other eastern N.C. municipalities got into this situation. He asserts that ElectriCities was formed by the legislature in the 1960s, but, as the city's own explanation shows, that's not quite true. The legislature passed a bill in 1965 that left municipal electric systems out of the picture; municipalities formed ElectriCities to lobby against that bill. The ElectriCities we know today, and the municipal power agencies that it administers, are the result of a 1975 state constitutional amendment (approved by voters) that allowed cities to invest in privately owned utilities. At that time, rising construction and financing costs painted a bleak picture for electricity customers, and a coalition of municipalities that would provide partial financing for new nuclear power plants looked like the best solution. What looked like a win-win for everyone turned out to be a loser for municipal electricity customers. I strongly recommend the city's concise history of this whole matter here.

The most interesting angle on Evans' mailing, however, is the mailing permit. The postage paid mark on the envelope shows the mailing permit (No. 553) was purchased in Houston, Texas. That would indicate that Evans used a mass-mailing outfit in Texas to handle this job (the envelope's return address is Evans' home address).

Another interesting angle in this nonpartisan election is the partisan leanings of these two candidates. When Evans was a county commissioner, he was elected on the Republican ticket. Lanier last year posted McCain and McCrory yard signs at his home. The two most active candidates in District 5 are nominal Republicans. Two other candidates in the District 5 race — Nadia Minniti and Deanna Diamond — have taken a lower profile thus far.

In the end, this race might come down to a generational referendum. Lanier, 35, is a generation younger than Evans, 62. Youth vs. experience might sway more votes than the other issues or yard signs.