Bruce Davis vs Jay Wagner vs Damorius Fuller Ali (write-in)
This election really changed on a whim, didn't it? It looked like Jim Davis would be taking on Wagner, but the voters didn't want him after all. Now, it's a showdown of two lines of thinking: Build the stadium now/go it alone without the county commissioners vs build it smart/cooperate with the commissioners so they can get on board.
Bruce Davis is clearly in the latter camp as a former county commissioner, and it's the right call. If the former camp attempt to rush the stadium through, the whole project risks being scuttled amid a conservative wave in 2019.
Wagner first took a crack at revitalization in late 2009 when he was a part of the Planning Commission's unsuccessful efforts to create a Market District, which would have set aside parts of downtown as places for entertainment, but some showrooms were upset to the point of threatening to pull out of the Furniture Market. Instead, Wagner had to settle for rezoning a two-mile stretch of North Main Street as Uptowne.
The third candidate listed, Fuller Ali, is motivated by the city's rash of homicides and his main focus before the write-in campaign was to incorporate a nonprofit to stem the violence. Had he been persuaded before the filing deadline, Fuller Ali would have likely been in the precarious position of splitting the black vote and/or been the victim of strategic voting pattern by black leaders wanting to avoid a Jim Davis-Wagner second round matchup. Regardless, Fuller Ali has a bright future if he should get his organization up and running.
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