George:

I was at the first forum, when the question was asked at the first forum as to whether the candidates supported the concept of unions for UVA employees. Although I agree with John McCutcheon on almost all that he wrote on the topic earlier, my immediate response on hearing the question was that I hoped that the candidates would refrain from answering. Here's why.

When I was on the Planning Commission in the 1980's, we talked a lot about City-University cooperation. I served on a number of committees that addressed City-University issues. It became quite clear to me that the University participated in those joint efforts mainly because they would look bad if they didn't. Whether the issue was housing more students, or parking, or development plans, the University never really negotiated with us; they told us what they were going to do, and what they were not going to do. Sometimes we were able to soften the edges of a particular action that they were going to take anyway, but I am not aware of anything that they did that they had not already concluded was in their best interests simply because the City government asked them to do it.

This leads me to my real point -- the University knows full well that we can't make them do much of anything. There are only going to be a few times in any Councilor's 4-year term when the University is going to be willing to listen to and work with the City. That being the case, let's be very careful about picking our spots. Let's not try to bully them on things that they know we have no power over. A couple of candidates talked about using the "bully pulpit" afforded by being on Council; on this issue, I think the better metaphor is that of a gadfly. While there is a good role to be served by having gadflies, it is not the best role for City Council to take.

As a general matter, I dislike asking Council to take positions on issues that will never come before them. This is one such issue.

Lloyd Snook (electronic mail, February 8, 2002)