"Independent Stratton Salidis received 614 votes in the May 8 City Council election, placing fourth out of four candidates.

The 32-year-old government teacher (he's on the faculty of the Living Education Center) became an activist at University of North Carolina/Greensboro, where he co-chaired the Students for Envirormiental Action. His passion for sensible development didn't fully ignite, however, until he moved to Charlottesville almost four years ago. Now he promotes, amongst other things, pedestrian alternatives to road development.

Staff Writer Stephen Barling and Salidis recently discussed voter apathy, the role of the media and the election. An edited transcript of that interview follows.

Stephen Barling: Were you surprised to get more than 600 votes in the election?

Stratton Salidis: It wasn't really a surprise. It was pretty much what I expected. I really wasn't in a place in my life to run a real campaign. I spent $10 and received about onefourth as many votes as the person who won the most votes. And he spent about $10,000. So my vote-to-dollar ratio was excellent. I think if I'd actually run a real campaign, I would have maybe won.

To what do you attribute your success?

I think people like the message, particularly pedestrian-oriented development. I think people recognize that we've got a lot to lose here. A more down-to-earth way of saying that is: Building for people instead of for cars. I think that's a popular message.

What do you think about independent candidacy?

I think it's always going to be more difficult in some ways, because you don't have that party mechanism behind you. But, this year, Alexandria Searls didn't have the party mechanism behind her running as a Democrat. And I think that schism in the Democratic party will make it even easier next time, because the leadership of the Democratic party is more conservative than the body, from what I can tell.

But it depends, too. When Maurice Cox and Kevin Lynch ran, Democrats for Change was a strong factor because they went out before the election and were very active. They went to different activist groups and community groups and got a lot of buy-in from the community. And that process didn't happen this time, not nearly to the extent that it did last time.

So the question is: Early on, before the campaign even starts, will Democrats for Change get a bunch of people involved in the Democratic party? And, if not, I think that there's room for a third, progressive element to come into play.

How did you affect the race?

I've been conducting an informal survey. Whenever someone says, 'I voted for you,' my question is 'Who else did you vote for?' because I hate the idea that I might have cost Alex any votes. But so far the survey has been such that I've given more votes than I've taken away. I think I probably cost her some. But I think I earned her more than I cost, because some people just went out to vote for me and then thought, 'Oh: Woman, not the incumbent. '

And I would personally tell people to vote for Alex, too. The reason I didn't go more out with that is I didn't want to make relations between her and the more conservative Democrats more difficult. They couldn't have done any less for her, really. So I might as well have taken that stance.

Will you run again?

I'd say there's a pretty good likelihood of that. I consider myself to be, in a sense, running now. And maybe that will come into fruition in a couple years or in eight years. Maybe not.

But yeah, I'm running now. I want to continue building relationships with people and coming up with a more holistic platform for next time.

How will you advance your transportation and land-use agenda now that there is another pro-Meadowcreek Parkway member of the council?

I'm working with a group called Alternatives to Paving. We have a public display that we can bring to the Downtown Mall and the City Market. It has the roads they want built and alternatives to those roads. We will have petitions and letter-writing materials there so people can sign letters. Just about everybody knows that building for people instead of for cars is the way to go in terms of ecological health and social justice. The reason that it's not happening is they just don't have the vision or political will to bring it about. Or just because they are very interested in a narrow spectrum of society, namely, people with more money.

You and others have criticized the press coverage of this election. What kind'of coverage do you think a City Council race should get?

I think, at least, there should be some kind of voter guide in all the papers. Really, the race is great, but it's actually the voting that matters. and it got scarcely any attention at all. So I think the papers should be reporting that. What else do they have to report, fashion issues?

That should be the biggest thing they do: dealing with the public sphere. And the biggest part of the public sphere is our joint control over what our governing bodies do. The papers let us down in this election. All of them.

As an educator, what do you think the role of schools should be in promoting participation in the democratic process?

I'd like to see a shift from coercive education to self-directed education. What better way to prepare people for making choices than giving them choices in their own life and educational path? Right now we tell kids what they should learn and how they should learn it until they're 18.

I think young people should be allowed to take responsibility for their education as they're ready. We should be looking to facilitate that individual process toward self-betterment and service.

It seems like the educational system inadvertently breeds a certain apathy toward the political process.

I would say that is inherent in the original design, and it actually was intentional.

If you look back and see where compulsory education was started in the West, it was in Austria and Prussia and other early Germanic states. After Napoleon kicked their ass, they got together and said 'How can we bring together a united Germany and not let this happen again?' One of their solutions was compulsory education.

If you read some of these letters they sent to each other, they were very explicit in designing the system to give people enough knowledge to function as cogs in the machine, but not so much as to subvert the order that the elites had established." (Stephen Barling, C-Ville Weekly, May 21, 2002)