Elections bring change to Virginia county torn over Confederate statue

Elections bring change to Virginia county torn over Confederate statue

MATHEWS, Va. — “Marxist.” “Communist.” “Snake in the grass.”

Those epithets might work in, say, Congress. But folks in this conservative waterfront community got fed up with the rhetoric that has erupted at local board of supervisors meetings, especially whenever someone disagrees with efforts to let a Confederate heritage group take over permanent stewardship of the county’s Civil War statue. Or when meetings veer into topics such as the national economy or President Biden’s immigration policy.

So a group of local Republicans, Democrats and independents formed a political action committee over the summer and endorsed a slate of alternative candidates for county board elections. They pledged to stay civil and focus on real issues — no national parties, no national hot topics and stop talking about the statue.

On Nov. 7, to their own surprise, all three candidates won. They beat three candidates endorsed by the local GOP committee in a county that reliably votes 70 percent Republican.

“It was startling, really. I don’t think many people felt that we would have election results like that,” said Tom Bowen III, who is retiring as the county’s commonwealth’s attorney and won one of the three board of supervisors seats.

The outcome could spell the end of the novel gambit for preserving the courthouse Civil War monument that has divided the county for the past two years — or maybe not, depending on whether the outgoing board of supervisors decides to take a last-minute vote before leaving office.

Statue debate provokes fiery defense of Confederacy in Virginia’s Mathews County

But the message of change held true up and down the ballot. A school board candidate endorsed by the new Mathews Citizens for the Common Good won a seat over a Republican-endorsed candidate (two other GOP-endorsed candidates won). And independent candidates won for sheriff and commonwealth’s attorney, too, over establishment favorites.

In other parts of the state, Virginia’s elections trended blue this year. Democrats won a majority in the House of Delegates, protected a majority in the state Senate, and flipped control of county boards in several suburban areas such as Henrico and Chesterfield counties outside Richmond. That’s not what happened in Mathews.

“It’s really about civility,” said Ron Lambert, 77, a lifelong Republican and retired Mathews businessman who served as vice chairman of the Common Good group. Too much of county politics had been eaten up by questions of party loyalty, he said, and the kind of harsh trash-talking that has infected national social media.

“The only word I can use is ‘ugly,’” Lambert said. “Where before we had a lot of town pride, [local government] became all about political parties, and that’s just not Mathews.”

The idea of a unified, nonpartisan approach took root last year during the controversy over the Confederate statue that stands outside the county’s 1830s courthouse.

Several members of the board of supervisors, encouraged by an especially active chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, decided that a nonbinding vote of support for the statue that 80 percent of local residents had favored in 2021 was no protection against some future effort to take it down, as happened in recent years in other communities around Virginia.

Which Confederate statues are gone in the DMV — and which remain?

They came up with a proposal to deed the small circle of county property under the statue to a Confederate heritage group, which would then protect the monument, in place, in perpetuity. That stirred threats of a lawsuit from the local NAACP, and even many residents who favored preserving the statue opposed the unusual tactic of giving away public property on the town green.

Last year, acrimonious public hearings sometimes saw Confederate heritage defenders acting as de facto security at board of supervisors meetings, in at least one case guarding the door and letting people in or out. The bad blood spilled into other topics as supervisors and conservative residents sometimes clashed with residents who said they were Democrats or disagreed about national political issues. Arguments carried over onto social media.

Va. county delays vote on Confederate statue as more oppose giveaway plan

At a raucous public hearing that filled the local high school auditorium in December, people in favor of deeding the monument to a Confederate group branded opponents as Marxists and un-American, called Biden a crook and said all Democrats are lying failures. Two of the speakers were county residents who received misdemeanor convictions for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

One of them, Cindy Fitchett, told the crowd that Africa was to blame for slavery and that “the woke has tried to take over Mathews County, and we’re not going to allow it.”

But that hearing was different from those that came before, because a collection of local Republicans and Democrats had banded together, wearing green and urging the county not to deed away the land under the monument. Their numbers were so great, county supervisors postponed voting on the proposal — and still have not taken any action.

Tom Bowen III, who is retiring as the Mathews County commonwealth’s attorney, won a seat on the county board this month.

That coalition helped set an example for strange-bedfellows cooperation that influenced the founding of Mathews Citizens for the Common Good, Bowen said.

“That sort of sowed the seeds for people recognizing that there was the possibility of trying to approach things a little bit differently than we had in the past,” he said. Bowen, 72, said he has always considered himself an independent, voting for both Republicans and Democrats based on whom he viewed as most capable.

Planning to retire after 12 years as commonwealth’s attorney, Bowen initially resisted running for supervisor. But because the toxic environment discouraged others from running, he said, he eventually decided he had to try, encouraged by longtime friends and neighbors in the Common Good group.

The group interviewed candidates to arrive at its endorsements and held a town hall to discuss issues. Shortly before the election, the group took out a full-page ad in the local Gazette-Journal newspaper that said “We Love Mathews.”

Its three candidates were the top vote-getters in a field of nine, beating two board members seeking reelection. They will form a majority of the five-member board when they take office in January. In addition to Bowen, they are Janice Hudgins Phillips — a county native who had a long career in accounting and finance for major corporations — and Timothy P. Doss, who serves as superintendent of the regional jail.

Now, though, some local residents are concerned that the outgoing board will have one final chance to take action on the monument at its last meeting, scheduled for Dec. 19.

Bowen said he discussed that possibility with board chairman David Jones, whose seat was not up for reelection, when Jones stopped by to congratulate him the day after the election.

“He said he had no intention of getting involved in anything like that and he did not think it was going to happen,” Bowen said.

Jones could not be reached for comment for this article. Other members of the board who have spoken in favor of deeding the statue also did not respond to requests for comment, and neither did the chairman of the local Republican committee.

Near the Mathews town green one recent afternoon, shopkeeper Valerie Kelly, 47, said she’s heard the rumors about a possible statue vote. “I say leave it alone,” she said. “It should stay in the [county’s] hands.” The monument wasn’t intended to glorify the Confederacy, Kelly said — it was a memorial to the dead paid for by local families who held bake sales to raise money. All the attention has stirred controversy that she thinks is unwarranted.

“I just hope it doesn’t happen,” agreed Loretta Hudgins, 76, as she worked in a boutique within view of the monument. After so much fuss and furor over the past two years, Hudgins said she’s ready for things to settle down. That’s partly why she voted for two of the three Common Good-endorsed candidates. “We like our quiet little town.”