Val Applewhite hopes to use her voice as mayor to speak for community [The Fayetteville Observer, N.C.]

Nov. 03--When she was a child, Val Applewhite had a stutter so severe she was afraid to talk.

Her older sister often spoke up for her. But one day, her mother pulled young Valencia aside with some advice.

"You know, your sister and I are not always going to be around," her mother said. "You have got to learn how to speak up for yourself."

Applewhite overcame her stutter with the aid of a speech therapist and went on to have a 20-year career in the Air Force before winning a seat on the Fayetteville City Council in 2007.

Applewhite and Nat Robertson, a former four-term councilman, are vying to become the city's next mayor in Tuesday's elections. The winner will lead a mostly new City Council in December.

Applewhite, 52, has not been shy about speaking up on issues important to her -- or going toe-to-toe with the outgoing mayor, Tony Chavonne, during testy public debates.

"You have got to use your voice, and I really believe my voice represents so many in this community that don't have the opportunity to speak up," she said.

Applewhite is relying largely on a grassroots campaign, which in the past month her opponent has out-raised by a 3-1 margin.

"I think it has become partisan," she said. "It has become based on race, but it is not anything I have done."

If elected, Applewhite would become the city's first black female mayor. She said her campaign seeks to challenge the city's political status quo.

"I intend to be the mayor for all of Fayetteville," she said.

Applewhite is trumpeting a job-creation policy called Hire Fayetteville First that seeks to award more contracts to local companies. She wants to build police substations, including in west Fayetteville where she lives, and extend the hours of recreation centers for teenagers until midnight. She is calling for better collaboration with local and state agencies on crime and economic development. To fight crime, she envisions a night court to speed up criminal cases, an expansion of the pretrial release program and a stronger city partnership with nonprofit groups that help needy families find resources.

She acknowledged some of her ideas are not municipal responsibilities. But, she said, the mayor and the City Council best "understand the issues on the ground."

"That has to be clearly articulated to other elected officials, so perhaps they'll have that consideration in their policies," she said.

She said one way to pay for a police substation is to have a developer build it and lease the space to the city. She said the city has many needs, such as paving streets and fixing storm drains, that will cost millions and are not budgeted.

"I'm under no illusion that we are going to be able to do this overnight, but we have to at least have a plan to get us there," she said.

In the past year, she has become an opposition force to Chavonne, seeking to defeat him on issues such as the $45 million parks bond package that stalled when the council deadlocked. Earlier this year, she unsuccessfully fought to have the city spend potentially several hundred thousand dollars studying the disparity in municipal contracts won by out-of-town companies compared with local or minority-owned businesses.

Some have called Applewhite's style assertive or confrontational. Her opponent has called her "divisive." One of Robertson's mailings to voters shows a picture of Applewhite appearing to karate-chop a Fayetteville sign. Four incumbent councilmen have endorsed her opponent; Bobby Hurst said of Applewhite, "it's all about divide-and-conquer."

Applewhite, who is unfazed by the labels, said she learned in her military career how to foster teamwork.

"But when you challenge authority, there is a price that will be paid in this community, and that's the price that I'm willing to pay," she said. "You want to cast me as divisive? Fine. But the results, at least of the primary election, show the citizens don't believe that."

Applewhite, winning nearly 44 percent of votes last month among five candidates, claimed 37 of 55 precincts. Robertson finished second with 31 percent.

Applewhite won most precincts in west Fayetteville, where she and her husband, Ken, bought a house off Cliffdale Road in 1995, a year after the Air Force brought her here. She retired from the military in 1999 as a master sergeant, then went to work for the Pentagon as a civilian. Today, she is a residential real estate agent.

One of her former bosses, Joseph Harrell, supervised her when they were in the Air Force in the early 1980s and again as civil servants in Washington, where she was put in charge of a high-level communications security program.

"She was very responsible, so reliable," said Harrell, who is 60.

They've kept in touch, and Applewhite recently told him about her candidacy.

"She believes in herself," he said. "She has a very positive outlook in life, and she believes she can accomplish what she sets out to do."

Ken Applewhite, a Navy veteran who now sells health insurance, said his wife is goal-oriented.

"Given a task, she likes to see it through," he said.

They met while they were stationed in Hawaii and married in 1992. They have two sons, 15 and 20.

'Tough' early years

Val Applewhite was born in Harlem, N.Y., in 1961 to Claudette and Joseph Sharperson. She was the youngest of four girls.

Her father died of cancer when she was entering high school, and her mother struggled to care for the family. They moved to Connecticut when Applewhite was growing up.

"She made a lot of sacrifices," Applewhite said of her mother. "It was tough."

Applewhite joined the Air Force in 1979, she said, to get an education. She said her mother "always believed in education and being the best that you can be."

About 14 years ago, her mother died of Lou Gehrig's disease. Applewhite, who is a 10-year breast cancer survivor, said she prays not to be fearful about life.

"I believe life is a journey -- and everything that happens to you or the path that you travel is part of that journey," she said.

In Fayetteville, her path took her into politics six years ago when she won the District 7 seat by defeating Curtis Worthy, a 10-year councilman.

It was her idea to have the city expand its policy for providing public documents and other information to Spanish speakers. She said she is proud of her efforts, along with other council members who represent the annexed areas, of working to add streetlights and sidewalks to some thoroughfares and expanding bus service.

D.J. Haire, a councilman who leaves office in December, has been one of Applewhite's allies on some issues, including the Hire Fayetteville First initiatives.

Does she have a weakness? "She is a very strong-minded and strong-willed person, and I think those are probably more pluses than weaknesses," Haire said.

After three terms, Applewhite wants a shot at leading the city.

"I'm not sure there is fairness across the city," Applewhite said. "And No. 2, I don't believe we have lived up to our fullest potential in this city."

There's a saying in the military, she said, that holds true in politics: "I believe you always need to move up -- or move on."

Applewhite has dismissed Robertson's suggestion that the city's Board of Adjustment should hear appeals from builders fighting development rules, and she said her current council tenure makes her more qualified to be mayor than his past elected experience.

"He served in the 1990s," she said. "I know the issues that currently affect the city. I know the fiscal environment, and my solutions to our problems are realistic."

She was moving on the campaign trail recently when she sat with voters at a neighborhood cookout at Fayetteville Church of the Nazarene.

"I wanted to meet you," Josephine Zuchelli, 90, said, smiling and leaning in from her folding chair to hug Applewhite.

"Thank you so much for your support," Applewhite told her. "Keep me in your prayers."

Applewhite told Mary Battie, who sat across from her, that she intends to pursue more police substations and hold online community forums.

"Good luck with your campaign," Battie said. "I'm keeping you in my prayers."

Applewhite has spoken positively about the city's new police chief, Harold Medlock, who is expected to present a new staffing plan soon. She has not said, however, how the city would pay for any new officers.

"That's what we pay a city manager to do," she said. "He has got to tell us, as the council, where that money is going to come from."

Amid economic uncertainties, the council this summer agreed to shelve a 1-cent property tax increase that would have funded 15 more officers. Applewhite initially was supportive of the proposal.

"Chief," she told Medlock then, "you've got a blank check. Let's do it."

Was it a mistake to forgo the tax increase? "I believe in letting our management do their job and holding them accountable for it," she said.

Although her mother died years ago, Applewhite still thinks of her advice in the midst of the campaign.

"I just wish she was here to see this," she said. "Every now and then, when times get really tough, I'm like, 'Mom, I'm speaking up. I'm doing exactly what you told me to do.' "

Staff writer Andrew Barksdale can be reached at [email protected] or 486-3565.

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