EXTRA! Gazette Omits Lenora Mitchell’s Candidacy

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CAPE CHARLES WAVE

April 14, 2014

Attention Cape Charles voters: Lenora Mitchell-Fields has NOT withdrawn her candidacy for Town Council in the May 6 elections.

The town’s official publication, Cape Charles Gazette,  inexplicably omitted Mitchell’s name in its April 14 edition headlined “2014 Is An Election Year!”

The story states that “five candidates are running for Council,” and then lists five names. But in fact, SIX candidates are running for Council.

Reached at her store, Mitchell was asked by the Wave to guess which candidate the Gazette had left off its list. Her first guess was Deborah Bender, who was once referred to by Mayor Sullivan as the “Barking Bender,” perhaps due to her history of public comments at Town Council meetings. But Bender’s name was not the one omitted from the Gazette.

Lenora Mitchell has her own history of criticizing the Town when an official injustice has been committed. When the town sold the basketball court, parking lot, and old school to a developer for conversion into apartments, it stipulated that the property could not be made available to low-income residents — despite the developer’s intention to receive over $1 million in state and federal assistance for renovating the building.

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Mitchell, who is president of Concerned Citizens of Cape Charles, joined forces with civic leaders Alice Coles and Jane Cabarrus to protest to state and federal officials the use of public money to construct housing that specifically denied occupancy to low-income residents. (CLICK for story.) The offensive wording in the contract was soon dropped.

Now Mitchell’s name as a candidate has been dropped in the town’s official publication. Although doubtlessly it was a careless error, to drop the name of the only African-American candidate in the race may be seen by some as egregious.

UPDATE: At 8:30 p.m. the town sent out emails with the subject “March 2014 Gazette — Corrected.” But the correction (for the April, not March, edition) makes no mention of what was corrected. The name “Lenora Mitchell” now appears in the story, but not her name as it will appear on the ballot, which is L. “Lynn” Mitchell-Fields. The Gazette was more careful in identifying another candidate better known by his nickname: Charles “Sambo” Brown.