City Council candidate John Tarantino (right) said this afternoon that he's endorsing County Commissioner Joe Bowser for mayor in Tuesday's primary election.

"I'm aligned with Bowser and encouraging my friends to vote for Bowser," he said.

Bowser (below), who has more than a year left on his commissioner's term, is challenging incumbent Mayor Bill Bell. Retired salesman Ralph McKinney and minister Sylvester Williams are also in the race.

Tarantino is one of seven candidates for three at-large Council seats. Tuesday's voting will eliminate one, as well as two mayoral candidates, leaving the survivors to face off in the Nov. 8 general election.

Tarantino said he decided to come out for Bowser after Williams's campaign began passing out sample ballots encouraging votes for three black City Council candidates: Solomon Burnette, Donald Hughes and Victoria Peterson.

"The worst thing that can happen is nothing," he said.

Tarantino said he was miffed because he had given Williams support, including financial support, in a past campaign for City Council.

Bowser is also black, as is Bell; Tarantino is white, and said Williams, Burnette, Hughes and Peterson appeared to have formed a bloc after the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, one of Durham's major political organizations, decided against making endorsements for the primary.

Williams, Hughes and Peterson have said the Durham Committee's political subcommittee recommended them for endorsement, but the full Committee did not accept the recommendation. Peterson said the political subcommittee also favored Burnette, but Burnette declined to comment.

"The candidates scrambled and formed an alliance," Tarantino said.

The People's Alliance, another major Durham PAC, has endorsed Bell along with council incumbents Eugene Brown and Diane Catotti and former School Board member Steve Schewel. An Alliance campaign mailer promotes the four as a team in the elections.

Brown, Catotti and Schewel are white.
 

The Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People picked no favorites at its endorsement meeting Saturday, Committee Chairwoman  Lavonia Allison (right) said this afternoon.

"No endorsement for the mayor race, no endorsement for City Council," she said.

Mayoral candidate Sylvester Williams released a statement Saturday, saying that he had been endorsed by the group's political committee, though not by the Durham Committee as a whole.

That was incorrect and improper, Allison said, because under Durham Committee rules any endorsement requires the full Committee's agreement. No committee make take a position on its own, she said.

"No standing committee is autonomous," said Allison, and endorsement announcements may be made only by the Durham Committee's chairman.

The Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People has endorsed Natalie Beyer in the June 22 runoff election for the Durham Public School Board's District 4B seat.

Beyer is running against incumbent Stephen A. Martin, who won 37 percent of the first primary vote to Beyer's 34 percent. Two other candidates were eliminated in the May election.

The Committee also endorsed Elaine Marshall over Ken Lewis for the Democratic nomination in the race for U.S. Senate.

A deal between Durham County and Durham Public Schools that would save the school system more than $200,000 a year in sales tax passed through the county commissioners' work session this afternoon and on to tonight's regular-meeting agenda.

But not until after a lengthy conversation about the school system's compliance with the county's "Minority/Women Business Enterprise" policy on awarding contracts.

Durham County Commissioners agreed Monday to delay approving a sales-tax recovery arrangement with Durham Public Schools until the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People reviews a clause regarding Minority/Women Business Enterprise.

The delay, from next Monday's regular commissioners' meeting until Feb. 8, came after Durham Committee Chairwoman Lavonia Allison (right) objected that the commissioners and school system were moving too fast.

Barely had word got out of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People's endorsements for the Oct. 6 municipal primary before un-endorsed candidate Darius M. Little had something to say about them.

"I would like to congratulate my friends, Mr. Howard and Mrs. Anne Clement, on obtaining the endorsement," Little said in a prepared news release issued at 11:30 this morning.

But he went on to claim that the Committee's endorsement "doesn't mean as much as in the past."

Thursday night, the Committee came out for incumbent Howard Clement in the Ward 2 race, in which Little is one of four challengers. Newcomer Donald A. Hughes won the Committee's stamp of approval over incumbent Cora Cole-McFadden for the Ward 1 seat.

Little complained that the group's endorsement was decided by 11 Committee members, though there are almost 65,000 black voters registered in Durham. (Actually, 60,380 in the city, according to the Durham County Board of Elections.)

Those numbers show, he said, "It doesn't take a Harvard graduate to figure out that this year's Durham Committee endorsement doesn't mean as much as in the past."

Last month, Little sent Clement an email asking that the council veteran of 26 years drop out of the race in consideration of his age and physical infirmity. Clement has not publicly responded.

The Committee's nod gives Clement a sweep of Durham's three major political action groups. The Friends of Durham and the Durham People's Alliance endorsed his re-election earlier this week.

The influential Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People is inviting the public to its annual meeting, 5:30 p.m. Jan. 25 at Immanuel Temple Seventh Day Adventist Church, 2104 Alston Ave.

Keynote speaker is U.S. Rep. Yvette D. Clark, D-N.Y. State NAACP president William J. Barber will also speak, on a “Historic Thousands on Jones Street” march to be held Feb. 14 in Raleigh.

The Committee is Durham’s oldest political-action committee, founded in 1935.

Chuck Watts, co-chairman of the "A Taste for Durham's Future" committee promoting Durham County's proposed 1 percent sales tax on prepared food, said he is "disappointed and, frankly, not surprised" that the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People came out against the measure.

The Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People is officially and “overwhelmingly” opposed to Durham County’s proposed 1-percent prepared-food tax, committee chairwoman Lavonia Allison said today.

“There was long, long discussion,” Allison said. “Plenty of discussion.”

The political committee of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People is inviting candidates in the Nov. 4 election to come for interviews next week.

Candidates seeking the committee’s endorsement may call its office at 530-1100 or political chairman Chester Jenkins at 688-1682 for appointments.