Whether he realized it at the time or not, when City Council member Howard Clement moved last night to put off a decision on $175,000 for the Mok'e Jazz Cultural Center for two weeks, he was setting it at a critical time.

Oct. 5: Election Eve.

Clement and council member Cora Cole-McFadden are both up for re-election and both face multiple opponents in the Oct. 6 primary.

Both Clement and Cole-McFadden had previously expressed support for the grant, requested by Mozella McLaughlin and her three children to help renovate and expand the building she owns at 2520 Fayetteville Street for a community center with live jazz, a restaurant, rooftop garden and other amenities.

But they hedged their support at last night's council meeting, where one of Cole-McFadden's challengers and two of Clement's stated their positions on the grant and more than 20 speakers urged the council to help keep the Know Book Store -- McLaughlin's current tenant -- in business.

Cole-McFadden and Clement said they wanted a compromise that would aid both sides, and supported a delay to allow time for more negotiation between tenant and landlord, after Clement challenger Darius Little and Cole-McFadden challenger Donald Hughes spoke for the grant as community revitalization; and Clement challenger Matt Drew spoke against it as an overly risky investment of taxpayers' money.

Bookstore owner Bruce Bridges, who also runs a restaurant and holds weekly Jazz Nights at the building, has claimed McLaughlin's project could put him out of business. McLaughlin has offered Bridges a place in the Mok'e Center, but Bridges has said the increased rent he would have to pay for less space, plus giving up the restaurant operation to McLaughlin, would likely cripple his store.

Monday night, Bridges tossed a new issue into the dispute by asking the council to grant money for his business if it approved the McLaughlin grant.

Mayor Bill Bell also tossed in a new issue, wanting to know why the financial analysis that the city economic-development department for McLaughlin's grant application had not taken into account the cost of state and federal taxes her Center would have to pay as a for-profit enterprise.

Postponing a decision, Bell said, should be for the purpose of re-analyzing the Mok'e Center's reasonable cash flow and not for dealing with the Know Book Store, which he considered an issue separate from the grant, involving landlord and tenant.

But Bridges, and other speakers, made a connection in objecting to a public subsidy for one business that would jeopardize another.

Councilman Eugene Brown, who has said the Mok'e Center is not financially viable in opposing the city grant, passionately repeated that point during the council deliberation.

Councilman Farad Ali was equally passionate in supporting the grant, saying, "This is project that has life," and maintaining that the council had unfairly subjected the McLaughlin application to terms and scrutiny it had not applied to other grants under the city's Neighborhood Commercial Revitalization program.

Long-serving city councilman Howard Clement got a second challenger Wednesday when Sylvester Williams, pastor at the Assembly at Durham Christian Center and a vocal opponent of the East End Connector highway project, filed for the Ward 2 seat in this fall's city election.

Williams joins Libertarian Pary county chairman Matt Drew in opposing Clement, who has served on the city council since 1983.

As of Thursday morning, Ward 3 council member Mike Woodard and Mayor Bill Bell had no opposition for re-election, and no one had filed for the Ward 1 seat currently held by Mayor Pro Tem Cora Cole McFadden.

Incumbent City Council members Howard Clement and Mike Woodard, and challenger Matt Drew, made themselves official candidates in the first hour of filing for Durham city election this morning.

Drew, chairman of the Durham County Libertarian Party but a first-time candidate for office in Durham, is running against Clement for the Ward 2 seat representing southern Durham. Clement, longest-serving council member in Durham history, has held a council seat since 1983.

Woodard has held the Ward 3 seat, representing western and part of northern Durham, since 2005.

The seat for Ward 1, central and most of northern Durham, and the mayor's chair, are also up for election this fall. Incumbents Cora Cole-McFadden and Bill Bell, respectively, have said they plan to stand for re-election.

Ward council members must reside in the areas they represent, but are voted on at-large.

If more than two candidates file for any one seat, there will be a primary election Oct. 6. The top two vote-getters then face each other in the general election Nov. 3.

Filing for the election remains open until noon July 17.

Durham's Libertarians will have a presence in this fall's municipal election. Matt Drew, Durham County party chairman, told the News & Observer Tuesday that he plans to file for the city council's Ward 2 seat.

Drew would be running against incumbent Howard Clement, the longest-serving city councilman in Durham's history. Clement has held a seat since 1983.

With Drew's filing, Libertarians would carry on a growing presence in Durham politics. In 2008, three party members challenged Democratic incumbents (unsuccessfully) for the state legislature; Republicans fielded only one candidate.

Municipal elections in Durham are non-partisan. Filing opens at 8:30 Monday for mayor and three ward seats on the city council. Those are the city's only contests for public office this year.

For more on Durham's 2009 election, see Saturday's Durham News.

City councilman Howard Clement (below), a 26-year veteran who often spots issues and details that pass his colleagues by (like the hazards represented by backyard chickens), thinks the city needs to put more signs up to point out where the taxpayers' dollars are at work.

"We need to for good public relations and good common sense," he said during a budget work session this week. "Our public needs to see what we're doing with public money."

He was particularly concerned that there is nothing at the new bus station to indicate that some federal stimulus money is going to the Durham Area Transit Authority.

"We need to do this, because a lot of people are raising questions about where all the money is going and we need to provide that information," he said.

A presentation on the city's budget cuts this morning was — no surprise — dire again. The city needs to whack another $1.7 miilion out of the current year's spending, and next year is stiil presenting a gap of $24 million to $40 million between projected income and outgo.

But one item got councilman Howard Clement's dander up.

$35,889.

The Rev. Melvin Whitley asked the Durham City Council to support his "bullet ownership bill" Thursday, and got a mixed reception.

While council member Howard Clement and Mayor Pro-Tem Cora Cole-McFadden expressed enthusiastic support, council member Eugene Brown said, "There are lot more things that we can do that might pass constitutional muster and legislative muster and do a lot more good."

Members of the Durham City Council and Durham County Board of Commissioners have agreed to start talking about merging the two governments.

Durham city councilman Howard Clement has suspended his effort to arrange a meeting between owners of an Adam & Eve sex-wares store and displeased neighbors.

With little discussion and by a 7-0 vote, the Durham City Council approved beekeeping inside the city limits Monday night.

Then they spent more than half an hour talking about chickens before voting to put off voting until February.