End of the Party?

continued

Ward 5: Armentrout vs. Warpehoski

With Carsten Hohnke's retirement after two terms on council, his seat in Ward 5 has attracted two contenders. Both are intellectuals and progressives, but only one is endorsed by the mayor.

It's not Vivienne Armentrout. She opposed the council party's decisions to build the new Justice Center and the Library Lane parking structure, campaigned vigorously against proposals to top the structure with a conference center, and is dead set against a new transit center.

A former county commissioner, Armentrout is endorsed by Mike Anglin and Jane Lumm. She won't say what she likes or dislikes about the current budget: "Your question supposes a certain kind of familiarity with issues which I don't have," she says. "I look more at processes and trends." But like every other candidate, Armentrout believes we need more police, citing Jones' "magic number" of 150 as optimal, despite the huge decline in crime.

"Hearing that the crime rate's gone down doesn't reveal the whole picture," she says. "It doesn't tell you how many times citizens need help and don't get it. If you call and say, 'Someone's lurking,' you get, 'I'm sorry, we don't send people because you're worried.'"