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Phil Zangari was walking his dog near his home in the first block of Seymour Street a few weeks ago when he came across a pistol in a nearby alley.
Zangari called Lancaster police, who dutifully came out and took a report. "The cops suggested I put up a gate" to keep people out of the alley, Zangari said. It wasn't exactly a warm and fuzzy resolution.
And it strengthened his resolve, he said, to vote for Charlie Smithgall in Tuesday's election.
Smithgall, a two-term former Republican mayor, lost to incumbent Democrat Rick Gray. But Gray's narrow margin of victory — 313 votes out of more than 7,500 cast — surprised nearly everyone.
In retrospect, say some analysts, maybe it shouldn't have.
It was an off-year and turnout was destined to be low. It was; both Gray and Smithgall received fewer votes overall than they did last time they squared off, in 2005.
But in 19 city voting precincts, Smithgall actually got more votes than he did in 2005, while Gray's vote totals rose in just four of the city's 41 precincts. Smithgall did surprisingly well in the neighborhoods of southwest and northeast Lancaster.
Phil Zangari's experience may illustrate why.
Smithgall's campaign, which focused on crime and the things he thought wrong with the city, might have dampened Gray's support. That's how it works, said J. Brian Adams, a former Franklin & Marshall College computer science professor who recently founded his own statistical analysis firm, Lancaster Decision Analysis. "Negative campaigning does not convince voters to support you, but instead it works to convince your opponents' voters not to come out at all," he said. The vote totals reflect that, he said.
And Smithgall's message seemed to resonate most with those living in Lancaster neighborhoods where the perception of crime, if not the actual incidence, was more acute.
"The most intractable problem [for cities] to solve are those rooted in the neighborhood — crime, drugs, high unemployment," wrote Franklin & Marshall College political analyst G. Terry Madonna in an e-mail. "Most mayors focus on downtown development — it brings jobs, taxes and vitality, but often the folks in the neighborhoods get a feeling that they are neglected."
Or as Zangari put it: "The arts, Gallery Row, that has a place in Lancaster.
"But crime is most important."
Far from ignoredAs he did during the campaign, Gray last week refuted the notion that his administration has ignored Lancaster's neighborhoods. In fact, he said, there's actually been more of a focus on the neighborhoods than the downtown — it's just that many of the improvements have been incremental.
"People don't see it, like they see the 19-story [hotel] building downtown," he said. But the single-trash hauler program, stepped-up inspections of rental units and crackdowns on problem landlords and problem tenants have borne fruit, he believes.
Indeed, Gray said he's not convinced the low turnout reflected voter discouragement. "When 80 percent of the voters don't turn out, is that complacency or contentment?" he asked. "People were telling me they thought we were going to win in a landslide — and the more people said that, the more I worried about it," Gray said, fearing that such voters figured it would be OK if they stayed home.
But Smithgall said that on the campaign trail, he encountered far more concern than contentment. His campaign message merely reflected that, he said.
"Everybody figured it was their neighborhood that was being ignored," said Smithgall, who admitted he thought he was going to win Tuesday's contest. "There's a lot of discontent out there."
Inside his beer distributorship along South Prince Street last week, Bob Dano voiced plenty of it.
Dano, owner of Engleside Distributor (and former owner of the Prince of Subs restaurant) doesn't live in the city, but has done business there for decades. In 2005, he backed Gray. This year, it was Smithgall all the way.
"Look at this," said Dano, gesturing to some dilapidated, derelict structures directly across from his business. "How would you feel if you had to look out every day at this?" He said several complaints to city officials produced no action.
Dano has long complained that city officials pay little attention to the area south of King Street. Hoping that would change, he backed Gray in 2005.
When that change didn't come, he put up "Smithgall for Mayor" signs.
The 8th Ward, 2nd Precinct — home to Dano's business — was one of 14 precincts that Smithgall lost in 2005 but won this year.
Energy and angerA sense of worsening conditions is always the death knell for an incumbent, said F&M's Madonna, and Gray "is after all the incumbent."
Here and elsewhere, the "energy and anger, especially by [Republican] voters, greatly outmatched the passivity of [Democratic] voters," Madonna wrote.
Smithgall's campaign message that things are getting worse seemed to resonate most in the 8th Ward, southwest Lancaster. In 2005, he took two of 10 precincts; this year he won eight.
In the 6th Ward, northwest Lancaster, he took two of nine precincts in 2005. This year, he took five.
Adams, who crunched the numbers for the Sunday News, noted that Smithgall's strategy was also effective in the 7th Ward, southeast Lancaster, where in all but two precincts, Gray's vote dropped significantly, while Smithgall's was up.
The reverse was true in the city's 9th Ward, in the northwest around F&M. "While Gray dropped in all precincts," Adams said, "Smithgall was down far more" in the northwest.
Northwest Lancaster is a neighborhood that has seen significant investment through the James Street Improvement District.
Overall, said Adams, Gray was down in 37 of 41 precincts, by an average of 31 percent. In the four precincts where he gained, his increase was an average of 15 percent.
Smithgall, by contrast, was down in 22 precincts, but up in 19. In the former, his vote totals dropped an average of 21 percent from 2005. Where he was up before, his vote totals rose by an average of 20 percent.
"Turnout was down," Adams said, "but that drop in turnout was overwhelmingly against Gray as compared to Smithgall."
Gray suggested "Obama burnout" might also have been a factor. "We were confident we were going to win," Gray said, but the enthusiasm of last fall simply wasn't there.
Also, he said, "We were running against a guy who, in the last four election cycles, he's been a part of four of them. ... [Smithgall] probably has better name recognition than any other Republican in the county."
He also noted, ironically, that in the 2005 race, it was he who criticized Smithgall for not doing enough in the neighborhoods.
"Downtown, it's a lot more obvious what's going on," he said. "We spend way more time dealing with the neighborhoods. You fight to correct the perception" that it's the other way around.
Still, he cautioned, the downtown remains extremely important to the overall success of the city. "A lot of what we do in the neighborhoods is financed by downtown," he said. "That's our economic generator, and we have to continue to deal with it. Otherwise, we don't have the ability to do things in the neighborhoods."
F&M's Madonna said mayors everywhere have to straddle the same line.
"I don't think voters stayed home because of the negative charges that flew back and forth — by any modern comparison [it was] pretty tame stuff," Madonna said. "But crime and neighborhood concerns do matter in a larger sense, and Gray undoubtedly suffered at the polls because of them."
Gil Smart is associate editor of the Sunday News. E-mail him at gsmart@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-8817.
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