The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • Page A11

THE SUN WEDNESDAY 09.12.2007 11A CITY COUNCIL Strong showing by incumbents In llth District, Cole leads 8 competitors in race for Mitchell's seat Election judges James Moore and Regina Branche (background, left) have time on their hands amid low turnout yesterday at Barclay Elementary School. By noon, only 90 voters had cast ballots there in the city primary. AMY DAVIS SUN PHOTOGRAPHER City's voter turnout is lackluster at 28 Some blame campaigns that failed to ignite interest BY JILL ROSEN, LYNN ANDERSON, LAURA MCCANDLISH AND NICOLE FULLER sun reporters BY BRENT JONES SUN REPORTER Incumbent Democrats held early leads as votes were tallied last night in the primary election for Baltimore City Council seats. The incumbents include James B. Kraft in the 1st District, Nicholas C.

D'Adamo Jr. in the 2nd District, Robert W. Curran in the 3rd District, Belinda K. Conaway in the 7th District, Helen L. Holton in the 8th District, Agnes Welch in the 9th District, Bernard C.

"Jack" Young in the 12th District and Mary Pat Clarke in the 14th District. In one of the most heated races, Edward L. Reisinger sought to fend off three challengers in his quest for a fourth term representing the 10th District. Rochelle "Rikki" Spector in the 5th District, the council's longest-serving member, had no competition in the primary. In the llth District, William Cole held an early lead over eight competitors for one of the council's two open seats.

The district includes Bolton Hill, Reservoir Hill, Otterbein, Federal Hill, Mount Vernon and a number of West Baltimore neighborhoods. The winner will replace Keiffer J. Mitchell who had held the seat for 12 years but decided not to seek re-election to run in the Democratic mayoral primary. Gov. Martin O'Malley and U.S.

Rep. Elijah E. Cummings endorsed Cole, and the Otterbein resident easily raised more money than all of his opponents combined. Cole, 34, representing the 47th District as a delegate in the General Assembly from 1998 to 2002. The support Cole received from his high-profile supporters seemed to appeal to some voters.

"I like Governor O'Malley. If that is his endorsement, I'll pick Cole. And I hadn't heard of him before today," David Foster, 52, a Mount Vernon resident, as he left the polling place at the Waxter Center. Cheryl Pearson, 36, of Mount Vernon said she voted for Cole because of his political experience. "He certainly has more than the other ones," Pearson said.

"And I like his ideas. I looked at Cole's WILLIAM COLE Web site and liked what he had to say." Cole, an administrator at the University of Baltimore, ran a campaign focused on education. He said he supports an end to the city-state partnership that runs the city schools. Joining Cole as a newcomer on the council will be one of the nine candidates in the the 4th District, which runs approximately between Charles Street and Loch Raven Boulevard, a largely middle-class section of North Baltimore that includes Mid-Govans, Homeland and Bellona-Gittings. Bill Henry was competing with eight others for the Democratic nomination in the 4th District, where Kenneth N.

Harris Sr. decided not to seek re-election so that he could run for council president. Henry, 39, of Radnor-Winston was until recently director of commercial development at Patterson Park Community Development which has led the re-vitalization of the area near the park. He was a legislative aide for Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke and chief of staff for Lawrence A. Bell III when Bell was City Council president.

Ellen Frost of Lake Walker and said she voted for Henry because of his work with Patterson Park Community Development. "He's into the issues that I'm interested in, namely affordable housing," said Frost, 34. Nancy Moore said after voting for Henry at Northside Baptist Church, "I don't know him personally, but people we trust say he is bright and on top of things." The 6th and 13th district seats were expected to be retained by candidates who were appointed to fill council seats that became open during the past term. Sharon Green Middleton, who replaced Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in February after Rawlings-Blake became council president, had three opponents, including Elizabeth "Liz" Smith, a student of hers when she taught in middle school. Middleton's husband is Glenard S.

Middleton a statewide leader in one of the area's most powerful unions. Middleton held an early lead over Smith. In the 13th District, Vernon E. Crider held an early lead over four others as he sought to keep the seat he was appointed to fill this year to replace Paula Johnson Branch, who abruptly left office to take a job in the real estate industry. Before becoming a councilman in April, Crider was Branch's legislative assistant and a member of the Baltimore City State Central Committee.

In 2002, he ran unsuccessfully for delegate in the 45th District. Crider is a special education teacher and a retired Marine. Republican and Green Party candidates have filed to run in many of the city's 14 council districts in the general election, but nearly eight out 10 voters in the city are registered Democrats. brent.jonesbaltsun.com Dickey Hill Middle School eighth-grader Kasheena Leach (right) gets a civics lesson watching and listening as her aunt, Vanessa Carroll, votes. DOUG KAPUSTIN SUN PHOTOGRAPHER Election judge John Lowenson stepped outside Hampstead Hill Elementary for his umpteenth smoke break around lunchtime yesterday, puffing under an overhang as a light rain started up again.

Inside, his absence wasn't exactly missed. "We're not going to break 100 voters by 1 o'clock," he said with a grimace. "This is the slowest I've ever seen it." Though state officials had been predicting a paltry 30 percent of Baltimore's 331,987 registered voters would cast ballots in yesterday's citywide primary, late in the day it seemed hitting even that would be a stretch. City election officials estimated that 82,921 ballots were cast at polling places yesterday, representing about 28 percent of registered Republicans and Democrats. "It's appalling that they don't vote.

When you see people who struggled to get us to the point where we could exercise our right to vote, it's hard to understand," said Armstead B.C. Jones, the city elections director. He said that when voters registered as independents or third-party members who were ineligible to vote in yesterday's primary are included, 24.84 percent of all voters turned out. That would be among the lowest turnouts in recent history, he said. The lowest he has found in his agency's records was 27.1 percent in 1991, a mark that might be exceeded this year once absentee and provisional ballots are counted.

"The message has really got to come from the candidates. Anytime voter registration is down, it tells you that the candidates have no energy to motivate," Jones said. Some blamed the weather. Others blamed a lackluster slate of candidates. Others simply shrugged off the question voters weren't voting, that's all they knew.

Lowenson's wife, Lillian, another longtime poll worker, sipped a Pepsi, hoping the caffeine would keep her alert if a rush of voters wouldn't. "We're almost dead," she said, describing how only three people were waiting for them to open at 7 a.m. when it's usually much busier with people trying to vote on their way to work. "Maybe they're just discouraged because of the way the city is with all the crime." Matthew A Crenson, a Johns Hopkins University political science professor, said it's the candidates' fault that people weren't moved to come out and support them. "They didn't say anything that was really compelling.

I think that's what it comes down to," he said. "After listening to them myself, I felt myself wondering, 'What did they just Crenson also thought it was a mistake to frame the debate around the daunting and depressing issue of Baltimore's re- DEMOCRAT DISTRICT 1 14 of 19 precincts -74 James Kraft 1,659 55 Donald Dewar 1,234 Terry McCready 80 3 Marc Warren 50 2 DISTRICT 2 19 of 20 precincts -95 Nicholas D'Adamo 2,824 69 Lawrence Moses 1,248 31 DISTRICT 3 19 of 21 precincts -90S Robert Curran 3,812 76 Michael Hamilton 993 20 Norman Hall 241 DISTRICT 4 14 of 18 precincts -78S Bill Henry 1,708 34 Scherod Barnes 861 17 Ryan Coleman 746 15 Reba Hawkins 689 14 Monica Gaines 492 10 Bill Goodin 263 5 Christopher Hill 113 2 Neil Bernstein 64 1 Earl Holt 53 1 DISTRICTS 0 of 0 precincts -0 x-Rikki Spector" 0 0 DISTRICT 6 19 of 23 precincts -83 Sharon Middleton 2,741 52 Liz Smith 1,992 38 Ramona Baker 292 6 Deborah Ramsey 243 5 DISTRICT 7 21 of 23 precincts -91 Belinda Conaway" 3,221 63 Tony Asa 1,078 21 Marshall Goodwin 507 10 John Holmes 274 5 DISTRICTS 14 of 17 precincts -82 Helen Holton 3,139 62 David Smallwood 1,109 22 Benjamin Barnwell 473 9 Andre Mahasa 277 5 Darryl Jefferson 64 1 DISTRICT 9 18 of 19 precincts -95 Agnes Welch 2,780 68 Michael Johnson 1,012 25 James Jones 320 8 DISTRICT 10 21 of 22 precincts -95 Edward Reisinqer 1,641 43 Terry Hickey 1,161 30 Donnie Fair 539 14 Hunter Pruette 507 13 DISTRICT 11 25 of 27 precincts -93 William H. Cole 1,868 35 Fred Mason 1,145 21 Karen Brown 634 12 Nick Mosby 563 11 Adam Meister 460 9 Dana Owens 395 7 Rita Collins 124 2 Brandon Thornton 97 2 Warren Zussman 41 1 DISTRICT 12 16 of 20 precincts -80 JackYounq 2,184 72 Frank Richardson 438 15 Ertha Harris 393 13 DISTRICT 13 16 of 19 precincts -84 Vernon Crider 1,101 27 Warren Branch 1,081 27 EmmettGuyton 1,006 25 Robert Stokes 699 17 Cynthia Gross 184 5 DISTRICT 14 18 of 23 precincts -78 Mary Pat Clarke 4,149 96 Thomas Conradt 158 4 xwinner; "Encumbent. pull us through," she said. "They're not seeing someone who's ignited them with solutions for the city.

"People care passionately about their community but they don't know what the solutions are now." That said, she wants to give Dixon a chance. She thinks Dixon along with Stephanie Raw-lings-Blake as council president both endorsed by Gov. Martin O'Malley will together offer a "synergy" to provoke change. "The alternatives," Watson said, "didn't tell me anything that was significantly different." Todd Nystul rode his bicycle in the rain to vote at Hampden Elementary School. The biologist said he was pulling for Keiffer J.

Mitchell Jr. for mayor, largely because he liked the city councilman's responses during recent debates. "He seemed to have a clear idea of what to do about the problems that face the city," Nystul said. At one point yesterday morning, there were more candidates than voters at the Eutaw Marshburn Elementary School on Eutaw Place. At Harlem Park Elementary School on the city's west side, where 205 people had voted by noon, Victoria Robinson, an attorney from Lafayette Square, said she cast her vote for socialist mayoral candidate A.

Robert Kaufman. "I threw my vote away for A. Robert Kaufman," Robinson said. "I just could not hit Dixon or Mitchell. I could not bring myself to vote for either of them." jill.rosenbaltsun.com lynn.andersonbaltsun.com laura.mccandlishbaltsun.com nicole.fullerbaltsun.com lentless homicide problem.

"That was not a way to get out voters. I think somebody needed to present a positive prospect for Baltimore, a convincing one," he said. "In the end, many voters probably don't believe a mayor or a City Council president can do very much about the problem." But Robert Pastor, director of the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University, calls the lame turnout par for a primary without a national contest. Americans, he said, are just not interested in the political process. "They have other things to do.

It's inconvenient. People are working, they have other lives, it's not easy particularly if an election doesn't seem to have a direct effect on them," Pastor said. "They might not even know there was a primary." With a full-time job at Giant Food's Jessup warehouse, Danny Parsons, 20, said even though she's registered to vote, she hadn't had time to pay attention to the election she basically forgot about it. Even so, Parsons, who lives in West Baltimore, said it seemed to her that the candidates were ignoring the needier corners of the city. Her friend Brittnie Woods, 19, said that on top of her Wal-Mart job and nursing courses, she didn't have time either.

"Nobody reads books, nobody follows the news," said Woods, who lives in Cherry Hill. "Everybody just listens to music." Outside Lexington Market at closing time, Kweisi Sutton, 28, said he found no reason to vote because none of the candidates was listening to voters. "Instead of drug enforcement, start helping people," he said. "The government is going to do what they want anyway." Around lunchtime at Commodore John Rodgers school in Butchers Hill, a campaign work er for Jim Kraft was highlighting a textbook. Some young people working for Mitchell were hanging from a tree branch.

Minute after minute after minute, no voters appeared. About the same time at Northern High School, three campaign volunteers leapt to their feet as one voter approached, trying to unload literature. Inside, the hallway was empty, and one election official appeared to be dozing or perhaps just meditating. Other election officials profoundly thanked a voter for showing up. With apparently too few voters to overwhelm the system, polling places, stymied in recent years by technology glitches and no-show judges, reported an easy-breezy day.

"We're in much better shape than we were last year," Chief Democratic Judge Reed Hutner said, at the Academy for College and Career Exploration in the 2500 block of E. Northern Parkway. "What we need now are some more voters." For weeks, when Elijah Street wasn't talking about football, he has been talking about the mayor and City Council races, urging his friends, family and neighbors to vote. "I said you need to vote, especially the black vote 'cause we came a long way to vote," he said. "Now that you have a chance, why don't you take advantage?" He said he cast his ballot for Sheila Dixon, "because I think she's doing a marvelous job." "She came up through the ranks," he said, adding that he thinks she might be able to turn around the soaring homicide rate.

"I think she can deal with it." Karen Watson, a Canton teacher, pinned the low turnout on candidates who didn't give people a desire to get out and vote. "I suspect people don't see someone they think is going to Mayor Baltimore City Elbert Henderson, GOP Mayor Baltimore City Wayne Alfurqan, Una City Comptroller Baltimore City Joan Pratt, Dem Baltimore City Council President Maria Allwine, Green Baltimore City Council -1 Glenn Werner, GOP Baltimore City Council 2 Brian Davis, GOP Baltimore City Council 3 Bill Barry, Grn Baltimore City Council 5 Rikki Spector, Dem Baltimore City Council 5 Mayer Verschleisser, Una Baltimore City Council 6 Ori Shabazz, Una Baltimore City Council 8 Sean Cummings, GOP Baltimore City Council 9 Michael Bradley, GOP Baltimore City Council -10 Duane Shelton, GOP Baltimore City Council -13 Ronald Owens-Bey, Grn Baltimore City Council -14 Mark Newgent, GOP incumbent..