New City Council members

Run-off election victories Tuesday by three new candidates for the City Council featured noteworthy but not entirely unexpected defeats of two incumbents — District 8’s long-serving Leamon Pierce and District 1’s Linda Bennett. The winners who soundly trounced them in small-turnout races, Andrae McGary and Deborah Scott, respectively, will join Peter Murphy, winner of the open District 9 position, on the City Council.

Mr. Murphy’s victory could be considered a mild surprise on par with those of Mrs. Scott and Mr. McGary. J.T. McDaniel, a small businessman well known in the majority African-American district, would have been favored by many observers over Mr. Murphy, a white attorney, simply on the racial composition of the district.

Mr. Murphy’s energetic shoe-leather campaigning and his broader, more compelling agenda rightly proved more appealing, however. He secured enough black voters in overwhelmingly black precincts to round out his monopoly edge in the Missionary Ridge precinct. A far higher percentage of voters there (25 percent) went to the polls than in the substantially larger black precincts of Eastdale 1 and Bushtown. In those crucial precincts, less than 6 percent of voters went to the polls.

With just 12.8 percent overall of the district’s registered voters participating, Mr. Murphy’s tally assured an easy 782-to-547 victory.

Ms. Bennett and Mr. Pierce succumbed to similarly vigorous campaigns waged by newcomers. Their losses, though, reflected discernible dissatisfaction among the exceedingly small numbers of residents who bothered to vote.

Mrs. Scott campaigned hard almost solely on a platform of improved fiscal oversight of city spending. While many of the examples she claimed of loose oversight by Ms. Bennett— and other council members — were artfully thin and easily rebutted, her campaign struck a chord with enough voters in a light turnout to produce a victory margin of 1,172 to 751.

The total District 1 tally of 1,923 votes represented just 17 percent of its 11,273 voters. That outshines the less-than-13 percent turnout in Districts 8 and 9, but it still reflects the power of a small group of people to control the outcome of a district race for a Council seat that wields broad authority in city matters. Mrs. Scott’s victory, like Mr. McGary’s, affirms that the discontent vote more intensively than the mildly content.

Mrs. Scott and Mr. McGary, to be sure, are easily bright enough and conscientious enough to make a significant contribution. Both are articulate and energetic, and worked hard in door-to-door campaigning to win support.

For her part, Mrs. Scott should be encouraged to raise her sights and elevate her mission on the Council. It is not enough to check the math on city expenditures or dive into the mayor’s proposed budget. Council members cannot begin to direct the city’s growth along a more cogent strategic path without taking charge as a board of the directors for the city and setting a strategic vision. To give that teeth, the Council also must insist on a fully independent city auditor’s position so that the mayor’s budget and programs can be independently measured against the council’s vision and action-specific agenda.

Mr. McGary, on the other hand, campaigned on a shotgun approach of ideas he’d like to tackle in District 8. Though he must yet focus on a more targeted agenda, his energy and platform obviously appealed strongly to the 70 percent of votes he won in District 8’s depressingly light turnout. His margin of victory was 903 to 375 against the 18-year incumbent, Mr. Pierce, who has served well as a strong independent voice. Still, the 1,278 votes they shared only faintly reflects the 10,007 registered voters in the district.

Mrs. Scott and Mr. McGary would do well to match the approach to council business expressed by Mr. Murphy. His district-specific agenda understandably centers on his district’s main priorities — crime and gang control, and improved recreation facilities. Yet he also sees the council’s business as a city-wide, future-directed concern, and his broader agenda reflects that.

He recognizes the need both for a strategic vision for the city and a well-rounded regional planning effort to manage Volkswagen-related growth. He wants to rehabilitate unused housing, improve the 311 call center, move the homeless issue toward resolution, better serve children and broader economic development, and own up to the council’s duty to exercise audit authority over the mayor’s expenditures.

The council urgently needs to adopt that board agenda. Mrs. Scott and Mr. McGary will serve well to support those goals.