It's been a decade since Louisa Strayhorn was voted off the Virginia Beach City Council. She made one more bid for public office, losing a lopsided special election in 2000 for a vacant state Senate seat.
Since then, the first black woman elected to the city's School Board and the last African American to sit on the City Council has largely stayed on the sidelines, operating her own company or heading a state agency.
"I'm a corporate strategist," Strayhorn said. "That's another name for consultant."
This year, she's been back in politics, as a convention delegate for presidential nominee Barack Obama and a supporter of Democrats Mark Warner for U.S. Senate and Glenn Nye for the 2nd District congressional seat. She's also thrown her weight behind former colleague Meyera Oberndorf in what is technically a nonpartisan race for mayor.
Obama's historic bid for president may have re-energized Strayhorn's political juices, but she said she's not eager to get her own name back on a ballot.
"I keep my options open," she said in a telephone interview last week. But after the election Nov. 4, she said, she intends to get back to the business of business and "spend some time earning a living."
Strayhorn, 60, worked nearly two years in Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's administration, running Virginia's Department of Business Assistance. She headed a staff of 47 who tried to increase the number of minority- and women-owned small businesses contracting with the state.
She stepped down in April to focus on a contract accepted by her company, LSA Consulting LLC. Strayhorn has a new Web site, LSAConsulting.com, which features blogs she wrote from the Democratic presidential convention in Denver.
She said she loved blogging about politics for WAVY Channel 10 and Mix magazine's Web sites.
Strayhorn is writing a book on government contracts - a handbook for those interested in doing business in the public sector. It will be drawn from her experience and feature interviews with those who succeed and examples of how others failed.
Meanwhile, she's consulting and speaking to groups.
Today's credit crunch, Strayhorn said, can be particularly hard on small businesses, which often take large risks on their way to success.
"This environment," she said, "dries up people's dreams."
Strayhorn said she hopes to find ways to see that doesn't happen, even during this "economic tsunami."
Tony Germanotta, (757) 222-5113, tony.germanotta@pilotonline.com
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Why Va. Beach? Why?
Do you want to be like Norfolk? If not dont switch to a Ward system. There is a reason why those who are on the council are there. Take a lesson from your good friends in Norfolk (who are stuck with Paul Ritter)
Ms. Strayhorn is a fine and
Ms. Strayhorn is a fine and honorable person from whom those running for council, or considering a "ward" system, could learn. She was considered the best candidate by the electorate when she was elected, and not so when she was not elected. I wish her well in her future endeavors.
A council person isn't voted out!
They lose the election.
2nd Black Woman
Meyera Oberndorf is Jewish. Phenotypically she has semitic ethnicity and the Euro heritage as well. As such her semitic heritage has intermixed with a black African heritage centuries ago.
Stupid Reno
The budget cuts are because revenue is down because of the economy. Blame the $700 billion dollars George Bush borrowed from China to fund the war in Iraq.
Budget Shortage
"Strayhorn, 60, worked nearly two years in Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's administration, running Virginia's Department of Business Assistance. She headed a staff of 47 who tried to increase the number of minority- and women-owned small businesses contracting with the state."
It took 47 people to accomplish the objectives of this department. Wow! What were the payroll and expenses? No wonder Kaine’s budget is 2 billion short. Virginia should contract with the lowest bidder since there is no money to waste. If the objectives of this department can be met using the lowest bidder so be it, if not, the taxpayer must come first. After all, over 575 current State employees are losing their jobs because of Kaine. I wonder if the funding of this department was cut in the first round of budget reductions?