By Ray Gronberg

gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- In a way, Matt Drew's challenge for the Ward 2 City Council seat has already topped expectations.

A registered Libertarian, Drew on Oct. 6 became the first representative of his party to score anything like an electoral success in Durham when his second-place finish in the ward primary propelled him into the general election.

Though he collected only 12 percent of the vote, Drew's finish counted as an upset because the second spot on the Nov. 3 ballot had been expected to go to someone else.

Going in, the top challenger to incumbent Howard Clement appeared to be Sylvester Williams, a preacher who had support if not a formal endorsement from leaders of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People. Instead, Williams finished third.

Drew's finish made Ward 2 the only office on the November ballot that offers voters a choice between candidates of different races. That fact has Clement's full attention: He said two days after the primary that he can't take anything for granted despite having collected 60 percent of the vote.

The challenger is also aware of the racial factor, and is telling would-be supporters not to let it play a part in their decision.

"If any of the reasons you voted for me [earlier this month] include the fact that I'm white, I have a message for you: Please stay home in November. I don't want your vote," Drew said on his campaign Web site.

Drew, like Ward 3 candidates Allan Polak and Mike Woodard an IT professional, hews closely to the Libertarians' standard critique of government.

He believes the city has to sharply cut back on many of the things it does, among other things by turning down federal economic-stimulus money, eliminating the downtown revitalization fund, cutting subsidies to non-profit groups, and ending aid to Durham Bulls Athletic Park and the Durham Performing Arts Center.

He also opposes a sales-tax surcharge for transit, arguing that officials should instead force the Durham Area Transit Authority and other transit agencies to be financially self-sufficient. "We don't need more empty buses trundling around," he told the People's Alliance political action committee.

But, like libertarian icon and Austrian economic Friedrich Hayek, Drew does concede there are matters in which government can legitimately involve itself, and not in any small way. The one he's singled out for his campaign is water policy.

Drew is among the critics of a planned residential, office and retail complex off N.C. 751 next to Jordan Lake, and of the county's willingness to remove watershed-buffer restrictions from the site to facilitate it.

He says lake-protection rules are nowhere near strict enough, given that Jordan Lake is the only short-term option Durham has for expanding its water supply. He also would all but eliminate the city/county planning director's ability to alter zoning boundaries.

"We simply cannot afford to be careless with the future of our water supply," he said.

Drew also argues that the city will have to further revamp its water-pricing strategy, to remove incentives that even under its present tiered-rate plan favor increased consumption as a way of ensuring the Water Management Department can pay its bills.

He thinks the city needs some sort of floating rate that would rise when supplies are low and fall when the lakes are full.

"Do I want higher water prices? Of course not," he said. "But I don't want to run out, either. One of these scenarios is a hardship. The other is a catastrophe."