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When Kathy Cohen talks about why she's running for Roanoke City Council, she doesn't start with policy. She starts with family.

Cohen's grandparents were immigrants who arrived in the United States as teenagers, with no chance to attend school. Her parents grew up in poverty as a result. Her father served in the Korean War; her mother became a schoolteacher. "I know how hard that struggle is," Cohen said, "and I know that Council can help give people a hand up."

Cohen is running as an independent. "Schools, public safety and jobs aren't partisan issues," she said. "Roanoke deserves council members who answer to residents, not to a party."

She chose Roanoke as an adult, drawn by the beauty of the Blue Ridge and the warmth of its people. "I picked this place on purpose," she said. "I want to protect what makes it special while making sure it works for everyone."

Fair, consistent funding for schools

Cohen's first priority is restoring fair and consistent funding for Roanoke's public schools. She sees a new source of funding on the horizon. Legal retail sales of recreational cannabis begin in Virginia in July 2027, and Cohen would dedicate the city's local cannabis tax revenue, which could reach a little less than $1 million a year, solely to the schools. Statewide, cannabis sales are expected to generate an estimated $51 million in their first year, with education among the main beneficiaries.

"It's not everything we need, but it's a beginning," Cohen said. "When that revenue comes, our children should be first in line. Beyond that, we have to look carefully at our priorities and decide, among all of the city's pressing needs, where we place our children. I believe they belong at the top."

Reducing violent crime: a proven track record

On public safety, Cohen isn't running on promises alone. She has served on Roanoke's Gun Violence Prevention Commission, including as its chair, during a period when the city turned the tide on violence.

In 2023, Roanoke saw record levels of gun violence. Since then, the numbers have dropped sharply. City leaders have reported that gun-related homicides have fallen by about 65 percent and gun-related injuries by about 55 percent since 2023, and the police department's 2025 report showed overall crime down 13 percent.

Cohen credits that progress to a combination of prevention, intervention and partnership between police and neighborhoods. Through her commission work, she has been closely involved with the city's Gun Violence Intervention program and the Youth and Gang Violence Street Team, which work with residents considered at risk of gun violence, helping them build life skills and hope for a better future.

"That progress didn't happen by accident, and it isn't finished," Cohen said. "Every family in every neighborhood deserves to feel safe. I know what works because I've been in the room doing it, and I want to bring that experience to council so we keep these numbers going down."

Flock cameras: a conclusion reached carefully

Cohen strongly opposes the city's use of Flock license plate cameras and the related Raven gunshot-detection microphones. But she is quick to say she didn't arrive at that position lightly, or by following the crowd.

"This was not an easy decision for me, and I didn't just jump on the bandwagon," she said. "I read the research on both sides, I talked with people who support the cameras and people who oppose them, and I weighed it against everything I've learned about gun violence in this city."

That deliberation was real, because Cohen understands the case for the cameras better than most. As chair of the Gun Violence Prevention Commission, she has seen the deep trauma gun violence causes victims' families, the families of those who commit it and the whole community. She knows that a relatively small group of repeat offenders is responsible for most of the city's violent crime. She acknowledges that the cameras have helped solve several violent crimes, and she has full confidence in the integrity of Police Chief Scott Booth.

"I fully support the Roanoke Police Department, but these cameras do a lot more than read license plates," she said. "They put us dangerously close to a surveillance state. Strong legislation that includes severe deterrents and penalties for misuse must be adopted before these cameras should even be considered for use in our city."

Her central concern is that the technology has far outpaced the law. Without clear legal limits, she says, the data collected on Roanoke residents could be used in ways most people here would never support, such as federal immigration enforcement tracking law-abiding residents. Other communities that adopted Flock cameras have already pulled back, citing cost or the potential for misuse.

"Our police chief may use this information responsibly, but our protections can't depend on who happens to be in charge," Cohen said. "Once a system like this is in place, it is very hard to pull back."

Cohen has pushed for state action. She sent Delegate Sam Rasoul and Senator David Suetterlein a copy of a Washington State law regulating this kind of surveillance and asked them to consider adapting it for Virginia.

Housing: a real plan instead of a passive wish

Cohen lives in a duplex in a mixed-use neighborhood of single-family homes, row houses, duplexes and triplexes, and she loves it. She would like to see more of that kind of housing in Roanoke. But she does not believe the mass rezoning amendment City Council passed in 2024 will solve the city's housing crisis.

According to the city's planning director, the amendment produced only about 45 new housing units in its first two years, roughly half of what the city projected when it was adopted. Cohen notes that very few of those units are truly affordable, since they are sold or rented at market prices. "At that pace, it would take well over 100 years to make a real dent in our shortage or put any downward pressure on rents," she said. "Mass rezoning is not a plan. It is little more than a passive wish."

Instead, Cohen points to what she calls the real opportunity: Roanoke's many vacant, dilapidated and blighted homes. With more than 4,000 families on the Housing Authority's waiting list for housing vouchers, she proposes public-private partnerships and full funding of the Land Bank to rehabilitate or rebuild those properties as safe, attractive homes, converting larger lots to duplexes or triplexes. Some properties could be set aside for small, local builders trying to break into a market dominated by large companies. She would also rezone selected parcels for small, energy-efficient homes suited to first-time buyers and people looking to downsize.

The result, she says, would be more housing, a larger tax base, more beautiful neighborhoods and less crime in areas that have struggled with it.

She sees reasons for optimism in projects already underway, including The Foundry in the Norwich neighborhood, which is turning an abandoned 12.5-acre industrial site into 275 homes, and the Riverdale revitalization, which will add about 375 units, including roughly 80 affordable live/work spaces for artists. Combined with a serious plan for blighted properties, she believes the city could come close to meeting its housing needs by 2040.

Cohen would also push for a streamlined, one-stop permitting and licensing system. "Time is money," she said. "When projects are delayed for months by our review process, those costs get passed on to the people who live there. We should be a city where builders are eager to build, not one buried in red tape."

A new vision for the Berglund Center

Cohen's economic agenda includes a bold idea: reimagining the Berglund Center as a state-of-the-art indoor sports complex. Such a facility, she says, could draw regional and national tournaments that bring tens of millions of dollars in visitor spending into local hotels, restaurants and shops, while remaining open for residents to use year-round.

Cohen offers it as an alternative to a casino, one that would turn a property in the heart of the city from a financial burden into a moneymaker. She points to research showing these complexes can generate as much economic activity as a casino, and in some cases more. "It's a much better fit for Roanoke," she said. "It brings families here, it builds on our identity as an active, outdoor city, and our own residents get to use it too."

But her larger point is about how the decision gets made. "I propose this only to show that there are other great uses for this land that haven't been considered," she said. "Rather than putting tens of millions of dollars into a failing building that regularly needs city tax money to stay afloat, we need a real plan that the majority of the public stands behind, not one decided in secrecy after the signing of NDAs."

Data centers: protect the environment first

As data center developers look at Southwest Virginia, Cohen's position is clear: data centers only after we know they can be built correctly.

"Our environment must be protected first," she said. "It is our life source, and it is one of the main drivers of our economy. Our rivers, mountains, greenways and trails are why people visit, why businesses locate here and why so many of us chose to live here."

Cohen wants strong state and local legislation in place to protect land, water, air and energy supplies before any project moves forward. She points to examples from around the world showing that data centers can be built differently. In Helsinki, Finland, a data center operates in a former bomb shelter carved into bedrock beneath the Uspenski Cathedral; it is cooled with cold seawater, and its waste heat is piped into the city's district heating system to warm homes. In China, companies have placed data centers on the seafloor off Hainan Province and off the coast of Shanghai, where they are cooled by seawater and powered in part by offshore wind.

"Those projects show what's possible when the environment comes first in the design," Cohen said. "If a data center can't be built in a way that protects our water, our land and our quality of life, it shouldn't be built here."

Civility: a requirement, not a nicety

Underlying all of Cohen's positions is a conviction about how city leaders should treat one another and the people they serve.

She describes Roanoke as a place where kindness is genuine, where "have a good day" is meant sincerely and where travelers at the airport tell each other to "please go ahead." Over the years she has met with state and federal representatives, often to disagree with them, and says she always left feeling heard. But in recent years, she says, she has watched the baseline of civility in city politics decline.

She cites specific examples. A former council member has revived a claim that the Gun Violence Prevention Commission misused a $1.5 million grant. An audit found no misuse of the funds and recommended only administrative improvements. She has also watched a sitting council member publicly deride a resident for holding a different view on zoning reform, and press a city staff member in an intimidating way to agree with the council member's position.

The housing debate, she says, has been especially bitter. "Calling neighbors racists, or dismissing them as 'white boomers,' because they disagree about a zoning amendment only fractures our city further," she said. "We won't solve our housing crisis by insulting each other."

"Civility in our top leadership should be a requirement for public office," Cohen said. "When leaders manipulate the truth for political gain, or call people names to shame them, voters should make clear that is not the kind of leader our city needs. We deserve mature, thoughtful adults on the dais who can learn from opposing views, disagree without malice and lose a vote with grace."

She tells one more story. Recently, while walking downtown and looking at her phone, she tripped and scattered a stack of papers across the sidewalk. An unhoused man rushed over to help her gather them. When she thanked him, he answered, "Aren't we all here to help each other?"

"That's Roanoke," she said. "If we want our city to be inviting, our leaders have to show those same values: genuine warmth, true kindness and absolute civility."

Broad support

Cohen has drawn endorsements from former mayor Nelson Harris, former vice mayor Court Rosen, former council members Bill Bestpitch and Anita Price, Reverend David Jones, the Business Leadership Fund, and VOICe, the Valley Outdoor Infrastructure Committee, along with community members including Dr. Robert Trestman, Dr. Angela Venuto-Ashton, Dawn Erdman, C.W. Markham, John and Robert Lichtenstein, Ann and Bill Hackworth, and Katie and John Zawacki.

"When people who've led this city and people who simply love living here both say, 'She'll listen,' that means a lot," she said.

Cohen says she'll spend the final weeks of the campaign meeting residents in every part of the city. "I want to hear what's working and what isn't, directly from the people who live with it every day," she said.

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3. Learn more at kathycohenforroanoke.com