“Courtney Lynch is fighting against our community side by side with Levar Stoney,” one mailer reads.

Another mailer reads, “Henrico County deserves someone that will work for us, not liberal Mayor Levar Stoney.”

In July, the top administrative officials from Richmond, Henrico, Chesterfield County and Hanover County penned an editorial published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch championing their support of working together on a range of issues like education and public safety. On Thursday, the four localities are holding a summit on dealing with the opioid crisis.

Lynch, a co-owner of a leadership development consulting firm, took exception with the mailers in a news release last week, in which she called on Witte to renounce and apologize for the “mean-spirited” campaign literature. “This dog whistle hearkens back to a time when people tried to divide us,” Lynch said in the release.

“This is just one more example of the divisive rhetoric that made me want to run,” Lynch said in an interview. “We can do better.”

Mike Doerr, the director of Stoney’s political action committee, One Richmond, said it was offensive to suggest that Stoney and Lynch do not value hard work.