Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 8, 1991 TAG: 9102080798
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium
"Any plan short of pure wards will be fought just as hard" as the ward plan was resisted by its opponents, Herbert M. Collins said Wednesday night at a public hearing on the voting dispute.
Only about 120 people turned out for the hearing on the 7 1/2-year-old legal battle to replace Norfolk's at-large voting system. Thirty-four speakers gave their views on how the new City Council should be designed.
Some of the speakers advocated keeping one or more seats as at-large positions, while others said they would be satisfied only with a council elected entirely from geographic wards.
Also in dispute was whether the council should continue to have seven members and whether the mayor should be chosen by the council, as is the case now, or elected directly by voters.
"Our sister cities of Virginia Beach and Portsmouth directly elect their mayors, and it is my belief that a majority of the citizens of Norfolk would welcome the same opportunity," said City Treasurer Joseph T. Fitzpatrick.
Barry Bishop, an Ocean View resident, said if the city is going to adopt a ward system, someone like the mayor should run on a citywide basis.
"For the ward system to work for all of us, we need to have someone on City Council that is accountable to all the citizens of Norfolk," Bishop said.
But other speakers joined Collins in insisting that any at-large seats on the council would merely extend the legal fight that has cost Norfolk taxpayers at least $700,000.
"The thrust of this case is that any at-large voting dilutes the minority voting strength," said James F. Gay, former head of the Norfolk branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "We didn't go all the way to the Supreme Court to get that ruling, only to have you say, `Well, one at-large would be OK."'
The lawsuit was filed in 1983 and went up and down the federal court system three times before the Supreme Court refused to hear a city appeal in the case last October.
That decision upheld a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the city be carved into wards to elect the council. The court left the details of the system to the city, which has about two months left to submit a plan to the U.S. Justice Department.
by CNB