Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 19, 1993 TAG: 9311200271
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Because portions of the towns already are included in the county's seven election districts, town voters would be doubly represented, according to an interpretation by Roger C. Wiley Jr., a senior assistant attorney general in Richmond.
The Christiansburg seat, now held by David Moore, and the Blacksburg seat, occupied by board Chairman Roy Vickers, would have to become at-large positions per that view.
But Montgomery officials also have the option of reducing the size of the School Board from nine members to seven, though it is not required by state law.
If it remains at nine members, Vickers' seat would be up for election in 1995; Moore's appointment runs to 1997.
Both men have said they would like to run for the School Board in the future, though Vickers said this week he would not be interested in an at-large seat.
Other board members have either taken a wait-and-see approach or have said they are uninterested in running for an elected spot.
The towns have had representatives on the appointed School Board for decades. But with the approval of the elected board referendum this month, Montgomery voters will choose board members beginning in November 1995.
Though Wiley has discussed his interpretation publicly - at a seminar last month sponsored by the Local Government Attorneys Inc., for instance - there has been no formal, written legal opinion issued, said David Parsons, a spokesman for the attorney general's office.
But in U.S. Supreme Court decisions on election law, the principle of one man, one vote is the ``guiding light,'' Parsons said. There are several other jurisdictions in Virginia facing similar situations, he said.
Montgomery school officials, who see an apparent contradiction in the 1992 elected board law, also want to know exactly how and when the shift from appointed to elected board members will occur.
The School Board's part-time attorney, Kimberly Ritchie, has written the attorney general's office asking for a clarification of the law, Assistant Superintendent John Martin said Thursday.
One part of the law appears to dictate that the elected School Board seats will be filled in the same order as the Montgomery Board of Supervisors elections.
That would mean at least five seats would be up for election in 1995 (the four election districts plus an at-large seat), and at least four in 1997.
But under another reading of the law, three seats would be filled in 1995, and two each would be filled over the next three years. That would mean a fully elected board wouldn't be on line until January 1999.
In neighboring Roanoke County, meanwhile, the Board of Supervisors took steps Wednesday to place all five of its school board seats up for election in 1995, meaning a fully elected board could be seated as soon as January 1996.
by CNB