Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 12, 1994 TAG: 9409130005
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Then-Councilman Bowers proposed his own modified ward plan in 1991 and criticized his colleagues' reluctance to move on the issue. He suggested publicly that "political expediency" was behind council's inaction.
"To leave the [at-large] system as it is is to ignore the fact that all life is change and democracy is a never-ending evolutionary process," Bowers told the Southeast Action Forum, an umbrella organization of community groups in Southeast Roanoke.
Now, with the question of district elections on council's agenda tonight, Bowers says he has re-evaluated his position. While supporting a referendum on the subject, the mayor is voicing doubts about whether a change would be wise.
"On this issue, I'm having second thoughts - not about holding a referendum, but about whether or not [a ward or modified-ward system] is the best thing for Roanoke," Bowers said Friday.
The switch has some ward-system proponents complaining that the mayor has betrayed them. It also has left him facing some of the same criticisms he has leveled at opponents of change in the past.
"That's [Bowers'] nature anyway, to flip-flop. Whatever is to his advantage, that's the way he goes," said the Rev. Charles Green, president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
"I think he was playing to the interests of our community [in 1991]," said Evangeline Jeffrey, past president of the NAACP. "I think it was politically expedient at the time. We're concerned any time someone tries to use our community. Unfortunately, that continues to happen."
Bowers argues that support for changing the electoral system has waned since 1991. Recent council elections have spread the body's members out over three of the city's four geographic quadrants, cut across racial and socioeconomic lines and left council much more broad-based than it was in the past, he said.
"I have not detected in the last month or so a groundswell of support for a change in the at-large system as I have detected in previous years when the issue has come up," he said. ``The bottom line is, I think I've been consistent in pledging to support a referendum, and I think the votes are there for a referendum.''
The mayor also said he is concerned that minorities could lose representation under a modified ward system, an argument Green has labeled bogus.
The issue has been debated in Roanoke for years. The most recent attempt to draw district boundaries, in 1992, was defeated on a 5-2 vote that affirmed the at-large system.
In a ward system, all council members would be chosen by districts. In a modified ward or mixed electoral plan, some members would be elected by wards, and some would be chosen at large.
In the present at-large system, there are no defined election districts, and voters can cast ballots in all council races. Winners represent the entire city.
Traditionally the issue has arisen in white-majority cities where an at-large system has worked to shut minorities out of public office. A white majority, voting as a bloc for only white candidates, easily can overwhelm black candidates.
Such voting patterns have forced court-ordered changes to electoral systems in many cities across the South, including some in Virginia.
But in Roanoke, the issue does not center on race. At least since 1970, blacks have held public office here in close proportion to their voting strength.
In fact, the current council has two black members who were elected at large: Delvis ``Mac'' McCadden and William White. They make up 28.6 percent of council, while registered black voters constitute only 21.8 percent of the electorate.
Rather, the discussion centers on equal representation for all geographic parts of the city and the opportunity for residents to run for office.
For decades, nobody has been elected from the city's largely white, blue-collar Southeast quadrant, about which the area's residents complained loudly during a July council meeting.
They want their own council member, someone who will represent their interests in city government and whom they can hold accountable. The at-large system allows elected officeholders to slough off responsibility, they argued at the hearing.
Not all Southeast residents are clamoring for change, however. Dale Allen, a past president of Southeast Action Forum, supports the at-large system.
Allen predicted that district elections would lead to bickering and infighting among council members out only for their piece of electoral turf.
"If you draw a line in the sand and say, `This is where my interest is, and I don't give a damn about the guys across the street' ... you turn neighbor against neighbor, and you've got a problem. You get Chicago-style politics in small towns, where there's not that much of the pie to cut up in the first place," he said.
Another argument in favor of wards is that running for office is far less expensive, said Gary Waldo, a key organizer of the Progressive Democratic Coalition. The loosely knit umbrella group of liberal Democratic blacks, gays and union members rose in prominence with the recent elections of coalition-backed Linda Wyatt and John Edwards to council and Marsha Compton Fielder as commissioner of revenue.
Council candidates ``don't have to buy radio and TV time," Waldo said. ``It opens up the political process to more people, particularly those who can't raise funds - people of average means who in a ward system will have to run only in a limited area of the city.''
Allen, however, said he does not buy that argument. Anyone who targets one area, knocks on doors and talks to enough church, community and civic groups can develop the voting base to win office in a citywide election, he said.
"It doesn't cost that much - except time," Allen said.
He thinks Bowers has softened his hard-line pro-ward system stance because the mayor "has seen the light."
Waldo, however, said Bowers is exposing himself to significant political risk. A large proportion of the mayor's support in his winning 1992 election bid came from "north of the tracks," the very constituency the mayor may be alienating now, Waldo warned.
"I think that a lot of people who helped elect David Bowers in 1992 are concerned about the drift he's taken, especially in his support for the modified-ward system," Waldo said. ``A lot of the people who brought him to power in 1992, they fear that he's not necessarily sold out, but that he's forgotten who his friends really are.''
Bowers responded: "My concern is first that the Democratic Party, to which I have been loyal come hell or high water, put forth the best candidate possible in 1996. My second concern is that the people of Roanoke have the best man or woman be their mayor."
by CNB