Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, September 16, 1994                   TAG: 9409160057
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MODIFIED WARD CAUSE STILL KICKING

"If [Mayor David Bowers] thinks the thing is dead, he is sadly mistaken," vowed the Rev. Charles Green, president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

"We're going to work much harder now than we have in the past. ... You can put a referendum in any election except a primary. And there's a general election next year," Green said.

But City Attorney Wilburn Dibling said state law allows only a few subjects to be petitioned to referendum by voters. Changes to city council elections is not one of them, he said.

Green said he believes the law was changed this year and now allows voters to put the question on the ballot through petition. The NAACP is seeking a legal opinion on it, he added.

Three people at Monday's hearing advocated changing the city's election system, while four opposed it. After the meeting, Bowers noted the scarcity of proponents and said council would take the question "under advisement," a polite way to call it a dead issue. Councilman William White said it is "in limbo."

Green said he and others who asked for a modified ward system at a July 11 council meeting intentionally boycotted the hearing.

"The reason we did not show up is we had inside information" that council would do nothing, he said. "They think it's dead, but it's not dead by any stretch of the imagination."

Of the six council members present Monday night, only Linda Wyatt spoke in support of of changing the system.

"Only one person on the City Council had the decency to stand up for what [candidates] promised during the election, Linda Wyatt. The rest of them flip-flopped," Green said.

A majority of the current council - Bowers, Wyatt, White, Jack Parrott and John Edwards - has publicly supported putting the issue to referendum. But perplexingly, another majority - Parrott, White, Delvis "Mac" McCadden and Elizabeth Bowles - oppose tampering with the at-large system. Bowers recently has indicated that he also believes change would be unwise.

In the at-large electoral system, there are no defined election districts and all voters can cast ballots in all council races. Winners represent the entire city, rather than only one geographical part.

In a ward system, all council members would be chosen by districts. In a modified ward plan, some members would be elected by wards and others at-large.

The U.S. Justice Department has forced ward systems upon white-majority cities across the South where at-large systems stymied minorities seeking election.

That hasn't happened in Roanoke, where two of council's seven members are black. McCadden and White make up 28.6 percent of the body, while the percentage of voting-age blacks in the city is 21.8 percent.

The discussion generally centers on equal representation for all geographic parts of the city and the possibility for residents to run for office.

"The only way you can have representation is to have a district system. At-large [council members] are accountable to nobody," Green said.

But opponents of changing the system have argued it will create gridlock on council by pitting council members who represent defined turf against each other.