THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 2, 1994 TAG: 9406020466
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH THIEL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940602 LENGTH: VIRGINIA BEACH
John T. Early Jr. alleges in a suit filed Tuesday against the Virginia Beach teachers association and the six candidates it endorsed that the May 3 election was skewed when the association and its candidates did not properly report campaign expenditures. The association's candidates swept the elections after a heated four-month race.
{REST} Early states in his suit that the candidates should have reported more than $14,000 the Virginia Beach Education Association spent for television advertisements on their behalf in the last few days before the election. He also asserts that the VBEA and the candidates should have reported the cost of producing a 10-minute videotape that promoted the candidates, which was distributed to association members and to some teachers who work in other cities but live in Virginia Beach.
Failure to disclose the expenditures ``denied the electorate access to important information vital to the process of democratic decision-making,'' the suit states.
Early is appealing for a new vote on the basis of a state law that says that if something or someone is found to have had a ``probable impact'' on an election, the election can be declared invalid.
Circuit Court Clerk J. Curtis Fruit, who has worked in the courts since 1964, said it is the first time in the city's 31-year history that a local election has been contested.
State law requires that a panel, consisting of the chief judge of the city Circuit Court and two other judges from outside the area appointed by the chief justice of the Virginia Supreme Court, hear Early's complaint. The law also requires that the complaint be put ahead of all the other business on the court's docket.
Commonwealth's Attorney Robert J. Humphreys, who conducted an inquiry into Early's complaints last month but found only minor campaign violations, said that even if more violations were uncovered, he doubts they would be grounds for voiding the election.
``What if they had reported it?'' he said. ``Does that mean the election results would have been different? Now you're getting into speculation.
``Judges don't like to set aside the results of an election. They like to let the people speak.''
Humphreys has said that with one exception, the association's six candidates - Ulysses Van Spiva, Charles W. Vincent, Elsie M. Barnes, Tim Jackson, James R. Darden and June Turner Kernutt - did not have to report as contributions the money the association spent on the promotional video and television and newspaper advertisements.
He did order Darden, Jackson and Kernutt to report the cost of one television advertisement because, to satisfy the station's political advertisement rules, they had contributed $1 each to its cost.
Spiva, Barnes and Jackson could not be reached for comment. But Kernutt, Darden and Vincent said they were surprised by Early's suit and did not think they had done anything improper.
``At this point, as far as I know, I'm in full legal compliance. I tried to run an honest, clean campaign,'' Vincent said.
``Mr. Early requested their (the association's) endorsement, the same as the rest of us did,'' Kernutt said. ``And he didn't get it. His problem is probably with them.''
{KEYWORDS} VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOL BOARD RACE CAMPAIGN FINANCES VIRGINIA BEACH EDUCATION ASSOCIATION CANDIDATE WINNER
by CNB