THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 17, 1994 TAG: 9409170376
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Short : 40 lines
Richmonders will vote next fall on whether to change the way the city's mayor is chosen from selection among City Council members to a citywide election.
The City Council also voted Thursday night to hold a referendum in November 1995 on doubling the length of council members' terms to four years.
The votes to approve the referendums followed impassioned arguments tying the way the mayor is chosen to representation of the city's black population.
The Rev. Robert Taylor, the retired pastor of the Fourth Baptist Church, opposed the mayoral referendum. He said it would lead to ``the unraveling of 300 years of progress'' for blacks.
Richmond never had a black mayor until the federal government forced the city to begin using the ward system in 1977. That was shortly after the city annexed a section of Chesterfield County in what some saw as a move to dilute black voting strength.
After the following election, the City Council had a black majority for the first time and that council elected a black mayor.
``I predict a return to the former state,'' Taylor said. He looked at Mayor Leonidas B. Young, who is black, and said, ``You sit in that seat today because of this system.''
Other speakers disagreed. One man said people who take the time to vote - black or white - deserve to elect the mayor.
Councilman Timothy M. Kaine noted that L. Douglas Wilder, who is black, was elected governor of Virginia in 1989 even though the state's population is only 20 percent black.
KEYWORDS: REFERENDUM RICHMOND by CNB