THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 13, 1995 TAG: 9502100031
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
The hardy citizens who have been working nearly five years for electoral reform in Virginia Beach are now at the last hurdle - the Virginia Senate.
Any changes in the electoral system will have to pass Department of Justice review, but city-government experts who were hired by the city in 1993 indicated that the balanced/district system (seven equal population districts, each electing its own councilperson, plus four councilpersons, including the mayor, elected at large) would pass Justice Department muster.
The issue came to light with the 1990 census, which showed borough-population disparity as great as 144,903 in one borough, 966 in another. A Mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee prepared a reform plan that was presented to City Council at least five times, but it always fell on deaf ears.
When the citizen group saw that City Council would not act, it initiated a petition on Sept. 20, 1993. The group cleared the first hurdle by acquiring 22,759 registered-voter signatures by March 1, 1994, on a petition calling for a referendum. Nearly 28,000 signatures were obtained overall.
The second hurdle was cleared when a majority of voters approved the referendum issue of May 3, 21,108 to 18,922.
City Council voted Oct. 25 to ask the General Assembly to change the city's charter to the balanced-district system for the third hurdle.
The fourth hurdle was the House of Delegates' Cities, Counties and Towns committee, where Del. Bob Tata introduced the issue in the form of House Bill 1593. It passed there with a unanimous vote of 20-0.
On Jan. 25, it came before the House of Delegates - proponents were Bob Tata, Bob McDonnell, Howard Copeland and Shirley Cooper of Yorktown. It won by a vote of 69-29 to clear the fifth hurdle.
Now it comes to the sixth hurdle - the Senate Local Government Committee, where it will be heard at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 14, in Senate Room B.
Virginia Beach citizens interested in seeing the integrity and finality of the ballot box honored should be there.
MAURICE B. JACKSON
Virginia Beach, Feb. 9, 1995 by CNB