THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 1, 1996 TAG: 9603010455
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
A citizens group launched a campaign Thursday against a ballot proposal that would change the city's election system from at-large to ward-based.
The 75-member group, calling itself Citizens for Accountable Government, said the current system of government - where all 11 City Council and School Board members are elected at-large - provides more accountability than would a system allowing voters to choose only four at-large and one district representative for each body.
``Their voice will be severely diluted if they vote for a ward system,'' Citizens for Accountable Government member Edward R. Bourdon Jr. said Thursday.
The group also argues that a ward system, in which seven council members would be focused primarily on their boroughs, would encourage parochialism and disrupt the current council's spirit of cooperation.
``I can't see the Virginia Beach Borough representative and the Kempsville Borough representative agreeing on anything,'' said Garland Isdell, a former Kempsville Borough council member and past president of the Council of Civic Organizations, who attended Thursday's news conference.
This is the second time voters will consider whether to change the system of electing School Board and City Council members.
In 1994, after the council failed to address its concerns, a handful of citizen-activists led a petition drive to put the ward issue on the ballot.
Voters narrowly approved the proposal, as did a 6-5 majority of the City Council. The measure called for a modified ward-system and equalizing the populations of the city's seven boroughs.
But because of the closeness of the votes, the General Assembly decided last year to require another ballot question just on the ward system.
The legislature concluded that voters did not need to reconsider equalization, and ordered the council to balance the seven boroughs, which range in population from under 1,000 to nearly 150,000.
Last month, the council approved a new voting district map, to take effect in 1998, that provides seven districts with about 56,000 residents each.
Members of Citizens for Electoral Reform, the group fighting for a new system, believes borough representatives will be more responsive to residents of their district if they are elected only by those residents. Group members started their challenge of the present system four years ago, when a candidate they supported garnered a majority of the votes in the Lynnhaven Borough, but lost the council seat because he failed to capture a majority of votes citywide.
The ballot question voters will consider May 7 is worded so that those who want to keep the present at-large system should vote ``yes'' and those who prefer a change must vote ``no.'' by CNB