THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 30, 1996 TAG: 9604300304
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: DECISION 96
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 104 lines
Lillie Taylor sees streets being repaved near her home. That wouldn't have happened without the 4-year-old ward system, she said.
``The city seems to be listening more now to the citizens,'' said Taylor, president of the Olde Huntersville civic league, a largely black neighborhood.
Thomas G. Johnson Jr., former School Board chairman, is not so sure. He see a City Council that argues more and is more fractured.
``You Balkanize the city, just the way the region is Balkanized,'' Johnson said of the ward system.
Almost four years after the switch to a ward system, City Council continues to change how it does business, to mixed reviews by citizens. It's a council that listens to citizens more, but, for better or worse, may be less likely to undertake ambitious projects like a Harbor Park, a Nauticus or a MacArthur Center.
Whatever happens in the May 7 election, the council that emerges will, for the first time, have a majority of members who will not be holdovers from the old at-large system.
For the moment, the council still gets grudging thumbs-ups from many neighborhood leaders who clamored for more power under the old at-large system, and business leaders who feared a ward system would divide the city.
``It's changed to a degree, but not to the degree people were afraid of,'' said John Roger, president of the Bayview Civic League. ``There was this fear that people would look out only for their ward. They seem to be working reasonably well together.''
``When you get the diversity you now see on council,'' it may take longer to develop a consensus, said Robert Stanton, president of the Greater Norfolk Corp., but ``that isn't necessarily bad; it just means that it will take longer to get there.''
The council has divided views on its performance under the ward system. Some say the council now has the best of both worlds, while others say the council is losing its distance from popular opinion which has helped the city's leadership.
The city split itself into wards five years ago, after it lost a lawsuit brought by the NAACP that charged that the city's at-large system effectively slighted black representation.
Councilmen W. Randy Wright and Paul R. Riddick, the first new council members elected under the new ward system in 1992. Councilman Herbert M. Collins, one of the defendants in the ward suit, was elected in 1994.
The changes that followed are seen in overall shifts in policy, such as the city devoting more personnel and resources to code enforcement and neighborhood upkeep, as well changes in style. The council has more citizen workshops, and gets more involved in the details of city administration.
In the past, Norfolk had the reputation for making decisions quickly and quietly. But this was, in part, because the city manager made many decisions without the direct involvement of council.
Now council meetings, once confined to a few hours in the afternoon, often take up a whole day.
``It's not so pretty now, it's not so neat. It's louder,'' said Mayor Paul D. Fraim. ``But we're more open. And it may take longer, but we still get a lot done.''
With its longer meetings and more public discussion, the council is beginning to resemble the councils of other cities in Hampton Roads, which are more public and more boisterous.
``We feel we want to be more of a part of the decision making,'' Collins said. ``We are questioning what the city manager is doing, more than we used to do. It's a direct result of the ward system.''
Some council members are not happy with a more populist City Council. The city administration has become more cautious, less efficient and the council less prone to taking risks, say some council members and community leaders.
Johnson, the former School Board chairman, wondered whether a ward-based council would undertake a decade-long project like renovating Maury and Granby high schools.
It would mean work in other wards would have to wait, Johnson noted.
Councilman Mason C. Andrews, a former mayor, said the increasing involvement of the council in the details of city adminstration sidetracks the council and wastes the time of city staffers.
Andrews, a 22-year-veteran of the council, says the city administration now spends its time doing things like calling council members at home and alerting them to news stories that will appear in the next day's editions.
``We get a phone call at 10 p.m. saying there will be a story on the Canadian Football League tomorrow,'' Andrews said. ``But not everyone wants to know that. That's not using people's time constructively.''
At risk is the council's capacity to move ahead with big projects in the face of public discontent, opposition or uncertainty, opponents of ward systems said.
Neighboring Virginia Beach officials have long envied Norfolk's willingness to tackle projects like Harbor Park or MacArthur Center mall despite heavy public opposition.
Virginia Beach, for example, dropped consideration of building a new ballpark for the Tides after scattered public opposition surfaced. Norfolk proceeded with its ballpark, despite a full-force petition campaign against it and Nauticus.
Collins, who helped organize the petition campaign against Harbor Park and Nauticus before his election to council, said he is personally unwilling to proceed with projects that the public dislikes.
``Some people feel like, `Hey, we were elected to do things, and if they don't like it, they can vote us out,''' Collins said. ``But that's not my approach.''
KEYWORDS: NORFOLK CITY COUNCIL RACE WARD SYSTEM by CNB