THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 2, 1996 TAG: 9605020429
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VANEE VINES, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Long : 130 lines
Four School Board candidates say they're running on a ``biracial ticket'' to show city voters that people of different races and backgrounds can work together for the good of the entire school district.
In a city where racial and neighborhood tension isn't far from the surface, numerous residents say the idea is a good one.
Still, others wonder whether it is all surface and no depth - a ploy to get more voters to cross racial lines on Election Day, only for the idea to be dropped when it comes to the real work of governing.
Sixteen candidates are vying for five open seats in the city's first School Board election on May 7.
Running on the ticket are: Challenger Douglas N. Eames, a PTA supporter and engineering and management services consultant; and incumbents James E. Bridgeford, Lawrence W. I'Anson Jr. and Louise G. ``Sis'' Walden.
Walden spearheaded the effort to form the ticket.
``The point that I want to make is that this city is not going to really move forward unless we come together and solve the problems together,'' she said.
``In my opinion, we still are at a crossroads where we don't trust each other,'' she added, referring to frequent tension among black and white residents, as well as the animosity some civic leagues have for the business community.
Bridgeford, the board's current vice chairman, said he hoped the initiative - the second of its kind in recent years - would send ``a message of unity'' to residents.
He also said he looked forward to the day when such efforts would not be seen as ``special'' in Portsmouth politics.
Helen Fooshe, a community leader and committee chairwoman of Portsmouth's ``Face to Face with Race'' study circles, said the four candidates deserve some credit for making the move at all.
The study circles, launched about two years ago, bring together city residents interested in discussing ways to improve understanding.
``It's always important to send a message that different people can work together,'' Fooshe said.
There were problems in getting the idea off the ground, however:
Some grassroots leaders who were invited to join the ticket feared their participation would put them in the pocket of a special interest, Walden said.
Walden, a Waterview resident and flower shop owner, is a member of the Portsmouth Committee - an influential political action committee that supports the ticket and contributed $1,000 to it.
She and other ticket members said they would remain independent thinkers and that they themselves would not always agree.
Some have criticized the ticket's makeup.
Walden is the only female and the only ticket member who doesn't live in Churchland.
Only Eames, 40, has kids in school.
He came to the incumbents' attention in part because he sought an endorsement from the Portsmouth Committee.
He pulled his three children out of private school nearly three years ago to enroll them in the district because, he said, he and his wife were impressed with a special program at Churchland Elementary.
All four candidates are middle-class and are involved in local politics or established community groups. I'Anson, for example, is president of the Beazley Foundation, one of Virginia's largest charitable organizations.
Bridgeford, a systems accountant for the Navy, is the only African American on the ticket; the others are white.
Those points have caused some to question the whole thing.
``It looks like there's a token black. . . . It just looks very shallow to me,'' said Valerie Williams, a mother of two city schoolchildren.
Walden said she envisioned a ticket with at least another woman, preferably a black woman.
But Bridgeford said they had trouble finding someone who blended well with the slate.
And it was hard, Walden said, to overcome the mistrust some prospective ticket members had of the idea.
Despite any shortcomings, the group thinks it poses a strong challenge, especially given the incumbents' 12 total years on the board.
Eames also said the ticket share ``core values.''
Its campaign literature promises to ``promote fiscal responsibility,'' ``strengthen community involvement with schools'' and support community elementary schools, which formed after Portsmouth ended its elementary school busing desegregation effort.
The community elementary schools plan became a reality this school year.
In March 1994, Bridgeford voted against it, as did all of the other black board members at that time. But he later announced that he had voted incorrectly and meant to vote for the plan.
The idea for a previous biracial ticket was born in the summer of 1989, in the aftermath of a City Council decision to appoint a sixth white member to the nine-member School Board.
The vote angered black residents, who sought racial balance, and civic activists, who saw the vote as the council's lack of responsiveness.
In 1990, the resulting two-man slate - former council member John H. Epperson, who is white, and current Vice Mayor Johnny M. Clemons, who is black - came together under an umbrella of discontent with the council.
Epperson said the experience taught him a valuable lesson after the two were elected.
``Unfortunately, many of the lobbying groups - black and white alike - had not yet come to the conclusion that lobbying the opposite-colored individual (on council) is a worthwhile effort,'' he said.
``So it's still going to require the cooperation of the general populace. The biracial ticket can spearhead that effort, but it's still up to the populace to decide to work together and to cooperate on issues that sometimes find themselves split along racial lines,'' Epperson said.
Walden remains optimistic.
She has spoken publicly - at a hearing and elsewhere - about the need for city residents to move beyond their differences.
She also spoke out against creating voting wards or districts for School Board elections when a small group of city residents, many of them black, urged the council last year to scrap its purely at-large voting system with the goal of improving racial and neighborhood diversity on the board.
The U.S. Justice Department ultimately approved Portsmouth's at-large plan.
``We simply have to remind residents that it's possible for different people from different backgrounds to come together and work together and find common ground,'' Walden said, referring to the biracial School Board ticket.
``We just have to work at it.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
James E. Bridgeford
Douglas N. Eames
Lawrence W. I'Anson Jr.
Louise G. ``Sis'' Walden
KEYWORDS: PORTSMOUTH SCHOOL BOARD RACE CANDIDATE by CNB