THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 9, 1996 TAG: 9605090017
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
On Tuesday, voters in South Hampton Roads chose mayors and city-council and school-board members. Their most-questionable decisions were those returning to power former Portsmouth Mayor James W. Holley III, electing sitting Virginia Beach School Board member Don Bennis and placing John Riddick Sr. on the Suffolk School Board.
Holley was recalled from office in 1987 under a well-deserved cloud of suspicion, but apparently all was forgiven - or at least forgotten - on Tuesday. His return could be a blow to the progress Portsmouth has made under Mayor Gloria Webb, since Holley is less enthusiastic than she about the city's Vision 2005 plan for development. But Holley will have to work with a strong City Council whose members favor such initiatives.
Bennis is a knowledgeable, serious board member who made a major error in judgment by voting to reinstate budget officer Mordecai Smith. Voters were prepared to overlook that lapse, so Bennis, who was the beneficiary of combined efforts by Virginia Beach teachers and Democrats, will continue to serve. In the future, he must prove himself less willing to go along and more willing to ask hard questions of school administrators.
Riddick is a sincere man, but he can't match the educational knowledge and experience of the man he'll replace, Arthur D. Smith. But Smith failed to turn out the votes. That's politics.
On the plus side, Beach voters resisted the temptation to install zealots or partisans in an attempt to get the School Board back on track. The winners in contested races - Neil Rose, Rosemary Wilson, Nancy Guy and H.L. Powell - are responsible, informed, moderate people who can be trusted to oversee a new school administration without pursuing an ideological agenda.
In Chesapeake, voters also chose moderation over hard-edged partisanship by replacing Robert Nance on council with Elizabeth Thornton and by retaining Mayor William Ward. The same could be said of the re-election to Norfolk City Council of the estimable Mason Andrews. Daun Hester, who will join him, was also a choice for continuity and enlightened development.
Though we haven't favored elected school boards, we believe voters in both Chesapeake and Portsmouth chose fine candidates from slates rich in qualified candidates.
Finally, the theme of moderation also prevailed in the Virginia Beach referendum on creating wards. By a huge 2-to-1 margin, voters rejected an idea that could have led to more division and factionalism.
Our appreciation for the good sense of voters is tempered by our disappointment in their numbers. After all the highly publicized travail in Virginia Beach regarding its School Board, a mere 27 percent of registered voters turned out. In crowded races, it was possible for a candidate to win a seat by attracting as little as 5 percent of eligible voters.
Low turnout was also the norm in other cities with the exception of Portsmouth, where a somewhat respectable 47 percent of voters went to the polls. So little interest in important elections is disturbing. Democracy is not in robust health when less than a third of us avail ourselves of its most fundamental right. by CNB