DATE: Wednesday, May 7, 1997                TAG: 9705060230

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: PUBLIC LIFE 

SOURCE:    - Jon Glass

                                            LENGTH:   41 lines

UPDATE

On Feb. 4, the City Council announced plans to appoint a blue-ribbon committee to study whether Norfolk should have a popularly elected mayor. Mayor Paul D. Fraim said the committee probably would meet by mid-April. It's May, and the panel is not yet in place. What's happening?

The City Council is 10 days to two weeks away from announcing the members of a 15-member committee that will recommend whether Norfolk residents should elect their mayor, council members said.

Each of the seven council members has selected two people to serve, and the council has reached consensus on a 15th member who will be chairman of the panel.

Fraim said the council has discussed the matter several times in closed session since February and has reached agreement on the membership. Council members say they are waiting on city staff to draw up a mission statement to guide the committee before publicly voting on the panel's makeup and releasing the names of the members.

Council members say the pace has been slowed by a heavy workload, not by a reluctance to tackle the issue of an elected mayor.

``There's never been any question that it would take place,'' said Vice Mayor Herbert M. Collins Sr. ``Our plate has just been so full.''

Norfolk's mayor now is selected by fellow council members and therefore cannot claim a citywide mandate, critics of the system argue.

But the city may have to overcome legal hurdles before a mayor is elected at-large. A lawsuit in the late 1980s forced the city to abandon its at-large method of electing council members in favor of a ward system on grounds that the at-large system diluted the votes of black residents.

Collins, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the at-large issue will be studied carefully. He said his two appointees to the 15-member panel were fellow plaintiffs in the ward lawsuit and will be sensitive to the at-large issue.

The General Assembly and the U.S. Justice Department would have to endorse a change to an elected mayor.

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