06/30/11: A continuous struggle

This op-ed appeared in The Virginian-Pilot on the date shown.

IT WAS NOT a surprise that the Norfolk City Council voted Tuesday night to maintain the status quo.

The entire pace of the redistricting conversation has been rushed, based on the fact that the two superwards are up for election in May. The council could have adopted a plan that affected just those two wards, especially since any change in the five small wards in the city would not go into effect until the elections in May 2014. That option never seemed to be on the table.

But there was a glimmer of hope for those of us who support a different way of determining how our representatives are chosen. The council is planning to take up the issue at its retreat in September. The very best that could happen is for council members to start the process by appointing an independent commission — with no elected representatives on it — to study the alternatives and recommend the best way for the council to be elected. Any changes to the current structure will take a couple of years to be approved and implemented.

That the process is neither fast nor easy should not discourage us. “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability,” Martin Luther King Jr. said, “but comes through continuous struggle.”

A number of times during Tuesday’s council sessions, the conversation turned to the direct election of the mayor. While there was more than a little bit of revisionist history given, the facts show that it took a number of years to get there: The commission to study the issue was appointed in May 1997. In November 2000, the voters overwhelmingly endorsed the idea in a nonbinding referendum, with more than 82 percent voting in favor. In 2006, voters finally got the opportunity to directly elect the mayor.

The holdup the entire time was the Norfolk City Council. Some of those who blocked progress then remain on the council today. Fortunately, some of the most ardent opponents of an elected mayor, including those who drafted the current eight-member council plan, are no longer there.

Norfolk should not wait nine years to review and change its method of electing its representatives. But the only way it won’t is if the citizens of Norfolk, some of whom showed up Tuesday night, stay involved.

By my reckoning, the process shouldn’t take more than two years. The council could appoint the independent commission this fall and give them six months to study the options, gather citizen input and make recommendations.

Next summer and fall, the council could hold public hearings on the options, with a council vote scheduled late in the year. A request for a charter change could then be presented to the General Assembly in its 2013 session.

After that approval, the plan could be submitted to the Justice Department, which generally acts on it within 60 days.

Our 2014 council elections could then be held under a revised plan.

This timeline is not overly ambitious. Once the council decided to go with the current eight-member council plan, it was approved by the General Assembly in its 2005 session, and Justice Department approval was received in August of that year. Nine months later, in May 2006, we elected our first mayor since 1912.

It won’t happen, though, unless we hold the council’s feet to the fire. Those who participated in getting an elected mayor in Norfolk understand that change is a continuous struggle. This will be no different. But the benefit to Norfolk and our future makes it a worthy one.