Ed. — From the Sunday, Nov. 28, print edition.
BACK BAY — I’ve written in this space about the lack of local media coverage of significant changes to the local voting system in Virginia Beach, particularly over the past year, largely due to the diminished newsroom of The Virginian-Pilot under corporate ownership that is taking its marching orders from a hedge fund.
This is largely my reasoning for focusing the resources of The Independent News toward writing about those changes. We cannot replace what The Pilot has lost, but we can try to fill some of that void by focusing on news that has a clear and compelling public interest for our city.
So my plan for the coming year is to continue that strategy in these pages, especially as we near the likely implementation of a 10-district voting system that will profoundly change how we select our local leaders here.
There is a ticking clock, too.
City Council and School Board elections are scheduled for next year, and we do not yet know exactly what they will look like. It’s a big deal for voters, of course, and it’s also important for the folks who might seek office.
Our political subdivisions are not yet known only a couple months before people start the process of getting on the November 2022 ballot. Knowing what district you might run in is the sort of thing that helps people do that.
The Holloway v. Virginia Beach lawsuit – and the pending appeals process, which, as I write this in late November, is on hold until U.S. District Court Judge Raymond A. Jackson issues a final decision – deals with City Council elections. But any resulting system will also change the way we select the members of the School Board.
School Board elections correspond with how we select members of the council, though the board chairperson is selected by School Board members from among their ranks, unlike our mayor, who is directly elected by the people.
Both bodies have 11 members, which means a 10-ward system will complicate how the School Board would mirror council elections when we likely go to 10 districts rather than a mix of at-large seats and seven district seats.
This, folks, is just one of the many ways mathematics matters in real life.
This past week, I spoke briefly with School Board Chairperson Carolyn Rye for a news story about the proposed system. Rye told me schools officials are in discussions about potential impacts of the litigation, though the board is not a party in the suit and any predictions are just speculation because the judge has not said what the system will be.
“There’s more questions than answers,” Rye said.
“While we await the judge’s decision,” she added, “we’re continuing in talks with our legal counsel, and we’ll have to be made aware of what some of the possible scenarios are.”
This is an important aspect of the coming voting changes that we’ll try to cover with care and context in the New Year. Hopefully, some of those answers will come into sharper focus sooner rather than later.
I hope larger local media outlets will recognize the importance of covering these processes in detail. This isn’t always the flashiest news, but it is of great importance to the day-to-day lives of our citizens. And WAVY-TV, in particular, has done some good coverage related to voting system changes.
We need a lot more of that.
Our final 2021 edition is on Sunday, Dec. 12, and then The Indy is on a scheduled production break until Sunday, Jan. 2.
You can support our efforts next year. I hope to add additional full-page advertisers in 2022, and we are still selling sponsor ads for as little as $25.
I want to add new distribution points in Kempsville, particularly along Princess Anne Road, and in Ocean Lakes. We’ve added some supermarket and convenience store locations. I hope to add some more next year, too.
Publication dates in 2022 are Jan. 2, 16 and 30; Feb. 13 and 27; March 13 and 27; April 10 and 24; May 8 and 22; June 5 and 19; July 3 and 17; Aug. 7 and 21; Sept. 4 and 18; Oct. 2, 16 and 30; Nov. 13 and 27; and Dec. 11.
Reach me at (757) 502-5393 or jhd@princessanneindy.com.
Thanks for reading.
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