ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 21, 1993                   TAG: 9302210113
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C5   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                                LENGTH: Medium

AT-LARGE BOARD PLAN REJECTED IN RULING

The U.S. Justice Department has turned down an at-large plan for an elected school board in Newport News, citing a mostly white City Council as an example of racially polarized voting.

"Indeed, although black voters overwhelmingly supported black candidates for City Council, no black candidates were elected in 1988 and 1990, and only one black candidate was successful in 1992," the Justice Department wrote to City Attorney Verbena Askew in a Feb. 16 letter.

Councilman Charles Allen is the only black member on the council, which is elected through an at-large system. The other six councilmen are white males.

"The minority community largely has been unsuccessful in electing candidates of choice to the City Council under the existing at-large system," the letter said.

The letter also criticized the council for not holding public hearings or seeking input from the minority community before making its proposal.

Councilman Vincent Joseph called the Justice Department's reasoning "ludicrous and backward thinking."

"It's discrimination to say you've got to have minority candidates representing minorities," he said. "They are against any at-large type system."

"We need to know if this means that electing the city council at large is no longer acceptable," Councilman Terrence Martin said. "Why would one be acceptable and the other not?"

The city can appeal the Justice Department's ruling to the U.S. Attorney General and the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. Neither Joseph nor Martin would say if that will be done.

But both indicated opposition to a ward system.

"I just don't think it makes good government to split the city into districts." Joseph said.

"I think it would be highly divisive to the city and a mistake," Martin added.

Joseph said that Norfolk's expensive losing effort to fight imposition of a ward system makes opposing such a ruling unlikely.

"I'm not willing to spend a million dollars to fight something that the trend says we are going to lose," he said. 

Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.
by Archana Subramaniam by CNB