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

DATE: TUESDAY, October 11, 1994                   TAG: 9410110137
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                                 LENGTH: Medium

SOME BLACKS QUESTION MOVE TOWARD WARD-ELECTED BOARD

Some black leaders are criticizing a Justice Department mandate to elect city School Board members by ward rather than at large because they believe it will hurt the city more than it helps.

``I think that the ward system has a tendency to divide the city up,'' said Reginald C. Woodhouse, a black minister whose church is in Chesapeake's predominantly black South Norfolk section.

``If we could just get past color, which shouldn't be the issue,'' said Estelle V. Thomas, a black shipyard worker who has lived in the Dunedin area for 13 years. ``There's no doubt that race is going to come up, but as long as [our leaders] work for the good of the people, it has to be colorblind.''

Supporters of ward elections say overlooked minority neighborhoods would have a greater voice on the board with their own representatives.

But carving up the city could pit local officials against one another and discourage work toward common goals, critics of ward elections say.

``We would have more problems than we already have, with everybody trying to make sure that my section gets a little bit more than your section. That would be a big mistake for Chesapeake,'' Woodhouse said.

At the federal level, local concerns about ward versus at-large elections often don't get heard, said Thomas R. Morris, a political scientist who is president of Emory & Henry College in southwestern Virginia.

``The Justice Department is not as concerned with the philosophy behind every municipality's local government,'' said Morris. He authored a study titled ``Quiet Revolution in the South'' that explores the effects of the 1965 Voting Rights Act on Virginia and other Southern states.

Virginia trails the rest of the South in electing black representatives at the local level, Morris' research found.

``Wards are one remedy to racially polarized voting,'' Morris said. ``But in rectifying that problem, it may generate new ones, such as a more parochial or divided council.''

Some Chesapeake residents question how deep the city's racial divide runs, considering that at-large voting has gotten blacks elected to the nine-member City Council. The city's mayor, William E. Ward, also is black.

Lamont Simmons, head of Chesapeake Forward, an umbrella civic group of mostly black organizations, said that a ward-based School Board at best can only repeat the council's accomplishment.

``We have already achieved the goal of getting the black faces up there,'' Simmons said. But people only want diversity, he said, ``as it leads to the bottom line - improving the quality of life for them and for everybody."

by CNB