THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 12, 1995 TAG: 9510120359
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3A EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, N.C. LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
Voters ousted Washington's first black mayor and three white City Council members Tuesday.
The mayor was the only black on the council in a town that is about 42 percent black. All four newcomers are white.
And one black civic leader said Wednesday that it may be time to change the way the city elects its leaders.
``We have a plan put forth that was supposed to go into effect after annexation,'' said the Rev. David L. Moore, pastor of the Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church. ``But I think we'll have to revisit that.''
It was the largest single turnover in city government elections since 1989, when voters, angry over problems with the city's drinking water supply, ousted their mayor and three City Council members.
In the mayor's race, political newcomer L. Stewart Rumley, a retired member of the U.S. Coast Guard and a Washington native, defeated five-year incumbent Floyd G. Brothers, a retired teacher, 831 to 600 votes.
In the City Council race, incumbents Ed Gibson, Daniel B. Olson and Harry J. Stokes were defeated, while incumbents Joe Tunstall Jr. and Judy Meier Jennette were returned to the City Council.
In the council race, Tunstall, public information officer for Beaufort County Schools, polled the most votes, receiving 941, followed by Jennette, local arts council director, with 836.
Other winners were Louis Taylor, a real estate appraiser and former city planner, with 709 votes, Douglas G. Mercer, planning board chairman, 685, and Mickey Cochran, a retired educator, 684.
The votes for mayor largely followed racial lines, with Brothers winning 165 to 11 in the town's only predominantly black precinct and Rumley winning elsewhere.
Some people speculated that the election of an all-white government may speed up efforts to enact a new voting plan for the city.
The Washington City Council is one of the few remaining governing bodies in northeastern North Carolina whose members are elected citywide, a system of voting the courts have regularly found unfair to blacks.
About a year ago, city officials and black civic leaders had developed a plan to elect members from districts that could go into effect after annexation.
But when the city recently submitted its annexation plan to the U.S. Justice Department, it asked to keep the current method of voting. by CNB