THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 29, 1996 TAG: 9607260032
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: 27 lines
Here's a brief post-mortem on the proposed balanced-district system for electing City Council members in Virginia Beach, which was killed in the referendum on May 7.
Money magazine (July issue) published findings of its 10th annual survey on the Best Places to Live in America. Criteria used for selecting and ranking the best 300 cities were: economy, health, crime, housing, education, weather, transit and leisure.
Madison, Wis., is at the top of the list. Someone said: ``It's not only the best place to live, it's the perfect place.''
Madison, whose area population is 390,300, is governed by a mayor/alderman system. There are 20 aldermen, and guess what? Each is elected by district.
So for all those who predicted doom and were afraid the sky would fall if Virginia Beach were to adopt a so-called ``ward'' system, let Madison prove how wrong they were.
Incidentally, in the same survey, the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area ranked 117th, up from 283rd last year.
SHELDON L. CORNER
Virginia Beach, July 9, 1996 by CNB