VIRGINIA BEACH — Some members of the Virginia Beach City Council recently discussed the idea of adding a referendum question to the November ballot that would gauge voter’s interest in returning to an at-large voting system.
They decided against it for now, but Councilman Aaron Rouse criticized the council members for excluding him and two other council members from the discussion, which did not occur during a City Council meeting.
Rouse said Sabrina Wooten and Guy Tower were also left out from providing input on the referendum idea.
Tower confirmed that he didn’t take part in any such discussions. Wooten could not be reached for comment.
“It’s not transparent,” Rouse said. “I thought we were beyond this.”
Mayor Bobby Dyer, Vice Mayor Rosemary Wilson and several unidentified council members were involved in the discussions, according to an email from Dyer, obtained by The Pilot.
“We are not pursuing that option at this time,” the mayor wrote. “We certainly would have communicated with the entire council before formally bringing it forward.”
Virginia Beach previously used at-large voting to elect members of its City Council, but Virginia’s General Assembly passed a law eliminating at-large voting for most of the seats on City Council last year.
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After the state law passed, in response to a lawsuit, a federal judge ruled that the city’s exclusive use of the at-large voting system diluted the votes of minority voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, a federal appeals court deemed the ruling was moot due to the new state law and overturned it.
The city is using a district voting system for the first time for the elections this November. The new state law allows at-large elections for three council seats based on the current city charter. Virginia Beach could go back to at-large voting for all of its council seats by eliminating the district residency requirements in the charter, but that will require General Assembly approval.
A referendum question could provide input on which direction voters want to go in the future.
Reached by phone, Wilson said “when you have ideas you have to talk about them,” adding that it’s not uncommon for council members to bounce ideas off of some of their colleagues but not necessarily all of them.
Rouse, along with the Virginia Beach Beach Branch of NAACP and the Virginia Beach Interdenominational Ministers Conference, have called a meeting on voting rights in Virginia Beach. It will be held at 6:30 p.m. Monday at New Hope Baptist Church, 395 Old Great Neck Road.
“To have members, particularly the mayor and vice mayor, facilitate discussion with only certain members, it’s a breach of trust,” Rouse said.
Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, stacy.parker@pilotonline.com
