2005-11-21 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

471 The article continues by stating that both Brown and Lynch say race is only one type of diversity they're worried about losing. Low income individuals may be unable to pay the costs of a campaign... And parents of young children might also feel unable to take on the time consuming task. In the same article, Councilor Lynch concludes by saying, "If we don't recruit for diversity, it' s going to run toward self-employed white guys with time to do it. If you have a council or school board of guys who look like me, you're going to miss a lot." Daily Progress, November 9, 2005: Councilor Lynch states that he was concerned about how to maintain diversity on the board and how to best encourage quality candidates to run. And finally, The Hook, November 17, 2005 states: Mr. Caravati says he remains concerned about the possible loss of diversity on the school board now that candidates must mount potentially pricey and time consuming campaigns... It is obvious that every member of this Council is strongly and particularly concerned with maintaining diversity in the transition from an appointed to an elected School Board. A few facts may now be helpful in making our decision regarding the type of election system for Charlottesville's School Board. First, what method of election does the scholarly research indicate would likely be the best guarantor of a diverse school board, and what method of elections would likely produce the least diverse results? In an exhaustive examination of research pertaining to school board issues including school board membership, and school board elections, published in 2002, Lands concludes: "At-large elections, the most common selection procedure, are more fikely to retain demographically homogenous individuals who are members of the professional elite individuals who are well educated successful, and tied to local business and community power structures. Subdistrict elections tend to increase the cultural, ethnic, racial, and political diversity of school boards and draw members who are more similar and responsive to subpopulations of constituents." Each member of Council was provided a copy of pertinent scholarly research supporting the conclusion that ward, or district-based, elections are more likely to result in greater socio-economic, racial and ethnic diversity than are at large election systems. In addition, the benefit of ward- or district-based elections in helping to ensure various types of diversity was confirmed in the December 2004 report of the Charlottesville Elections Study Task Force, wherein the most suggested solution to issues of inadequate representation was to move elections from the current exclusive at large system to a mixed system of wards and at large. Last, historically (since 1948), City Council has appointed the seven member school board one from each of the city's four wards and three at large. No councilor, to my knowledge, had ever advocated for abandoning the "four and three" system in favor of an all at large appointment system; apparently decades of councilors believed that a mixed system of at large and district appointments provided "fair" and diverse representation on the school board. Given the publicly recorded statements by councilors and the scholarly research, which clearly indicates that some form of district or ward-based elections lead to a more representative School Board, are there a majority of Councilors here tonight who will still stand behind the current proposal for an all at large election of school board members? It has been said that this Council has no option to pursue district-based school board elections--that we were, and are, bound by state law only to seek permission from the Department of Justice to hold at large elections. This is simply not the case; we had, and we have options. A city attorney's memo, dated August 12, 2005, stated in part that after reviewing the state code and the city charter, Mr. Brown said he suspected we would be electing one School Board member from each ward and three at large. He was concerned that the law was ambiguous, and stated that he would be seeking further advice from the State Board of Elections. A September 26, 2005 letter from Mr. Clayton Landa at the State Board of Elections confirmed the ambiguity in State Law by stating, in part: "! cannot definitively answer as to if the current school board is technically appointed at large." Mr. Landa goes on to say, the nature of the election appears to depend upon the decision of the