No longer can South Hampton Roads residents point to Norfolk for the follies of its elected representatives. Add Virginia Beach and Chesapeake to the mix.
In Virginia Beach, Dan Lowe, the school board member representing the Bayside district, resigned. The remaining members get to appoint a replacement. Current at-large member Carolyn Weems was one of the people who wanted to represent the district. In order to be interviewed, she would have to give up her seat. So what did the school board do? Decide to not interview any candidates! Predictably, the board appointed Weems to the seat.
“I don’t like what we’ve done the last two weeks, but talking to the lawyers, I couldn’t find a way around it,” board Chairman Dan Edwards said.
The way around it, Mr. Edwards, was to interview the candidates. If Ms. Weems was serious about wanting the seat, she would have resigned her at-large seat in order to be interviewed. If not, another capable person from the district should have been appointed.
With Weems’ appointment, her at-large seat will become available. Wonder who they have already decided on for this seat?
Over in Chesapeake, we have the council appointing three members of the city’s Planning Commission. There was an application deadline of October 1. One of the people appointed last night put in his application on October 13, nearly two weeks after the deadline. Not a problem for most of the council in Chesapeake. Van Laethem, a former planning commissioner, was chosen for one of the slots. The claim that “it is common practice to extend the deadline when board nominations or appointments are continued for 30 days or longer” is a weak one. If that’s true, council could always extend the deadline by continuing the appointments, thereby leaving the process open until the person they wanted to apply did so.
It seems that Virginia Beach and Chesapeake are learning the lessons of its older siblings, Norfolk and Portsmouth. And that is really a shame.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
The Bayside seat on School Board has been unopposed for as long as I’ve followed politics around here. Amazing all these people interested in being “appointed” never once showed any interest in asking the voters for their approval by actually running.
Well, now the Bayside seat is opposed, so what’s your point? If, as you say, it was unopposed in the past, then Carolyn Weems didn’t run for the Bayside seat previously, either. So by your reasoning, she shouldn’t have received the current appointment.
The School Board should have interviewed everybody who applied. These shenanigans seem designed to make sure that some other hand-picked person from outside the Bayside area gets the at-large position.
This is why the feds imposed a real ward system on other cities under the Voting Rights Act.
“This is why the feds imposed a real ward system on other cities under the Voting Rights Act.”
Uhm, no it’s not.