Where’s the discussion?

Local, Norfolk, Politics, Race 1 Minute

The agenda for Tuesday’s Norfolk City Council meeting was delivered to my mailbox late Friday afternoon, as usual. (It was posted to the website a couple of hours later.) On it, is R-9, a vote on two alternative redistricting plans. Noticeably missing is the Jordan plan, which was proposed last Tuesday at the public hearing.

So where is the discussion of this? When did council review the plan and decide for or against its inclusion in the actual vote? There hasn’t been another council meeting since the public hearing, right?

As of this writing (8:48am), the supporting documents for the council meeting are not yet on the website, so the average Norfolk citizen has no way of knowing exactly what has transpired in the past week.

I’ll be following this throughout the day. Check back later for more info.

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5 thoughts on “Where’s the discussion?”

  1. If Council tries avoiding to put it on their Agenda, when it goes to Formal Session any two Councilmen can bring up the Jordan Plan on a Substitute Motion to the Agenda item. Riddick already says he supports it; would anyone second?

  2. Supposing they really did want to consider the plan, it’s entirely possible that the Norfolk GIS Department didn’t have enough time to process and examine the it between when it was presented and the council meeting Tuesday. I’ve interacted with them a few times and they seem to be quite overworked. Who knows if it even got that far, but in the best case scenario, there wouldn’t seem to be any way the Council could have taken up an alternative plan in the time frame given. Kinda makes you wonder why they even bothered to hold that public hearing in the first place if they planned on voting so soon after.

    1. Max, I thought I was naive. If the council had wanted to consider the plan, there is no rush to come up with something, as there is for the State legislative districts. Council elections affected are a year away, almost. Regarding the comment about the public hearing, council is now in a position of having to appear open, even if they really aren’t. There goes that cynicism, again.

      1. There is a legal prohibition on adopting a plan within 60 days of a general election, even if it isn’t a Council election. That would blackout September and October.

        For that reason, Virginia Beach’s vote is scheduled for the 4th Tuesday in August.

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