I attended both the informal and formal sessions of Norfolk Council last night. The informal session (which you can view here) did not make it through its agenda. After hearing council concerns, a non-agenda item, the conversation turned to redistricting. And that’s where it stayed for the remainder of the session.
One part of the discussion centered around the plan put forth by Councilmen Tommy Smigiel and Andy Protogyrou. The mayor was perturbed that the so-called Pretlow plan had not been presented to council. Both Smigiel and Protogyrou made good points as to why that hadn’t happened. Smigiel raised the issue that the council did not present any of their plans at the public hearing. Protogyrou said that he and Smigiel had discussed the plan with City Attorney Pishko on May 25 and that Pishko was supposed to discuss it with the mayor. This whole part of the discussion got pretty heated at times, with charges flying back and forth.
The other part of the discussion was that of the so-called Jordan plan. Although it appears in his letter to council that Pishko was saying that the plan would not be approved by DOJ, he said that was not the case. The plan would meet the criteria of DOJ, Pishko said repeatedly, which left me scratching my head as to why an ordinance to be voted on for that plan was not included. After some discussion, the plan – sans ordinance – was added to the agenda to be voted on.
Throughout the formal session (watch here), the redistricting issue appeared to hang over everything else. There was a counting of heads to see who would vote for which of the now three plans on the agenda. When it became clear that none of the plans had the requisite 5 votes for passage, Barclay Winn moved to delay the vote.
There was considerable discussion about whether there should be a public hearing when the plans are voted on in two weeks, with Angela Williams advocating for it. Council apparently has a rule that once a public hearing is held, no further comments are allowed on the topic. This makes sense if the public hearing covers everything, but in light of the introduction of the Jordan plan, makes no sense at all. The public has not had a chance to weigh in on it yet – and they were not allowed to do so last night, either.
With the delay, I expect the city to now look at the plan and post it to the website for all to see. And I hope that the citizens will take the time to review it and let council know, via snail mail, telephone or email, of their opinions on it.
In other news, the Council received nominations last night for School Board. One existing member, Vice Chair Karen Jones Squires, asked not to be reappointed. The three other members whose terms expire June 30 have all asked to be reappointed. In all, 16 names were entered into nomination last night, which is a pretty good number. The entire list is here.
I suspect the three will be reappointed – no earth-shattering news out of the schools this year – and that the new member will be Warren Stewart, who is eminently qualified to serve, having been a superintendent.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 