Whaleyville residents weigh in on voting map

The final of seven community meetings on redistricting wrapped up Tuesday with a Whaleyville residents borough getting a chance to see the city’s proposed plan.

Seven people spoke at the event, which was the second-best attended of the meetings. The top honor for community participation went to the Nansemond borough, which drew more than 100 citizens to Nansemond River High School last week.

The Nansemond Borough faces the greatest changes under the proposed redistricting, as growth in North Suffolk required a shifting of boundaries that, under the plan being considered by city officials, would displace a member of City Council and a School Board member, both of whom currently represent that borough, along with a School Board member from another borough.

Comments from speakers at the Whaleyville meeting carried common themes from the other six meetings. Some citizens expressed disappointment that only one map was presented for consideration, others are concerned about the distribution of populations in the proposed map and still others simply want to keep their City Council and School Board representatives.

The working map developed by the city would unseat Councilman Leroy Bennett and School Board member Thelma Hinton from their Nansemond Borough seats, as well as Diane Foster from her Sleepy Hole seat on the School Board.

“Everyone would like to keep their incumbents where they are,” Ernest Simmons said at the Whaleyville meeting.

Some residents of the tight-knit Whaleyville community also expressed a fear that the village would be divided between boroughs.

“We do not want Whaleyville to be divided,” Marion Flood said.

Paul Gillis, who spoke at every one of the meetings, suggested the city could have just adjusted the boundaries of the current boroughs, rather than drawing a new map.

“It becomes illegal when you violate the Voting Rights Act and you put two black elected officials in the same borough,” he said, referring to Bennett and Vice Mayor Charles Brown, both of whom would live in the Cypress borough under the working map.

Simmons also said a map developed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has a “more equitable distribution among the population” than the city’s working map.

“There appears to be a discrepancy,” he said.

The deputy city attorney said in a report Wednesday that the NAACP map is not legally viable, because it uses some private and undeveloped roads to create boundaries, which is not allowable by state code.

Whaleyville School Board member Phyllis Byrum asked the city to be equitable and fair.

“Go back to the drawing board and come up with an equitable and fair map,” she said.

Lue Ward, president of the local NAACP chapter, was the last speaker at the last meeting. He summed up the sentiments of most citizens at all of the meetings: “I think the people have spoken how they feel about the city map,” he said. “I hope the city redoes the map.”

The opportunity to weigh in on the redistricting process is not over. A public hearing will be held Oct. 7 at 7 p.m. during the City Council meeting at 441 Market St.