You Can’t Tell the Players without a Program in Virginia Beach 0

Having trouble keeping track of who’s running for what in the Virginia Beach City Council and School Board races, I compiled a program of the players for my own use.

The council contains 11 members, counting the mayor, who serve four-year terms. Five terms expire in one even-numbered election year; six terms expire on the alternate even-numbered election year.

This year, seven candidates are running for two at-large seats.

Two candidates are running for each of the following district seats: Bayside, Lynnhaven, and Princess Anne. The incumbent is running unopposed for the Beach District seat.

In a weird quirk having to do with the history of the City of Virginia Beach, all city voters can vote for every seat.

The City of Virginia Beach resulted from the merger of Princess Anne County and the Town of Virginia Beach in 1963. A “District seat” means that the person representing that district must reside in that district, but, unlike in most jurisdictions, does not mean that only voters in that district may vote fo the person representing that district.

At the time of the merger, Princess Anne County was sparsely-populated farmland. The system was created to reduce the likelihood that the concentration of voters in the Town of Virginia Beach (roughly the area in the upper-right quadrant of the map within a few blocks of the Atlantic Ocean) would overwhelm the relatively small number of voters in Princess Anne County, while still maintaining a form of “one voter-one vote” in city elections.

You can download a copy of my election program.

Please report any errors and I will fix them promptly.