George,

Councilwoman Kendra Hamilton's stance in defense of maintaining the present non-ward-based method of selecting members for the Charlottesville School Board and Bob Gibson's advocacy as recently cited in the Daily Progress for employing the ward system to select school board members are views that are worthy of debate by citizens of Charlottesville.

To be objective and relevant consideration must be given to the part race has and continues to play in the educational system of this city and there must be awareness of the significance of these facts: Charlottesville has a population of 44,000, including a back population of 22.2 percent that provides 48.2 percent of the students in the public schools.

Yet, there is a much larger white population that provides only 42.2 percent of the 4,391 students in the public schools. We pause to ask, "Why is there such disparity in the black-white student population given the fact that the white population is more than three times that of the black population? We might also ask "Why are there not more white students attending public schools?" "Why do many white students who live in Charlottesvile attend private or charter schools that are located in Charlottesville and Albemarle County?" The answers to these questions are so obvious that this writer refuses to answer them.

In light of these facts and factors along we must answer the question, "Should there be ward-based elections for members of the Charlottesville School Board?" One argument that has been given in an attempt to support the view that ward-based elections will not be unfavorable for blacks is to point to the elections of Maurice Cox, a former mayor of Charlottesville and Councilwoman Kendra Hamilton, a present member of the City Council, although they were elected by an election-at-large process rather than by a ward-based election, prove, we hear, that whites will vote for "qualified" blacks and with that being true blacks need not fear that diversity will be disallowed on the school board. Gibson suggests that Hamilton's comment is merely a red herring. I say, not so, although it may be a "black herring."

Although I recall the difficuty I faced in attempting to register to vote in Alabama in the fifties and how gerrymandering has been employed both in the South and North to keep the number of black elected officials much lower than is warranted by their population I have been inclined to support ward-based elections.

However, based on my knowledge of Charlottesville, I take a strong exception to Gisbson's statement that "research demonstrates that ward-based elections across the U.S. favor minority candidates," if by that he is referring to African American candidates. (I have a problem with using minority to refer to African Americans. Obviously, when we refer to whites that means whites only). My own awareness of the research, in this regard, does not find that to be true. To repeat, the number of blacks holding political offices are fewer than their numbers warrant.

I find that whites living in Charlottesville, a small city both in population and in land area, has a greater level of sensitivity to race matters and diversity than whites in many other cities, although obviously there is much left to be desired, even with regard to greater sensitivity in race matters. I am compelled to agree with Councilwoman Hamilton that the ward-based method of electing members is not the best method to be used in choosing members for the Charlottesville School Board and that the present method of selecting school board members should be maintained.

With there being a similar interest by some citizens in employing the ward-based method to elect members of the City Council, I hasten to say that it seems prudent to maintain the city-wde vote-at-large method to elect members of the City Council. However, the debate is healthy and must not be stifled.

Uriah J. Fields (electronic mail, June 20, 2005)