f.y.i.
Mayoral candidates already heading for the starting gate
By Bill Reed, The Beacon - July 5, 2007
While the big noise in the national media is all about who’s running for president, we have a little horse race developing right here in our own backyard. And the election is still a year away!
Mayor Meyera Oberndorf says she plans to run for her sixth term as head of the City Council in 2008, when her present four-year term expires.
She’ll have some competition. Announcing plans to run against her are former vice mayor and banker Will Sessoms, and former councilman and developer Don Weeks.
Weeks seems to be ahead of the game so far, by creating his own Web site, www.cityhallforall.com, and by speaking before local community associations such as the Wesleyan Civic League.
He was on the council from 1998 to 2000, when he was ousted from office by Robert Mandigo Jr. Mandigo lasted only two years in office before resigning. Sessoms served for 14 years on the council, 10 of them as vice mayor. In that capacity, he handled formal and informal council gatherings in Oberndorf’s absence. He decided not to run for re-election in 2002.
Oberndorf has served on the City Council since 1976. She reportedly was the first woman elected to public office in the 300-plus-year history of Virginia Beach and Princess Anne County. She was elected mayor by popular vote in 1988, after a city charter change that allowed the direct election to that office.
She had a close call in the 2004 election, when she barely nosed out former councilman Robert K. Dean.
61-foot rule
As the summer heats up on the resort strip the Oceanfront pulses with humanity, hormones and din from Atlantic Avenue traffic and a dozen or so nightspots. When the cacophony reaches a deafening peak late at night, gendarmes from the Second Police Precinct are faced with a conundrum.
How do they dial back the racket without having local lawyers scream that they’re violating the First Amendment rights of the operators of taverns that treat patrons to suds, pizza and brain-rattling music?
The 61-foot rule, that’s how. According to Lt. Tony Elder, head of night operations at the Second Precinct, police administrators established guidelines that work this way: If a beat cop standing 61 feet away can hear music wafting from the front door of an establishment then it becomes a public nuisance issue.
“We draft a letter to the merchants, giving them the guidelines and giving them warning,” Elder told members of the Resort Advisory Commission recently. “Then we crack down.”
What’s in a name?
The Virginia Beach Development Corp. is a name that conjures up images of fat cat real estate moguls hunched over maps, planning to cram 10,000 luxury condos on a 5-acre tract overlooking the Chesapeake Bay.
But, that is definitely not the case. The VBDC is a City Council-appointed, nonprofit organization established in 1985 to create low- and moderate-income housing in the city.
