The Charlottesville Republican Committee released its party platform at a press conference last Thursday with the theme "Empowering People ... Constraining Government." The move surprised some Democratic officials, as there is no Republican candidate running in November's City Council elections.
Charlottesville Republican Committee Chairman Charles Weber explained that the committee's goal in releasing the platform was to encourage debate among Albemarle residents about important city topics and educate the public. The Republican platform calls for modifications to education policies, public housing, budgetary issues, local government structure, property taxes and diversity issues.
One of the most significant calls for change outlined by the committee is a proposed structural reorganization of City Council and the city manager and mayor positions. Council currently is composed of five part-time city counselors who are elected by the local populace. From among the five counselors, Council then elects one as mayor for a two-year term, Charlottesville Mayor Dave Norris said. The Charlottesville Republican Committee hopes to alter this model, Weber said, by installing a full-time mayor elected by popular vote instead of a part-time mayor elected by the committee. Weber said this change would give residents better representation and also allow them to hold public officials more accountable for decisions.
Norris, though - as a Democrat running for reelection to City Council in November - said the Republican platform wrongly perceives the mayor's role in Charlottesville government and overlooks the fact that the mayor position "is a full-time job now."
"The mayor does not run city hall," Norris said. "We have a weak-mayor form of government here." The chief executive officer in Charlottesville is the city manager, who "on a day-to-day basis is responsible for administration and city governance," Norris said, whereas the mayor's job is to run Council meetings and set Council's agenda.
Another Republican platform item emphasized by Weber could have more immediate and visible effects within the community if adopted and pursued by Council. Looking to revise the local public school system, Weber said the committee hopes to reduce the number of times Charlottesville students are required to change schools from four to two. Within the city's current system, students attend a single school from kindergarten to fourth grade, then fifth to sixth, seventh to eighth and finally ninth through 12th, Norris said.
The Charlottesville Republican Committee, however, seeks to change this progression so that most students attend one school from kindergarten through eighth grade and then a second from ninth through 12th grade. Such changes have been found to better control middle school students, Weber said, noting that "discipline is one of the biggest problems in the learning process." Moreover, Weber said this system has been found in other jurisdictions to have "an uplifting educational effect," which could better prepare students for high school and improve their test-taking aptitude.
Responding to the Republican platform's educational goals, Norris said city officials are currently reviewing the structure of city schools. He agreed that there currently are too many transitions, but questioned how such changes, however desirable, could be physically accommodated in the city's existing school facilities.
"The buildings aren't big enough," he said. "The elementary schools now are just barely big enough for kindergarten through fourth grade."
Norris also more broadly questioned the committee's release of the platform at this time, wondering how it would like to see such changes take shape without a participant in the upcoming City Council elections.
"It is kind of an odd situation, in that typically you have a party platform that candidates run on," Norris said.
Charlottesville Democratic Committee Co-Chair Jonathan Blank expressed similar surprise after seeing the Republican platform.
"The Democratic Party of Charlottesville was surprised that the Republican Party of Charlottesville would choose this time to release a platform since they chose not to nominate any candidate for the November election," Blank said in a released statement. "The Democratic Party of Charlottesville believes the best way to engage in the democratic process is to put forth strong candidates as we have done with Dave Norris, Kristin Szakos, James Brown, Dave Chapman, Jennifer Brown, and Lee Richards."
Those six Democratic candidates will join three independent candidates - Andrew Williams, Bob Fenwick and Paul Long - in November's race to fill two of Council's five seats for 2010-13. Though no Republican candidate will run in the election, Weber said he hopes the introduction of the party's platform will inspire debate in the weeks leading up to the election.
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