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VIRGINIA BEACH — A new voting system in Virginia Beach likely played a role in creating the most diverse City Council in the city’s history. Come January, four Black members will be seated at the dais.
They include newcomers Jennifer Rouse and Chris Taylor, along with Amelia Ross-Hammond, a former member, and Sabrina Wooten, who’s serving a term through 2024.
“I did not believe I would live to see this,” said Louisa Strayhorn, 74, the first Black woman elected to the City Council. She served from 1994-98.
“This will be a new day,” Strayhorn said.
Rouse, 36, an assistant professor at Tidewater Community College, didn’t raise as much money as her opponent, who is not Black, but was still able to connect with voters face to face on a shoestring budget. She was elected in one of the new districts where minorities are the majority.
“Big money, big power doesn’t shape an election,” Rouse, who is married to Councilman Aaron Rouse, said by phone the day after the election. “I was outraised and outspent; to me it was all about the ground game.”
Earlier this year, the city implemented 10 single-member voting districts while awaiting an appeal of a court’s opinion on a case that argued at-large voting to elect City Council members diluted the votes of minority voters.
A judge ruled in the plaintiff’s favor, but the city appealed.
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The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled the case was moot because Virginia’s General Assembly had already passed a law eliminating at-large voting for most of the council seats.
Virginia Beach may be able to reinstate a few at-large seats in the future, but ran out of time before this year’s election to make any changes.
Taylor, 38, co-owner of a local chain of Smoothie Stop Cafe stores, won in the city’s most affluent district where people of color represent roughly 6% of the voting population. He decided to run before the new voting system was implemented, but believes it helped him win.
“It allowed for me to just go and talk to the people, and the message resonated,” he said.
Interaction between candidates such as Taylor and voters likely broke down racial barriers, Strayhorn said.
“People get to know you when you can speak to them,” she said. “It’s clear they (voters) were thinking about them (candidates) as people.”
Taylor’s family has lived in Virginia Beach for centuries, and many of his ancestors didn’t have the opportunity to serve in public office. He’s proud of his accomplishment and the other Black candidates who won.
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“For me, it’s a sense of how far our city has come,” he said. “To have representation on council is special.”
The first Black member of the Virginia Beach City Council was John Perry, who served from 1986-90. Strayhorn followed a few years later.
Ross-Hammond represented the Kempsville district from 2013-16. She ran unopposed this year. Wooten was elected to the council in 2018 and filled the unexpired term of Bobby Dyer, who was elected mayor. Wooten was reelected in 2020.
Aaron Rouse has served since 2019. His term ends Dec. 31. He’s running to fill a vacancy in the state Senate.
Jennifer Rouse is looking forward to taking her seat in council chambers in January.
“It’s an incredible moment in the history of our city,” she said. “I hope we will continue to make more progress.”
Stacy Parker, 757-222-5125, stacy.parker@pilotonline.com