Significant change is coming in Waynesboro with respect to the way the city conducts City Council elections.
Pursuant to two new state laws, the city is set to move its City Council elections from May to November, effective with the 2022 local election cycle, and also beginning in the ’22 cycle, voting for the four ward seats will be limited to voters in those wards.
Waynesboro City Council has set a public hearing on the changes for its meeting set for Monday night at 7 p.m. at Kate Collins Middle School.
Basically, you get to weigh in, but the changes are mandated by state law.
The move from May to November will get more people participating in the local elections.
The May 2020 local election drew just over 2,800 of the city’s 13,500 registered voters, barely 20 percent of the voter base.
For a frame of reference, the presidential election in November had more than 10,700 voters, just under 80 percent.
The other change could serve to shake up the ideological representation on City Council. With all at-large voting, voters in conservative-leaning Wards B and D have traditionally been able to dictate to more center-left Wards A and C their representation on City Council.
No guarantees there, but the change would seem to force candidates to work more at the grassroots level to engage people with their neighbors in building a winning coalition.
Who knows, maybe by doing that, issues in Wards A and C that have tended to get overlooked down at the Yancey Building might get more attention in the future.
Story by Chris Graham
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