The True Rocky Mount Launches a Petition for Citywide Voting

One of the most interesting things happening in Rocky Mount has to do with who has taken up the conversation.

A Facebook page, The True Rocky Mount, has begun discussing a return to citywide elections and has encouraged citizens to sign a petition supporting that idea. As of this writing, the petition has attracted more than 1,100 signatures. Whether it eventually becomes an official petition is not the point. The significance is that the conversation is growing support, and that many of the voices calling for it are Black citizens of Rocky Mount.

The community that questions how this would affect their representation sees the benefit of this change.

A problem: I continue to hear one misunderstanding repeated.

People often assume that changing to citywide elections means council members would stop representing their wards.

That is not what happens.

Each council member would still live in the ward they represent. They would still know its neighborhoods, its streets, its concerns, and its people.

The difference is who elects them.

Here is the simplest way I know to explain it.

Suppose a council member from Ward 4 votes on the city budget.

That budget affects every neighborhood.

Suppose a council member votes to hire or fire a city manager.

That decision affects every resident.

Suppose a council member votes on public safety, taxes, utilities, economic development, or downtown investment.

Those decisions do not stop at the ward line.

Every member of the City Council helps govern the entire city.

If every council member helps make decisions that affect every citizen, it is reasonable to ask whether every citizen should have a voice in choosing every council member.

That is the discussion.

It is not a discussion about taking away anyone’s voice.

It is a discussion about having every vote shape the future of Rocky Mount.

People of good faith can disagree about the answer.

But we should at least be discussing the right question.

This conversation is not about race.

It is not about one neighborhood against another.

It is about recognizing that when seven people sit around the council table, every vote they cast reaches far beyond the boundaries of the ward they represent.

The future of Rocky Mount belongs to all of us.

Looking at It Another Way

Sometimes the simplest examples help us see things more clearly.

Suppose only one neighborhood elected the School Board, but that School Board decided the budget, hired the superintendent, and set policies for every child in the county.

Wouldn’t every parent want a voice in choosing those who make those decisions?

The principle is the same.

Every council member may come from a particular ward, but every decision they make belongs to the whole city.

That is why every voter deserves to understand the question before deciding the answer.