It was quite an interesting night across Hampton Roads! While my election night focus was on Norfolk’s results, there were contests in other cities as well.
Norfolk
I’ll have another post on this later. The turnout was WAY above what I expected, not to mention where it came from. Congratulations to Mayor-elect Kenny Alexander, Councilwoman-elect Andria McClellan, Councilwoman Angelia Graves, and School Board members Noelle Gabriel and Rodney Jordan. My heartfelt thanks to Bob McCabe, Andy Protogyrou, Barclay Winn, Warren Stewart, Billy Cook, Harry David Candela, Kendrick Turner, and Carter Smith.
Chesapeake
No upsets here. The mayor ran unopposed. The three incumbent council members and four incumbent school board members were all re-elected.
Hampton
The city where I was raised has a new mayor as well. Donnie Tuck won decisively over incumbent George Wallace. Voters returned three incumbents to council, but there will be one new face due to the special election held to elect a member for Tuck’s unexpired term. (Tuck had to resign to run for mayor. I find it interesting that Hampton held a special election. I need to figure out why Norfolk couldn’t have done the same for Protogyrou’s seat.) The school board split: two incumbents and two newcomers were elected.
Newport News
Two of three incumbent council members were re-elected. Losing his bid was vice mayor and North district representative Rob Coleman, who was first elected in 2012. (Every time I see Coleman, I’m reminded of my dear friend, Maria Lopresto. Damn I miss her.) For school board, the North and South districts will have new representatives. Unfortunately, my former student, Curtis Bethany, came up short in the North district.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Regarding the special election in Hampton. Before I have always seen Hampton have an appointed person till the special election. Even though Councilman Tuck gave up his seat he is still on council till the first meeting in May, when the new elected candidates take office. So if Mayor Wallace had been elected he would have been sworn in again that day and Councilman Tuck would have left council. This way is better no special election and no vacant or appointed seat.
I guess if Andy had resigned before the filing deadline we could have had one. But if he did that, there would have been a vacant seat on Council. How did that work in Hampton?
Councilman Tuck did resign as soon as he filed to run. However, he stayed on council till his seat was filled ,not appointed . It was filled by the special election which of course was also the regular election.
I guess it worked that way because he would have had to given his seat up in March after that months meeting. Then they would have had the meeting in April to appoint someone then the election would have been in May before the May meeting . So that would be sort of a waste. Hope that makes since.
Now he stays on council till the new officials take office. He moves to mayor and Mr. Gray becomes the new councilman.
They just changed our charter to require someone to step down in order to run for Mayor so there might have been some wording in the ordinance approved by the General Assembly. I am not sure about that.
I guess the way the law works they can call for a special when you resign and not when you actually vacate the seat? So Tuck saying he was going to resign effective the day the gets sworn in as Mayor was enough for them to legally fill his seat in an election even though he was still technically there? That definitely seems like the best way to do it if so.
It was a good way to do it because the person who would have been assigned would have not been there for the discussions of the budget but the voting on Hamptons budget which is today. So I don’t know who they could have appointed that knew that much about the actual details of the budget.