Rosemary Wilson: Hoping Beach Voters Can’t Count

She’s insulting the intelligence of every voter in Virginia Beach.

Rosemary Wilson, that is.

And she clearly believes Beach residents lack critical thinking skills.

Those who still subscribe to The Virginian-Pilot may have seen the nutty full-page ad Wilson’s campaign bought in Sunday’s Beacon, where this long-time city councilwoman - who’s inexplicably running for a different seat on the same body even though she still has a year left in her current term in office - hilariously unveiled, “The Wilson Plan.”

Some of us wondered how she was going to repackage herself as something other than a relic of the Crony Club on city council.

Ta-da!

Suddenly Wilson has big ideas to fix resort parking.

Does the councilwoman think voters can’t count? Does she think no one is going to notice that she’s been on city council since the turn of the century? Nineteen long years?

Where has she been all this time?

Anyone paying attention knows: Wilson’s been voting in lock-step with developers and power brokers for almost two decades.

If Wilson didn’t realize until now that there are parking problems at the oceanfront she’s beyond out-of-touch.

She knew. And if she cared, what prevented her from “solving” parking problems during all her years of “service”? At-large members represent the entire city. Last time I checked, the oceanfront was a part of the municipality.

Wilson wants to have it both ways, of course.

If she loses her cynical bid to win the Beach seat on city council she gets to stay in her At-Large seat for another year. If she wins this fall - God help us - the old guard will push to appoint another poodle to her former position.

A few years ago the city council wisely decided that any member seeking the mayor’s slot would have to resign his or her council seat, win or lose. Sadly, no one had the imagination to see the sort of game Wilson is playing as she tries to swap one council seat for another.

The city charter needs to be changed so that sitting members can’t play musical chairs. Beach voters are fed up with shenanigans such as these by the shameless good old boys.

And girls.