By James C. Sherlock

Elections in republics are transactional everywhere. We vote for and contribute to those who we think will vote as we would.

This series is about Virginia Beach. We do not vary from that script.

Council members run as independents. An in-depth review of seven years of Council meeting minutes has revealed that on most matters members have seemed relatively apolitical. After months of research for this series, the author cannot identify with assurance whether many of the members are conservative or liberal in their personal politics.

City Council appoints the members of the city’s development authority that holds title to the city’s land and has tourism development and business recruitment budgets. Many appointees historically have been developers or their representatives. They played a significant role in Atlantic Park. But development authority bond issues and budgets must be approved by Council, which thus maintains control.

City money. Virginia Beach is the largest city in the Commonwealth and has a budget to match. In 2025 the city had a $2.5 billion operating budget and a $385 million capital budget.

Influence over the capital budget is concentrated in the hands of the real estate development interests who dominate campaign donations.

Election costs. The costs of City Council election campaigns vary between ward and at-large seats, but have grown to cost more than the four years of pay for the work, which until this year was capped by law statewide at $28,000. For cities of over 260,000, the caps are now mayor $56,000 and other Council members $52,000. So most Council members have day jobs.

Update 1:30 PM Sept. 10. For civilians, the General Assembly bill that raised the limit singled out Virginia Beach for the highest Council compensation without admitting it. The populations of Virginia cities:

1. Virginia Beach: 453,649
2. Chesapeake: 253,886
3. Arlington: 235,845
4. Norfolk: 230,930
5. Richmond: 229,247
6. Hampton: 137,061
7. Alexandria: 165,317
8. Newport News: 187,906

Stop update.

Underfunded candidates occasionally win here but that is not usually the way to bet.

Campaign funding. The Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP) defines the category of developers to include the real estate and construction industries. In Virginia Beach the plutocracy also includes:

• bankers who specialize in real estate and construction loans; and
• lawyers whose practices are centered in the enormous legal work required by real estate and construction financing documentation, zoning and land use law.

The real estate and construction industries have provided 44% of the total campaign funding for sitting Council members between 2017 and today. The contributions of development bankers and lawyers drive that total to over 50%.

They donate to those who they expect to vote as they would on the capital budget. Over seven years of Atlantic Park development they contributed less than $5 million to influence well over $2 billion in city capital spending.

The ROI is too high to calculate.

The terms highlighted in yellow align with city spending on Atlantic Park. The links are to the sources of the data.

Virginia Beach in 2022 underwent court-ordered changes to Council elections. We have switched from an at-large to a ward system.

The donations show that one thing stayed the same.

Campaigns of many of the new members were funded by developers at even higher percentages than the incumbents they replaced.