“We will have to make a decision about what's best for Petersburg," said Ward 4 Councilman Brian Moore.

PETERSBURG — Running a city in Virginia isn't easy, and some cities have responded to the challenges by moving down a notch in the municipal hierarchy.

Last week, Petersburg City Council approved the creation of a committee of citizens that will look at possible changes to the city's charter. Downshifting from city to town is one of the possibilities they'll be asked to explore. It isn't the only question the committee will consider – changing the method the city uses to choose a mayor is another topic that will be on the table – but not surprisingly, it's the one getting the most attention.

Council members stressed that the committee's task will be a comprehensive review of the city charter, which hasn't been revised since 1973.

Ward 4 Councilman Brian Moore said the city vs. town issue “is one of the options” the committee needs to consider. But he said the committee's review “has to be a truly objective look at the charter.”

And when the committee reports back to City Council, Moore said, “We will have to make a decision about what's best for Petersburg” regarding whatever recommendations are made.

The final decision about whether to act on any recommendations “lies with City Council,” he said.

The idea of lowering Petersburg's status from city to town has been kicked around in personal and online discussions for some time, in part because some residents believe it could be a way for the city to solve many of its difficulties in providing and funding the services that cities in Virginia are required to provide.

However, there's no guarantee that the city will be able to make the change at all, or that it will solve the city's most pressing problems.

Petersburg isn't the only city in Virginia that is struggling to meet its obligations. The state's Commission on Local Government annually compiles a “fiscal stress” index for each of the 133 local governments in Virginia — an indicator of how challenged a jurisdiction is to generate local revenue.

The state's cities are consistently more stressed than its counties. In the most recent report that covered the 2013-14 fiscal year, 22 localities were rated as having “high” fiscal stress; all but two of them were cities.

On average, cities had a stress index of 102.84 compared with 98.86 for counties. More than half of the cities — 53 percent — were rated as having “high” fiscal stress, with another 32 percent rated “above average.” Just 40 percent of counties had “high” or “above average” fiscal stress (Petersburg had the third-highest stress level, behind Emporia and Buena Vista).

Virginia is the only state in which every city is an “independent city,” meaning that the city isn't within the jurisdiction of a county. Outside of Virginia's 38 cities, there are only three independent cities in the U.S.: Baltimore, St. Louis and Carson City, Nev.

Some of Virginia's cities are considerably smaller than other jurisdictions that are chartered as mere “towns” and may simply not have enough critical mass to carry out their mandates. Virginia's smallest city, Norton, has an estimated population of about 4,000 people.

That raises questions about “what's a city, how small do you go and still be called a city,” said Charles Kolakowski, former city manager of Bedford, which was the last Virginia city to downshift to town status in 2013.

Now the town manager, Kolakowski said small size “certainly makes it a struggle for some independent cities.”

Like most other cities around the state, Bedford was financially challenged, despite the fact that it had already joined up with Bedford County to deliver many of its required services, including its school system.

“We were largely a city by contract,” Kolakowski said. “The schools, the court system, the sheriff, social services, the Health Department” were operated through contracts with the county. As a result, following the charter change, “There really wasn't a dramatic change in how services were provided.”

Petersburg's situation is much different. The city currently provides its own school system, constitutional officers, courts, social services and other costly functions.

Another difference between Petersburg and Bedford is that the latter is located entirely within Bedford County, from which it became independent in 1969.

Petersburg, in contrast, was originally formed as a town in 1748 from portions of Chesterfield, Dinwiddie and Prince George counties, and was first chartered as a city in 1850. Therefore, it's unclear which county Petersburg might join if it does revert to town status.

It's also unclear whether any of the neighboring counties will be willing or able to take on the job of delivering services to Petersburg's roughly 32,000 residents — more than five times Bedford's population of about 6,200.

With Petersburg only in the preliminary stages of even considering the idea, city officials have not given any official notification to the neighboring counties.

“The county has not received any communication from the city of Petersburg that this was voted on or contemplated,” said Dinwiddie County Administrator Kevin Massengill.

As a result, Massengill said, the county has not taken any official position on the issue, but is making sure that county leaders are kept informed as the charter review proceeds.

County leaders, he said, “respect the fact that the city needs to evaluate all of its options” but also want to be sure that they “understand the process and what impacts it might have on the county. We would have to make comments if we thought it might have an adverse impact.”

Petersburg officials have stressed the need to complete the charter review quickly.

Interim City Attorney Mark Flynn noted that any changes to the city charter must be approved by the General Assembly. To meet the December deadline for pre-filing proposed legislation for next year's legislative session, he recommended that the committee be given a deadline in October to deliver any recommendations.

• Michael Buettner may be reached at mbuettner@progress-index.com or 804-722-5155.