Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 1, 1995 TAG: 9501040011
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Also on her list: A bike path linking Tanglewood and Valley View malls. ``That doesn't mean that I want to go to either of those places. But chances are that if I could get there, I could also stop off at River's Edge park or get myself up toward the Blue Ridge Parkway.''
Kaye Hale, director of the West End Center: ``The city needs to make more of a commitment to its youth, and not just lip service but dollars. Not only can we not acquire enough funding to fully operate this center and get children off our waiting list, but there needs to be centers like this in every neighborhood in the city.
``The big picture is it costs $20,000 a year to incarcerate a juvenile, but it costs only $1,300 to $1,500 a year to provide a comprehensive youth program per child.''
Yvonne Wilbourn, owner of The Underground clothing store: ``A nice club for people to dance at with resident deejays. You could still serve alcohol for the older people, but it should definitely be open to teens.''
Bobby Scruggs, owner of Racing Image: ``We need a race track, somewhere off the interstate. Racing is the largest spectator sport in the world, and it would pay for itself in a couple of years. There's no kinda fan like a race fan: They save their money for the races, and they spend their money on the races.''
Michelle Bennett, cook and owner of Short Order Temporaries: The Body Shop, The Gap, a sweets bakery, a good Sunday brunch restaurant, a photo booth, a downtown movie theater, a 24-hour work-out place. ``We do need a Thai restaurant. We're so behind the times that by the time we get one they'll have gone out of style.''
Lucy Lee, writer: ``The more I think about it I really like Roanoke. The only thing that's missing is an ocean and a beach; otherwise it would be perfect.''
Also on her list: better career opportunities for women.
Patricia Johnson, performer: ``I see kids in the neighborhood standing on the corner yelling from one corner to the other. Roanoke needs a place for young people that doesn't serve alcohol and brings in top-name bands they'd enjoy listening to.''
Also on her list: a cabaret-style jazz and blues club for adults.
Marie Akers, retiree: ``They need more stuff for young children. They need their own coffee house, only Coke - that's Coca-Cola, I mean, not coke.''
Ron Crowder, unemployed welder: ``We need more jobs.''
Mark Hoskins, Roanoke native home for Christmas from his Tucson Air Force station: ``It needs to be less conservative.''
Also on his list: ``It needs a professional baseball or football team. You go out of state, and no one knows where Roanoke is; they think we're the Lost Colony.''
Phil Trompeter, juvenile and domestic-relations court judge: ``No budget cuts for human service programs.''
Linda Wheeler, writer/performer: ``Roanoke needs a better attitude. People are entirely too negative on this town, and I can't figure it out. A lot of my friends are moving somewhere else, but I think there's something cool about having roots here and trying to establish something for this town.''
The Rev. Nelson Harris, Roanoke city school board chair: ``I still see signs of prejudice and bigotry, and I think people are getting more intolerant. I see that in the [proposed state budget cuts] right now. To me, it's not leaner government, it's meaner government.
``I wish that as a community we could seek to understand one another and quit being so polarized.''
Also on his list: That Roanoke's teen pregnancy task force ``come up with something meaningful before I'm on social security.''
Janet Scheid, Roanoke County planner: The Gap, Gymboree (kids' clothes), an identity for her hometown of Vinton besides ``redneck.''
Also on her list: ``I'm convinced there's so much we could do with the river and greenways. Other cities that are not much bigger than Roanoke have done so much with their waterfronts to spur economic, recreational and cultural growth, and we just keep continuing to dump in our river.''
Jim Cubby, V magazine publisher/editor and man-about-town: ``We're getting more and more things; now we need more customers, more audience members, more people who wanna do things instead of just staying at home.
Also on his list: a nice dance club, a place for teens that isn't called a ``teen center,'' a Thai restaurant, a good Mexican restaurant and isolation tanks ``filled with six inches of salt water where you close the door and float on top.''
Anne Marie Green, director of community relations for Roanoke County: ``A more positive self-image. People who have lived here a long time don't realize what other places are like - how the traffic here is no big deal, how comparatively easy it is to be a parent here, how comparatively safe it is.''
Also on her list: an ice-skating rink, another newspaper.
Gary Ballard, radio announcer and board member of the National Railway Historical Society: "I'd like to see the 611 displayed in an indoor surrounding, similar to what you'd find at the Smithsonian. Plush, hardwood floors and pylons with roped-off stations. It's more than just another caboose or box car. It's a tribute to ingenuity - built by men from Roanoke and the grandmas and moms who sent them off to work."
Tom Clarke, recreation programmer for Roanoke city: "I think we should have a tubing concession down the Roanoke River through Wasena and Smith parks," using a horse-drawn wagon as a shuttle service. "It would prompt people's pride in the river and taking care of it, and it would be a fun family thing."
Also on his list: turn the old transportation museum by the rocket into an outdoor education center, build riverside bike paths from Salem to Smith Mountain Lake and bring back the Mill Mountain incline.
Marshall Fishwick, Virginia Tech professor and Southeast Roanoke native: Roanoke needs to avoid the tendency to compare itself to New South cities like Atlanta or Miami, and Old South cities like Richmond. ``We always seem not to want to be Roanokers; we always seem to want to be something else.
``We are Roanoke, a unique item. We should be proud of it.''
by CNB