
DATE: Wednesday, March 5, 1997              TAG: 9703050443

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  126 lines

A FORUM OF FRUSTRATION BERKLEY SAYS IT'S NEGLECTED RESIDENTS VENT THEIR CONCERNS AND ANGER AT A MEETING WITH NORFOLK CITY OFFICIALS.

Folks got the sad news Tuesday night: Food Lion has decided to put a new store in Chesapeake instead of Berkley.

The lack of stores in the community across the river from downtown Norfolk, better known as ``Southside,'' has irked its residents for years. They had their hopes pinned on the chain as an anchor for a shopping center the city has been planning in the area.

Anger and frustration about that and other issues burst forth Tuesday night in comments to city officials who had gone to St. Helena Elementary School for an old-fashioned talk-it-out session.

``Why are we being put on a back burner in Berkley?'' one man in the crowd of about 150 asked after city development director Rod Woolard announced that Food Lion wasn't coming. ``We want it now.''

``We can't even get a hot dog or ice cream in Berkley,'' said another man.

Steve Cooper of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority responded that the agency is still working to entice a grocery store that would make a larger shopping center possible.

And Clarence Nelson, program manager for the NRHA, assured Berkley residents that the $886,000 committed to the project is ``still in place'' and said that officials are already ``back at the drawing boards.''

BUT IT WASN'T JUST the news on the shopping center that had Berkley residents frustrated. Crime, truancy and lack of recreational facilities were heavy on its collective neighborhood mind.

One man, who said he'd raised 10 children in the once-autonomous community, chastised officials for dragging their feet time and again: ``The real deal is people are walking the street at 3 a.m., and I guarantee if you walk the street in Ghent at that time of the morning, somebody's going to check on this. Nothing has been done.''

``I watch drug deals out my window,'' said a tearful woman who identified herself as a cousin of Taylor Ricks, a youngster killed last year inside her home from random gunfire.

``I'm tired of calling 911 and the police don't respond. In Chesapeake and Virginia Beach, I see families out grillin' in their back yards. All I'm hearing is a lot of talk. When is something going to be done?''

Her comments were met with cheers and applause.

Police Chief Melvin High assured residents that more police officers would soon be available for response. He urged residents to push for tighter gun controls.

``I see kids gamblin', throwing dice up against the wall, dealing drugs at high noon,'' one man told High, who assured him that about 1,000 truant children had been returned to their parents or taken to school or juvenile court for skipping school last year.

``Over and over and over again have I heard folks say they're going to get the monies for the Berkley Community Center,'' one man said of a long-awaited addition to the neighborhood's recreation center. ``One gym for all these homes.'' The crowd chanted, ``over and over and over.''

Stanley Stein, director of the city's Department of Recreation, Parks and General Services, tried to explain the financial issues that had delayed a larger rec center in Berkley, but his comments were mostly lost among the crowd's murmurs.

IT WAS DARK THEN on the streets of Berkley, but earlier Tuesday, in the bright light of day, folks didn't see things much differently.

When Willie H. Daniel needs a cold soda to drink, he could head over to one of the neighborhood's two convenience stores.

But he wouldn't.

Daniel, a retired shipyard crane operator, doesn't like to tempt fate, so he steers clear of Berkley's two convenience stores no matter how thirsty he gets while working on his Hough Avenue house.

``You're scared to go to `em,'' says Daniel, taking a breather from nailing down porch floorboards Tuesday afternoon. ``I wouldn't take you to `em, no sir. The language, the people out of work . . . '' His words trail off to thoughts that rake lines across his forehead.

Outside Seward's Mini-Mart at South Main and Liberty streets, near the T-shaped skeleton of what was once a gas pump, a bearded, shabbily dressed man clutches a brown paper bag close to his torso, turns on his heel when spoken to and warns not to approach from the rear.

``I said, don't go behind me like that, man'' he admonishes, shifting his stance, backing off a few paces. A small child in tow mimics his actions.

Despite his defensive reaction, things in Berkley are getting a bit better, he says.

``I'm not saying, now, that there's no more shooting, but things are changing,'' he says, shying away and declining to give his name with a wave of the hand.

Inside, Sunny Lee is doing a brisk business in small stuff. Men and children are lined up waiting to pay for candy, snacks and beer, which is kept in a cooler behind the cashier's counter. Big gray strips of duct tape spread like a sleeping spider across the surface of one of the glass doors of the beer case.

A piece of plywood paneling that juts outward from the counter into the dirty concrete floor adds a stylish touch to the otherwise bleak interior of the store. Lee says the place is going out of business soon because of the planned shopping center.

Daniel, a Campostella resident, was working on the 80-year-old house he bought several years ago. He plans to rent when the work is done.

``It's getting some better, but there's still crime,'' he says. ``The bike police have helped. But it's just like anything else, takes time to get it back when it's been neglected so long. You cut yourself, it ain't gonna heal overnight.''

Vines inch their way up the sides of boarded-up buildings and seem curiously out of place against a backdrop of neatly painted and maintained turn-of-the-century homes in the north section of Berkley.

Near the southwest corner of Poplar Avenue and Stafford Street, a mangy yellow and white cat crunches some Doritos that someone dropped on the sidewalk.

A few feet away, Mike Teller, 13, leans against the street sign pole that tips on its own, and the graffiti decorating both sides of the stop sign that's even with his ski-capped head creates a frame that seems to say it all. ILLUSTRATION: [Color photos]

HUY NGUYEN photos/The Virginian-Pilot

Esther Land, left, and Erma Hoggard, center, listen as Charlotte

Scott directs questions to the panel at the Berkley town meeting

Tuesday night.

Poplar Avenue in Berkley includes a boarded-up house, left. At a

town meeting Tuesday night with city officials at St. Helena

Elementary School, one resident in a crowd of about 150 asked,

``Why are we being put on a back burner in Berkley?''

Color VP map

Berkley

For copy of map, see microfilm