Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 17, 1993 TAG: 9301180342
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEOFF SEAMANS ASSOCIATE EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
BLASTS AT BOWERS
ELEVEN days ago, in a speech to the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce, Norfolk Southern Chairman David Goode urged Roanokers to get their heads out of their . . . er, valley.Wake up to the world around you, said Goode, an erstwhile Roanoker who (familiar story) left when transferred to a better job elsewhere. Look beyond the lovely mountains; understand you're part of a global economy; work toward finding and occupying a niche in that economy.
Goode, though, failed to mention a Roanoke tradition: He who lifts his head above the ridge line, to take a look at the world beyond, is sure to be shot at.
Ask Mayor David Bowers.
The day after Goode's speech, the mayor spoke to the Williamson Road Action Forum. Picking up on the NS president's train (I had to say it) of thought, Bowers talked about the antiquated and inadequate structure of the valley's local government.
Rejection in 1990 of city-county consolidation was a mistake, he said. But if county voters are still adamant against it, perhaps other ways can be found to unify the valley and so foster economic growth.
Roll out the artillery, boys, there's a head poked up over the horizon.
The loudest blast came from the word processor of county Supervisor Ed Kohinke.
Apparently intent on carving out a niche of his own - as the Doug Wilder of local politics - Kohinke personalized things.
"I knew it was just a matter of time before somebody blamed all our recent economic woes on the failed consolidation referendum. And, I somehow knew that that someone would be you," Kohinke wrote Bowers in an open letter.
"Get a life," he told Bowers.
Kohinke was not the only critic, only the silliest.
Consolidation is no panacea, they said.
True. What is?
Consolidation is dead meat, they said.
True, at least as the idea is generally understood, in the forms proposed in the late '60s and again in 1990. Parochialism and paranoia have seen to that. But didn't Bowers concede as much?
Consolidation has nothing to do with economic growth, they said.
Not true.
Nobody can "prove" (and I didn't understand Bowers to be trying to) that First Union Corp. of Charlotte bought out Dominion Bank of Roanoke, at a cost of 850 valley jobs, because consolidation didn't pass.
Or that the valley's trend line from slow-growth to no-growth to decline is "caused" by the creaky inefficiency of its fragmented system of local government.
Such things can't be "proved" any more than it can be "proved" which specific drops of rain "caused" the flood of '85.
But it strikes me as rather obvious that each drop played its part. And anything that needlessly makes the valley less attractive to business is a hindrance, not a help, to the nurture and retention of good jobs.
Sure, the bank headquarters probably would be leaving anyway. So, probably, would Grumman firetrucks (job loss: 270), and Gardner-Denver (job loss: 400) drilling equipment. Certainly, rainstorms far removed from local government contributed much more than anything local governments here did or did not do.
But why handicap yourself?
In the banking business these days, it's grow or get gobbled. To grow, Dominion had to venture far from the valley, into areas where it was inexperienced. If for the past 20 years or so the valley had offered a unified economic-development front, could Dominion have found more growth opportunities closer to home, and so made wiser lending decisions, and so survived the industrywide shakedown as an independent entity?
Who knows? But why handicap yourself?
The needless duplications of multiple governments suck tax money from more productive purposes. Former city Finance Director Joel Schlanger's phone-call finagling, for example, is penny-ante stuff compared to Roanoke County's purchase of a new county office building.
Viewed alone (which of course is how things are usually viewed around here), the purchase is defensible. Considered in the context of the valley as a whole (which of course is how things are seldom viewed around here), it's an insane, poorly placed waste. A scandal, you might say.
What's the price tag for the unnecessary overhead caused by fragmented government? Maybe 3 percent of total revenues, maybe even less.
But why handicap yourself?
And, oh, how proud everyone is of "cooperation."
Well, sure, it's better than shootouts. It's still fool's gold.
Ever notice how "cooperation" is never quite complete? (You don't see Salem participating in the landfill, do you?) Or that when "cooperative" ventures finally are accomplished, they tend to be a couple of decades late? (Exhibit A: the new airport terminal.)
Or that hopes for "cooperation" can be dashed, leaving one or another locality with a bigger-than-anticipated bill? (Like Roanoke County and its water system.)
In other words, local-government tasks that under a normal system would be routine, and routinely accomplished, must in the Roanoke Valley become laboriously negotiated, much-heralded achievements.
The places in America with full-fledged city-county mergers - Nashville, Tenn.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Lexington, Ky. - have a leg up on the competition. But there aren't many of them.
On the other hand, there aren't many places where the problems of fragmented government are compounded by Virginia's no-annex, independent-city system. But that's how it is in the Roanoke Valley. One hand tied behind our backs isn't enough; we gotta have two.
If the valley's cities and county can't be merged, perhaps the cities could simply become part of the county. Same result, different route. It's a thought, anyway.
You might be surprised at what can go into a jobs-location decision. I was, anyway, when told recently of what went into Hershey Chocolate's decision a few years ago to put a factory in Augusta County.
The basic requirements had been met: good access to suppliers and markets, adequate utilities, suitable plant site, etc., etc. But in the end, the call depended on results of a visit to Augusta by a group of Hershey officials and their spouses.
Among things they looked for: the cleanliness of area barber shops and beauty salons. Hershey is, after all, in the food business; the company wanted reassuring signs that cleanliness was a value respected by their prospective work force.
That story got me to thinking about what conditions here might suggest to a prospective employer about the valley's work force.
Many good things, to be sure, as Goode noted in his speech.
But if your eye wandered to the valley's local-government structure, might you not wonder?
If you were in a high-tech industry, interested in hiring good analytical thinkers, might you not wonder why your prospective workers are so willing to tolerate a system with so much built-in, pointless redundancy?
If you were an employer in the fast-growing service sector of the economy, committed to offering customers the best possible service you can, might you not wonder about the civic incivility of some of the people whom your prospective workers elect to local office?
And if you were an employer intent on staying competitive by continuously improving your processes and product, might you not wonder about the apparent ferocity of your prospective workers' attachment to horse-and-buggy ways?