Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 2, 1993                   TAG: 9304300113
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

`VISIONS' ARE BLINDED WHEN THE POLITICIANS DON'T ACT

There's the Roanoke Valley Business Council and its unfolding plans to take a long, hard look at the Roanoke and New River valleys, chronicling their strengths and weaknesses.

There's Roanoke Mayor David Bowers and his focus on downtown tourism pegged to redevelopment of Hotel Roanoke. Add his campaign to route Amtrak service to Roanoke, however remote the chances may be, and you begin to see Bowers's vision for the city.

There's Roanoke County's latest anxiety over funding the Explore Park - the same project the Board of Supervisors declared its "No. 1 economic development project." Planners who long said the deal wouldn't cost county taxpayers now are rattling their tin cups; and that rattles a few supervisors hesitant to plunk down real money for the redesigned attraction.

Vision? We've got lots of visions around here.

We've got the Business Council's leadership on a crusade to craft communitywide vision. Fine, but they don't intend to make the politicians - read, the folks who spend our money and make policy decisions - full participants.

So the business community's vision, however laudable and progressive it may come to be, won't mean squat if the politicians don't embrace it and move to implement it.

We've got Bowers focusing "like a laser beam" on downtown tourism: He spent the first six months of his term stumping incessantly for the Hotel Roanoke project. Now with that seemingly in the bag, he's setting his sights on passenger rail service and downtown tourism. The key word here is "downtown."

What about the Explore Park, Mr. Mayor, that county project we've been hearing about since 1985? Would it complement the vision for downtown tourism, for Hotel Roanoke?

"I've got my hands full with this," Bowers said Wednesday, fresh from a summit on downtown tourism. "I have an obligation to this city. My obligation is to help get the city agencies and the city groups all working together."

As long as Virginia cities are independent and the surrounding counties governed separately, it makes sense that local politicians will favor efforts designed to improve their own jurisdictions.

But Mr. Mayor, he was asked, why not get out front and urge your colleagues to make a symbolic contribution to Explore, sitting only 2 1/2 miles from the city limits?

"The voters have decided we are going to have two governments," he replied. "It was not my decision. When we talk about valley cooperation, we must also talk about valley responsibility" - a jab at the county's refusal to help fund the Hotel Roanoke renovation.

Consider the county's predicament: Why should its supervisors OK a few million dollars in revenue bonds for the hotel's conference center if the city then refuses to share future hotel revenues?

It's all money.

Strip away the politics, the return address on your tax bill and the insignia on the garbage truck and the basic question is: Do we really have four distinct communities in this valley, or one community divided four ways?

If so, how do you explain the letter Bowers received from an 8-year-old county resident with suggestions for downtown tourism - his downtown? Or the blue sketchbook chock full of suggested design schemes the mayor received from a Salem resident?

There are some politicians, too, who can see beyond jurisdictional lines. Trouble is, they don't call the shots around here.

Lt. Gov. Donald Beyer and House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell see the Explore Park as a perfect complement to a restored downtown hotel. But don't expect them to jump into the thicket of local politics and play referee.

Beyer, who on Tuesday pledged his support for both valley projects while announcing his campaign for re-election, said opening Explore Park would give Virginia "another badly needed destination attraction."

"We have to look for a way to make Explore work," he said, responding to apparently flagging support for the project in Roanoke and Roanoke County. "Personal responsibility suggests that we all look beyond our borders. What's good for Roanoke County is good for Roanoke.

"It doesn't seem fair to me to expect local governments to bear the burden of funding Explore," he continued. "When Explore is done, it will be for all Virginians, and it's not unrealistic to expect [a portion of] it will be paid for by all Virginians."

The way Cranwell sees it, Explore, a renovated Hotel Roanoke and other regional assets need to be "woven into a vigorous tourism effort" to recoup lost jobs and increasingly stretched municipal revenues.

"I don't think that any one event is going to make or break Explore in the next six or eight months," he said. Does that sound like the cryptic musings of a state lawmaker with the power to help Explore become a state agency?

\ Daniel Howes writes about business and political issues for the Roanoke Times & World-News.