Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 24, 1993 TAG: 9308240187
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES, JOEL TURNER and MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The finger-pointing started Monday, with City Council members sidestepping responsibility for the aborted takeover of Roanoke Gas Co.
The question: Who - if anyone - was to blame for the public relations fiasco that ultimately forced city hall to relinquish its contractual right to acquire the city assets of Roanoke Gas?
The answer: Many say City Manager Bob Herbert failed to recognize and warn council of the backlash that could result from a takeover bid - and then failed to act for five critical days after Roanoke Gas unleased its media blitz on Aug. 13.
Mayor David Bowers drew fire, too, for failing to recognize the futility of the fight. Citizens lambasted the mayor for denouncing his colleague, Vice Mayor Beverly Fitzpatrick Jr., who said last week he would oppose any effort to acquire the gas company.
Bowers and other council members pointed their fingers at Fitzpatrick, whom they blamed for derailing negotiations late last week with his public opposition to any attempt to acquire Roanoke Gas.
Many citizens don't buy that. As City Council approved its deal to extend its franchise with Roanoke Gas 180 days in order to continue negotiations, critics of council interviewed Monday praised Fitzpatrick for doing the right thing.
"Vice Mayor Fitzpatrick had every right to voice his opinion," said Frank Gill, a retired Federal Aviation Administration employee, "and the mayor publicly chastised him. That didn't set well with me.
"I'm going to be looking at David a little closer. It makes you wonder what's going on down there. I don't think I'm the only person in the city who's a little put out."
Susan Creeger, a retired Dominion Trust Co. officer, agreed: "That wasn't too smart, but [Bowers is] kinda cocky anyway."
"I think Bev Fitzpatrick said it well," said R.H. Graybill, a retired railroad supervisor. "We stress industrial development and private enterprise and at the first opportunity, the city wants to take over the strongest and oldest utility company we have."
Roanoke Gas officials called the city's surrender Sunday night "a wonderful victory," and pledged their intention to negotiate a new franchise agreement "quickly and in good faith."
"The victory's been won, we've removed the acquisition clause and now we move ahead," said Robert Glenn, senior vice president for marketing and strategic planning at Roanoke Gas.
For 40 years, Roanoke Gas has paid nearly $30,000 in annual franchise fees to the city - what company officials say is the highest gas franchise fee paid to any city in Virginia.
"We make no apologies for our fee," Glenn said. Company executives point instead to the more than $1.9 million in taxes and fees Roanoke Gas returned to the city in the past 12 months as evidence the company is paying its fair share.
Roanoke Gas also rejects comparisons suggesting that its new franchise fee, which will be negotiated over the coming months, should approximate the $500,000 paid to the city by Cox Cable Roanoke Inc. "The cable company and the gas company are totally different entities," Glenn said. "One is a luxury service, one is a necessity."
In a regularly scheduled meeting Monday, the company's board of directors approved the agreement reached Sunday between Bowers and Roanoke Gas President Frank Farmer.
"The board of directors is satisfied that Roanoke Gas . . . is in a position to continue to serve its customers as an integrated gas distribution system," Farmer said in statement. "Within a short time, this rather unpleasant chapter in the long history of Roanoke Gas . . . should be over."
Many city residents hope so.
"Had they gone to the people, had they been above-board, it's possible" that residents wouldn't have been so angry, Gill said. "Everything is done in the dark corners in the back rooms."
Who was responsible? "David Bowers, and quite possibly [Utilities Director] Kit Kiser and Bob Herbert," Gill answered. "This smacks of something those two could cook up. Some of the things they've done have seemed sort of sneaky. They pop it to you at the last minute."
Indeed, city officials have suffered stinging criticism from Roanoke Gas executives and residents angered by the last-minute gambit of handing the company a 3-month-old consultant's report exploring the option of acquiring Roanoke Gas.
The report, dated April 26, was shown to company executives July 23, accompanied by an ultimatum: Agree to a franchise extension or the city would ask the State Corporation Commission to value the company's assets inside the city - the first step in a takeover.
"I think they [city] tried to pull a fast one," said Thomas Portzer, a retired inventory control supervisor. "The city has been concealing things from the public for years."
Portzer and others blame Herbert, the city manager, for the furor: "I think he shoves his stuff in to the council and they buy it. For $99,000 a year, he's supposed to do what the council tells him to do, and it's just the opposite."
Said Ann Wampler, 49, a food service worker: "I don't think I've had anything to make me as mad as this did. They waited until the last minute to make public what they were doing.
"I think if we had been informed more about what they were doing, it might possibly have made a difference, but I don't really think so," she said. "I do think that Roanoke city was kind of underhanded in waiting till the last minute."
Elmer Steele, a retired industrial worker, said, "I think if they'd brought this out and given the public and the [gas] company and everybody more time, things may have worked out better."
Council members agreed, with some leveling criticism at the city manager they depend on to help them make informed decisions. Herbert engineered the controversial consultant's report, they said, recommending last fall that it be commissioned.
Now, having backed down in the face of furious - and relentless - opposition, some council members are saying Herbert failed to adequately brief them on the pitfalls of renegotiating the gas company franchise.
Still, there is no indication that Herbert's eight-year tenure as city manager is in jeopardy. Instead, council members blame the city's late-night capitulation on a relentless media campaign unleashed on, perhaps prophetically, Friday, Aug. 13.
"Council is unanimously behind [Herbert] as far as what I have heard," Councilman James Harvey said, repeating his complaint of the city's slow response to the gas company's media offensive.
"We just got outgunned," Councilman William White said.
Said Bowers: "There are lessons to be learned from this, but I think that [Herbert] enjoys the full confidence of council. I was not a proponent" of a possible gas company takeover. "The administration brought it to us."
"I don't look at it as who was at fault," Councilman Delvis "Mac" McCadden said. "Everybody dropped the ball to some extent. With everything that was going on in the city, I think the gas company franchise got put on the back burner."
Herbert, for his part, defends his decision to explore acquisition of the gas company. "That's part of the city manager's job," he said. "I have a fiduciary duty to study such issues. It's my job to ask such questions. That is good business."
by CNB