Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 28, 1993 TAG: 9311270007
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
New River Valley residents will again have the opportunity to help map out the area's future.
The New River Valley Community Vision 2020 steering committee is hosting its third annual community meeting at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at New River Community College.
This year's session will focus on the area's response to defense cuts that have caused hundreds of layoffs at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant and other companies.
Holly Lesko, regional planner for the New River Valley Planning District Commission, said the meeting is an integral part of planning the regional economic adjustment strategy.
The department of defense awarded the Planning District Commission $197,800 in July to help the area prepare a strategy for dealing with the job cuts.
Thursday's meeting will build on ideas generated at a series of community meetings held early this year at localities around the valley, Lesko said.
Here are some suggestions made at one of the community meetings:
Help existing industries and local entrepreneurs in their efforts to create jobs.
Commercialize the technology and research available at local universities.
Keep land-use controls updated to preserve the rural quality of life in the area.
Concentrate on having the best public school system in the nation.
Establish a regional mass transit system.
Provide affordable housing in all areas of the valley.
Educate citizens about the importance of economic development.
"We're going to try and deal with some of those in a more specific manner," Lesko said.
Participants at the dinner meeting will hear an update on the defense conversion efforts and then break into small groups to develop priorities for the next century.
Shirley H. Gerken, from Virginia Tech's Institute for Leadership for Volunteer Development, said each discussion group will choose three goals and begin looking at ways to implement them.
"This is not a brainstorming meeting, this is a planning meeting," she said.
Gerken, a member of the Community Vision 2020 steering committee, said she hopes more than 100 community leaders will turn out for the session.
The first New River Valley Community meeting in 1991 was the result of a collaborative project between the Interstate-81 Corridor Council and Virginia Tech's Economic Development Assistance Center. The two groups were conducting an opinion study of community leaders in the five planning districts along the Interstate.
In the New River Valley, directors of the Planning District Commission, Economic Development Alliance and the United Way helped select a sample of leaders to participate in the survey.
Representatives from those three boards decided future development of the region required an expanded leadership base, so a steering committee for a community meeting was started.
by CNB