Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 29, 1994 TAG: 9404290128
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
John Parrott almost makes it sound as if he was born wearing a hard hat. "I've been in construction all my life," he says.
That's why Roanoke needs him on City Council, he says.
"We're getting ready to spend $75 [million] to $100 million in the next four years on construction work," says the Republican candidate for one of the three four-year council seats. "We need someone on council with some awareness of what's involved.
"There's nobody on council and nobody in the administration who really knows what's involved in changing an order or letting a contract. That's what I do for a living. That's something I think would be real valuable on council."
By nature, Parrott - "Jack," he insists, not the more formal "John" - is an amiable fellow. At candidate forums this spring, he's the one most likely to get off a wisecrack that lightens the mood.
But he's also got some criticisms of the way Roanoke currently does business - many of them based on his own experiences in the business world.
For one thing, he's upset that an out-of-town architect was hired to work on the Hotel Roanoke conference center project.
"I don't think the council did a good job on the conference center," Parrott says. "Council should have been more involved in what was happening there. They turned all this over to something called the conference center commission ... There's not any reason we couldn't have given that work to a Roanoke firm. If I had been on council, I think I could have stopped that."
Parrott also told Gainsboro residents this spring that if he had been on council, the controversial Wells Avenue widening might have been done differently - though he conceded he couldn't say just how.
Parrott says the city's No.1 priority must be increasing its tax base through economic development.
Nothing remarkable there - except Parrott's not satisfied with the city's current economic development efforts. "I think our economic development office needs to be more sales-oriented," he says.
Moreover, he says, the city needs to focus more on helping existing employers expand rather than concentrate on chasing new ones. "We ought to treat these people as well as we do anybody coming to town," he says. "Economic development shouldn't necessarily be getting new businesses."
He says he knows of one local businessman who contacted the city, looking for information on potential building sites. "He couldn't get it," Parrott says, and the man eventually put his expansion elsewhere in the valley.
Parrott wants the economic development office reorganized to include a staff member who can advise small businesses on what permits are necessary.
"I know it can be kind of a pain, particularly on small businesses," he says. "The man with five or six employees - he doesn't have time to go down to the Municipal Building and go through all the different offices to get your permits and variances. What I'm proposing is somebody in the economic development end of the city administration where somebody could go" and find out in one stop what's required.
Parrott is most outspoken, though, on the subject of regional cooperation.
"You know what I think the problem is?," Parrott asks. "I think it's with us. We're the enemy in a lot of cases."
He's miffed that the city didn't send a representative to the groundbreaking for Hanover Direct, a new mail-order company that recently located in Roanoke County.
"Lots and lots of Roanoke people will be employed there," Parrott says. "The company will probably spend a lot of money in Roanoke. Except for the actual taxes, Roanoke is going to benefit a lot from that place there. But there was not a single soul from Roanoke who showed up.
"The same thing happened for the groundbreaking of Cox Cable [which is building a new facility in Roanoke County]. I think that's crappy. We're giving the impression we're against cooperating. We have got to lead. There's no damn excuse for us not being there."
Parrott acknowledges that sending an official representative to a corporate groundbreaking is merely a symbolic gesture.
But he says the city's reluctance to take an interest in projects outside the city limits is one of his "pet peeves."
Keywords:
POLITICS PROFILE
by CNB