Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 1, 1994 TAG: 9405020129
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Margie Fisher
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Sensible advice, perhaps, for a politician in an area seemingly having a deep religious experience with two other "shuns" - vi-shun and regional coopera-shun. But it can really crimp the style of a guy who feels he has a mission to get his city back on an economic-growth track.
Part of Bowers' problem, obviously, is that without annexation, effectively nixed by the General Assembly, or consolidation, nixed by Roanoke County voters, Roanoke has nowhere to grow.
Virtually all of Virginia's major cities are caught in this landlocked trap. But it's a particularly bad foil for Roanoke because it was smaller than places like Richmond and Norfolk when the legislature decided in the 1970s to stunt the cities' growth.
The bigger part of Bowers' problem is getting anybody who matters to give a hoot about his mission. This means county voters who killed a consolidation plan in 1990, and state legislators who sometimes seem bent on killing Virginia cities.
Credit Bowers for trying, for taking on the cause with energy and passion and, yes, I'd say even courage. This mayor is not afraid to step on powerful toes.
Consider, for instance, the very powerful toes of House Majority Leader Dick Cranwell of Vinton, widely recognized as the father of the state-imposed moratorium on annexation by cities of suburban counties. When Bowers ignores advice to shun the shun words and blasts anti-annexation laws for crippling cities, he's effectively telling Cranwell to put up his dukes.
When Bowers protests that regional commissions and authorities - altar boys for regional cooperation - often become bloated, undemocratic, unaccountable and inaccessible-to-the-public fiefdoms, he is protesting a Cranwell-supported alternative to annexation and consolidation.
When he leads the charge against an "archaic, Bosnianized, myopic, rinky-dink, tin-horn, two-bit" local-government structure, he is marching on the Virginia General Assembly, Cranwell's turf.
Of course, Bowers - no political dummy - would never suggest that the squire of Vinton is the enemy of Roanoke city, as indeed Cranwell isn't. Arguably the state's most effective legislator, Cranwell often has used his clout to do good things for Roanoke, and other cities, too.
Bowers also is not an enemy of regional cooperation. He believes, though, that it's a poor substitute for strong, vibrant, central cities. As a city-born, city-bred, city-proud resident of Roanoke, I agree.
Like many others, Bowers points to "bustling cities" in the Carolinas and other states that have not put a stranglehold on cities' ability to thrive and grow. In contrast, he says Virginia cities are on the brink of becoming second-class burgs, "political eunuchs," mere "maintenance" centers for the old and the poor.
(``We have been charitable to a fault" in providing social services for whole regions' disadvantaged citizens, says Bowers. As a result, cities indeed have disproportionate problems with crime and poverty, but the state and surrounding suburban governments seem to care not at all if Virginia cities are in decline.)
"Here," he says, "we can't wait to build an interstate to Greensboro [N.C.] Nobody in Greensboro is talking about building an interstate to get to Roanoke, I'd wager."
What really gets the crusading mayor's dander up is that Virginia cities are beginning to "give up" - and not just psychologically. In some, Roanoke included, there's talk of giving up city charters. In Portsmouth, there's talk of giving up city-run schools. "Give up, give up? There's nothing more odious in the psyche of Virginia than to give up! The once-grand cites of Virginia shouldn't be giving up!"
Bowers says he is not a bleeding-heart Democrat, and not a social engineer. "But I'm not blind either. Virginia's structure of local governments encourages and engenders urban blight and suburban flight," and fosters "systematic racial, social and economic segregation" between central cities and the suburbs. These problems are Virginia's problems, a drag on economic development of regions and the state, and Virginia has got to act to solve them.
But can city hall fight Richmond, and a General Assembly increasingly dominated by legislators representing suburban interests? Bowers insists it has to. The cities have got to become "vital hearts" of their regions again, and that means ditching a local-government structure that seven major studies have identified as a shackle.
Bowers has been meeting with the mayors of some other Virginia cities and plotting strategy. Meanwhile, he says, he will not be fainthearted in discussing annexation and consolidation. "I've been asked to shun those words. People say, `We don't think the time is right.' The time will never be right until we do it!"
OK by me, Mr. Mayor. But the next time you go into the county (and especially Vinton), better plan on wearing a bulletproof vest.
by CNB