Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 1, 1995 TAG: 9505040019
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Quick, get the smelling salts! That revelation came not from city officials but from county officials last week, at a luncheon forum sponsored by the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The discussion by local-government and business leaders focused on the problems of Virginia core cities such as Roanoke, and on well-documented evidence that the economic vitality of Virginia's metropolitan areas has fallen behind that of metropolitan areas in other Southeastern states. That's to the detriment of businesses and residents - and a situation that must be turned around.
City, county and business heads nodded in agreement: The cities' problems - poverty, crime, aging population, increasing costs of social services - don't stop at the city lines, are already spreading into surrounding suburban counties, and indeed into rural counties. More to the point: Regions tend increasingly to decline or thrive as single economic entities, so urban ills have regional consequences. Cities' dilemmas require regional solutions.
That is much the same theme being pushed by the Urban Partnership, a coalition of mostly Virginia cities and the Virginia Chamber of Commerce that was launched last summer, and which helped inspire last week's luncheon. Roanoke city officials are prime players in the partnership's efforts to develop regional strategies. These are expected to be presented to the Virginia General Assembly in January, and could - let us hope - prompt changes in Virginia's local-government structure.
All well and good. And Roanoke County stands ready to help, county officials promised.
But, as Administrator Elmer Hodge and county Supervisor Lee Eddy pointedly stressed: If the idea is regional solutions, then the Urban Partnership and, by implication, Roanoke city need to bring the county in on the discussions. Suburban counties surrounding cities want a voice in developing the strategies, want their voices to be heard - now, not later.
To that, Roanoke city officials pointedly responded that Roanoke County has always been welcome to join the discussions, has never been excluded from the efforts to devise regional solutions, and pointedly noted that other urbanizing suburban counties in Virginia are members of the Urban Partnership.
All of which, sad to say, sounded like business as usual. Roanoke County says this, Roanoke city says that; the city throws a tomato, the county throws back a tomahto; let's call the whole thing off.
Let's - instead - call the calling off, off.
To be sure, several business leaders attending the luncheon seemed to react with frustration bordering on disgust, and understandably so. Yet, if city and county officials are as willing as they profess to work together to address regional problems, to discuss their intermingled interests and to plan cooperatively for their joined-at-the-hip futures, what's stopping them? It's high time to cut the gibber-gabber and just do it.
by CNB