ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 7, 1995 TAG: 9512070068
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS STAFF WRITER
An "urban partnership" of business and government leaders formally launched its drive for a $200 million regional cooperation fund Wednesday with an appeal to fearful suburbanites.
"We are not talking about regional government. We are not talking today about any tax increases, and we're not talking about a poverty program," said former Gov. Linwood Holton, who has been retained by the partnership to lobby the General Assembly for a legislative package, including the fund.
"We are talking, plain and simple, economic development," he said, citing the partnership's principal concern - that the decline of Virginia cities is strangling the state economically.
Even so, Holton told about 100 mayors, city managers, business people and onlookers that selling the package in a General Assembly increasingly dominated by suburbanites "is going to be a tough assignment ... because people don't understand that the positives outweigh the negatives."
Confirming that assessment, Virginia Beach Assistant City Manager Bob Matthias said after the meeting that suburban cities and counties are skeptical of the incentive fund.
The idea is to reward localities that voluntarily set - and fulfill - goals for regional cooperation in such areas as transportation, economic development or education.
"Everybody's afraid of that," said Matthias, referring to the fund. "A lot of people have the attitude, when you see a snake, you kill it."
A spokesman for Republican Gov. George Allen wasn't encouraging, either. "The goals are certainly ones that we support," said Kenneth Stroupe. "I think we are looking for existing vehicles rather than additional spending to accomplish that."
The Virginia Association of Counties recently opposed the partnership's legislation, primarily because members said they were uncertain about how to pay for the fund.
The partnership's legislative package is the outgrowth of an 18-month evaluation of the economic status of Virginia's counties and cities.
Roanoke Mayor David Bowers, City Manager Bob Herbert and First Union National Bank of Virginia Chairman Warner Dalhouse helped launch the partnership. Eighteen localities and some of the state's most prominent business leaders have joined the effort, although some of the suburban partners have been clear that their membership does not mean they support the legislative agenda.
The conclusion of those studies is that the state's governmental structure has left urban localities in increasingly dire economic straits. Virginia is the only state in which cities are independent of their surrounding counties.
Partnership advocates, including the state Chamber of Commerce, argue that the cities' decline is damaging the entire state. They point to studies such as one showing that, between 1970 and 1990, Virginia's rate of income growth per private-sector job was 1 percent, while North Carolina's was 6.7 percent and Georgia's was 11.2 percent.
Evidence is overwhelming that "where there are large economic disparities between suburbs and central core cities, there will be reduced economic growth for the whole region," said Virginia State University President Eddie Moore Jr., keynote speaker for the meeting.
As outlined by Holton and others, the partnership's legislative package has several goals in addition to the incentive fund:
Easing restrictions to allow counties and cities to participate in revenue sharing and other agreements barred under current law.
Adopting neighborhood programs to encourage residential and commercial development, including raising the ceiling on tax credits for business development in enterprise zones and expanding local governments' authority to correct blighted conditions in poor neighborhoods.
Extending for one year the life of a commission on state and local taxing authority with an eye to addressing imbalances between services localities provide and revenues available to them.
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