ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 12, 1996 TAG: 9604120085
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: City Council Campaign Notebook
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
The technological age first dawned on political campaigns with sound trucks. Then came radio, television, direct mail and computers.
Now Roanoke City Council elections have reached a new frontier: campaigning by voice mail.
Mayor David Bowers is soliciting your concerns - and your vote - with a voice mail system rigged up at his home. Call it, at 427-4150, and you can leave a message for the mayor 24 hours a day.
By pressing certain buttons on your phone, you also can hear the mayor's campaign spiel on such issues as crime and safer neighborhoods, city schools and economic development.
"If you want to hear about our proven record of accomplishment, press 3," the mayor can be heard saying. Press it, and this is what you get:
"Roanoke is a great city," Bowers' recorded voice says. "Just last year we were named the 77th most livable place in the nation by Money magazine. And we won the top award among cities from the Virginia Municipal League. Just look at our impressive record:
"Fifty-seven million dollars spent to reopen the Hotel Roanoke; balanced budgets every year; increased funding for the transportation museum; millions spent to upgrade our water, sewer and solid waste systems; and better regional cooperation."
Challenger Green says he's the man with the plan
Republican mayoral challenger Pat Green told the Rotary Club of Roanoke on Wednesday that the city needs a leader with vision, and he's it.
As if to prove it, Green outlined his conceptual plan for the Henry Street area, which would include the following:
* A black history museum on the southeast end of Henry Street.
* Incorporating a "trade mart" into plans to turn an old Norfolk & Western office building on Jefferson Street into a higher education center.
* A large vocational school the city would lease to private business at cost in an adjacent N&W office building.
* A parking garage retrofitted into a third now-closed railroad office building next to the other two. Green said the building's historic facade should be preserved.
* Private commercial development of the remainder of Henry Street along the lines of New Orleans' French Quarter or Underground Atlanta.
Green made the proposal at a Rotary dinner at the Hotel Roanoke where he and Mayor David Bowers each spoke and answered a few questions.
Green said the railroad building has far more space than the higher education center would need. He proposed that it go in the top half of the building while the city develop a trade mart in the lower half. The building should be linked to the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center with a covered walkway, he said.
"This is long-range planning," Green said. "This isn't going to happen overnight."
All the railroad buildings are owned by Norfolk Southern Corp. The railroad has discussed donating or selling them to the city, but no deal has been reached.
Bowers said he prefers turning the railroad building into a higher education center and then perhaps erecting a separate "shell building" for trade shows later.
"The Civic Center is no longer adequate for trade shows and gun shows," he said. "It used to be, but it's not anymore. If I had to choose [between the two] ... my higher priority would be the education center."
Three times in the 1980s, the city commissioned studies of a potential trade or convention center. But those plans were shelved indefinitely after NS closed the Hotel Roanoke and civic efforts to reopen it got under way.
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines KEYWORDS: POLITICS MAYORby CNB