ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608050077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
REVIEWS ARE SOMEWHAT MIXED about the progress the group has made toward boosting the quality of health care, government, and jobs in Southwest Virginia, but most agree they are moving forward.
A year after the New Century Council reported its plans for improving life in Western Virginia, the sometimes nebulous ideas and vision planning are starting to become reality.
Such as in a Clifton Forge elementary classroom where there's a computer that will be equipped to receive satellite signals. A Hughes Aircraft Co. communications division will supply three units at a discount price to demonstrate wireless communication, a future source of a profit. It picked the Alleghany County schoolhouse and two others locally out of thousands of schools because of a plan to link this entire region's rural schools to the Internet.
The school site was at risk of falling behind in the information age. Not anymore. "You send out the information request by phone line, but it comes back by satellite. It's much faster," said Marty Loughlin, superintendent of the Alleghany Highlands school system.
The desire for computer-ready schools was written into a plan by the New Century Council, a Roanoke-based regional planning organization that in 1993 and 1994 took input from about 1,000 area residents.
The Hughes company heard about the plan at a conference in Richmond, then picked Western Virginia for its pilot project. There have been other results of the plan, ranging from a center to shelter start-up businesses to a school administrators group to a campaign to make Roanoke's Mill Mountain star a symbol against drug and alcohol abuse.
The plan also calls for more roads, improved health care, better government, higher paying jobs and safer, happier communities. It lays out 150 steps for the region to take by 2015 to raise living standards as high as possible.
In the year that has passed since the report was released, committees have focused on about 30 of the steps and announced progress on about half that number. Some say that isn't a bad start; others wish more could have been accomplished by now.
"The question in the long term is, are we beginning to make a difference?" said Beverly Fitzpatrick Jr., the council's executive director.
He would answer his own question with a qualified "yes." "It's moving slower than I would like," he said, explaining he underestimated organizational difficulties and "the politics."
By that, Fitzpatrick refers to the challenge of bringing together individuals, governments and companies from 11 counties and five cities in an organization where they can share common visions. "We're talking about organizational politics, not elected politics," he said. "That's taken us a lot more time and effort that we dreamed. They've never been asked to do this before."
The council unites the Roanoke and New River valleys and the Alleghany Highlands. Wythe and Bland counties joined this year. The whole area is 100 miles long and is home to more than 475,000 people.
The New Century Council was created in 1993 by business and government leaders and Virginia Tech. The founders were worried by a pattern of layoffs and pressures posed by global competition. The council was to phase out this October, but money was left over from a three-year, $600,000 state grant for administration. This will keep offices open in Roanoke and at Virginia Tech and a researcher and secretary on staff into next spring. Fitzpatrick's salary has never come from the state money but from private donation.
How long the council stays in business depends on how long there is financial support for it, Fitzpatrick said. "The New Century Council is here to serve the citizens of Western Virginia," he said, "and if we do that, we assume the funding will be there."
Nearly 50 government organizations, school districts, chambers of commerce, nonprofit community organizations and other groups have pledged their help. The Roanoke Valley is more heavily represented in the group, but commitments from the governments of the New River and Roanoke valleys are about equal in number.
The profile of the typical New Century Council volunteer has changed. There are fewer of the average Southwest Virginia residents who attended sessions out of a sense of public service and more volunteers whose service relates to their vocation in government or business. People such as city managers, company personnel managers and transit system officials have expertise to contribute and a direct stake in whatever changes are made, which explains their higher numbers. Anyone can volunteer for committee work, regardless of background.
The council estimates it has 250 active volunteers, out of 1,087 people who attended at least one visioning session. That's still a lot of workers, but most have jobs and all are negotiating an unfamiliar process. That's why the council isn't as far along as some might have hoped, said Ken Anderson, a Blacksburg engineer leading a committee on roads, sewers, phone lines and other infrastructure.
Communities all over America have written vision statements. Robert Skunda, Virginia's secretary of commerce and trade, said this region is one of a few in the state trying to make a homegrown vision come true.
The council's main goal is to see towns, cities and counties cooperate to reduce the cost of water systems, police departments and other services - an idea governments have a history of resisting.
A committee headed by John Williamson, a vice president at Roanoke Gas Co., is moving slowly and cautiously on a council goal of forming a regional government council to discuss issues. It's a touchy area, because some local agencies guard their autonomy and perceived self-interests. Right now, Williamson's team is trying to sell the concept as an opportunity, not a threat.
"We could call a [first council] meeting and ask people to come, and some would show and some would not," he said. "I see nothing to gain from that until we've had conversations on a one-on-one level."
Indeed, you can't touch a lot of what's been produced by the New Century committees; it's still on paper and in people's hearts and heads. The council is preparing to ask Richmond for funds for a CD-ROM containing information about area business opportunities. It would be a joint project of the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership, New River Economic Development Alliance and Alleghany Highlands Economic Development Authority, which intend to announce a shared slogan for use in worldwide industrial marketing promotions soon.
There's a new strategy for measuring the quality of life here. There are tentative plans to address school violence, improve early childhood education, increase public safety, meet the needs of senior citizens better and expand worker training.
Some efforts now associated with the New Century Council are not a direct response to the council's plan because it was already under way. But in some cases existing efforts have dovetailed with council work.
There are exceptions, however, to the notion that the New Century Council is still getting implementation steps down on paper. As a result of the council's work, you can push through the door of Radford University's Small Business Assistance Center, which opened in March.
Also open is the New Century Venture Center, an 11-day-old Roanoke business incubator for entrepreneurs in the New Century region. The Center for Innovative Technology in Herndon donated $200,000 - that's 43 percent of the incubator's seed money - because of the council's emphasis on regional cooperation, according to Phil Sparks, Roanoke's chief of economic development.
The New Century President's Council, a coalition of school officials who will coordinate educational opportunities, meets Monday. The New Century Technology Council, set to meet for a second time this fall, will unite the heads of high-tech companies to expand technology-based industries, especially those pertaining to the "smart" road.
Virginia Tech is designing a World Wide Web site for the region. It sent a team to study the outreach programs that convert technological breakthroughs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology into business ventures. Closer to home, Tech gave a tour of its facilities to area economic developers who were unfamiliar with the types of research under way in its 85 to 90 centers and institutes.
In addition, Paul Torgersen, the university president, will announce another initiative this fall.
As the work progresses, people involved are talking about the new contacts they have made - even if local governments remain reluctant to lock arms.
"I know a lot more people now in the New River Valley, Alleghany Highlands, even here in Roanoke, than I did before, and I use those connections to conduct my business," said John Jennings, who directs the Regional Chamber Small Business Development Center in Roanoke. "If the New Century Council packed its tent today and went away, they would have accomplished a great deal, in my book."
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