ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 26, 1996 TAG: 9612260081
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
BOTETOURT COUNTY has threatened to leave the New Century Council if the planning group seeks to gain government-agency status with expanded powers.
The grass-roots-based New Century Council is in the hot seat for a short-lived proposal to become a permanent government agency supported by taxes.
A plan to mention the council in Virginia state code produced fears in localities that the organization was attempting to take over the region's economic development activities.
It was all a misunderstanding, according to the council's executive director, Beverly Fitzpatrick, who said he merely wanted to put up highway signs marking the region as "Virginia's Technology Corridor.''
Three local agencies recently have taken up the issue of the council's future direction, and one, Botetourt County, is so strongly against the New Century Council's getting expanded powers that it threatened last week to become the first locality to drop out of the visioning organization that includes 16 communities.
"We would oppose it to the point of withdrawing from the New Century Council," said Gerald Burgess, chief administrator.
This is a controversy with no clear winner - and no clear origin. It concerns how the region should attract new jobs and companies and who or what group or groups should be in charge of those efforts. The final chapter won't be written until next month, when a bill or resolution is to be submitted on behalf of the New Century Council to the 1997 General Assembly. The legislative session begins Jan.8.
The NCC began in 1993 as a cooperative venture by the region's business leaders and Virginia Tech to sketch a vision for the region's future through 2015. More than 1,000 residents expressed ideas in a 250-page plan released in 1995. The council is trying to get others to implement it.
The plan is for the Roanoke and New River valleys, Alleghany Highlands and Bland County.
Support for the plan is hard to gauge. The council says hundreds of volunteers are working on mini-projects such as preparation of an industrial marketing disc and measurement of factors that make up the area's quality of life. However, some critics have questioned whether results are coming fast enough.
Next month, Fitzpatrick said he hopes the General Assembly will pass a resolution that puts on record the New Century Council's leadership role in the region.
Although Fitzpatrick said the General Assembly won't be asked to give any money to the council, the council's finances are an issue, because next year it will use up $600,000 from taxpayers for salaries for staff, printing and other administrative costs. Fitzpatrick's salary comes from private donations. There are no plans for localities to contribute more taxpayer money. Next year, it appears that the council must take in more donations or the office will fold.
Burgess sees recent events differently. He said the New Century Council's leadership had wanted to take a much more ambitious agenda to Richmond. The Botetourt board voted Dec. 7 to oppose any such effort.
"We understand they're looking at being codified," or written into the Virginia code, "so they'll be eligible for state funding. Our problem with that is, first of all there are not enough funds in general and the areas they've identified [as worth] looking at are more appropriately looked at by existing organizations," Burgess said after the vote.
"To put it another way, this is [going] way beyond brainstorming and facilitation, which is really what the New Century Council started out" doing, Burgess said.
The existing organization works with the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership, which receives public and private funds, and the Fifth Planning District Commission, which relies on government support, Burgess said.
A few days before Botetourt's vote, the commission was briefed on what Wayne Strickland, its executive director, described as a New Century Council plan that would "very much duplicate what existing organizations already were doing," including the planning district commission. That body asked Strickland to keep an eye on the matter.
Roanoke City Council gave conditional support to having the General Assembly recognize the New Century Council. But officials later said the city would have reservations about giving it funds if it became a unit of government.
Fitzpatrick said a New Century Council legislative committee flirted with the scenario painted by Burgess and Strickland. A committee member proposed it, but the committee "ripped it apart," Fitzpatrick said. By the time the planning district commission and Botetourt supervisors met, the idea was dead, Fitzpatrick said.
Fitzpatrick said Burgess owed him "the common courtesy" of a phone call to talk about the issue before advising the board to act "against the New Century Council."
He added: "There are a lot of people that are just turf-conscious, and what they don't understand or what might change causes them to be concerned."
LENGTH: Medium: 93 linesby CNB