ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 1, 1997 TAG: 9701020022
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: HOLIDAY
LAST YEAR was deceptively easy. Among local governments in the region, no major wars broke out. Virginia's Gov. Allen enjoyed newly cooperative relations with the state assembly. While we had to endure the O.J. Simpson trial and a long, incoherent presidential campaign, Americans generally benefited from an upbeat economy. With a few sorry exceptions, peace prevailed among the nations.
The new year, we're guessing, will prove a bumpier ride. On a host of issues, coasting along won't be an option much longer. Which is to say Americans need to hold elected officials more accountable for taking on, rather than continuing to evade or defer, a variety of challenges, the handling of which will affect the world's course far beyond 1997.
In 1996, Roanoke won All-America bragging rights, but on past laurels. Several governments in the region began to get more serious about growth management. But progress toward regional planning efforts remained at best marginal and fragmentary. A greenways initiative is in place in the Roanoke Valley, but hasn't gotten far.
The tough work on regional cooperation has yet to be done, with no one (despite the struggling New Century Council's best efforts) showing sufficient leadership to get it done. Still at a talking stage, for example, are such basic elements of a coherent plan as: (1) set-asides of major land parcels for industrial development, with costs and revenues to be shared regionally; (2) a regionwide inventory and realistic protection plan for natural and cultural assets such as ridgelines, Mill Mountain and the Roanoke River corridor; (3) a plan for building on the vitality of Roanoke's downtown by making use of empty Norfolk Southern office buildings and the equally vacant Henry Street district; (4) an expanded, coordinated role for higher education in regional economic-development efforts; (5) a strategy targeting early childhood education as a key investment in the region's future.
In state government, the previous year's destructive hyperpartisanship receded in 1996. But the state still seems unprepared for many of the burdens Washington is passing to it. The easy part of welfare reform, for example, is over. Ending welfare gets tougher now, with more intractably impoverished populations. Yet investments in support activities such as quality child-care remain inadequate.
Similarly, Allen administration efforts to upgrade academic standards in the public schools are still at an experimental stage, with insufficient provision for teacher training and better testing methods. Democratic lawmakers are resisting the next phases of education reform, such as charter schools and taking on rules that make it difficult to get rid of mediocre teachers. Meanwhile, costs of Virginia's increased reliance on the criminal justice system haven't come fully home to roost. And another blue-ribbon panel is busy studying the tax structure, but few lawmakers have the guts to vote for needed reforms such as elimination of the sales tax on food and a big increase in the tobacco tax.
In Washington, the Clinton administration will be back, but without a mandate to do much in particular except to avoid being too liberal or too conservative. Budget-balancing won't leave much for public investments aimed at reducing the gap between rich and poor, a gap only papered over by the current prosperity. Reform of entitlement programs that are rapidly gobbling up the federal government can't be put off much longer. All this must be addressed while various probes, in Congress and elsewhere, continue to look into scandals swirling around the presidency.
And while problems overseas, such as in the Middle East, prove in all likelihood more difficult and energy-consuming in the new year. The administration has to begin repairing damage done by America's bullying in the United Nations. It also needs to show leadership in the long, hard task of building international capacity to prevent wars before they break out.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 linesby CNB