ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 25, 1997 TAG: 9701280111
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
CLIFTON FORGE hasn't much in common with Charlottesville. No prestigious university. Fewer cultural opportunities. More blue collars than white collars per capita.
But Clifton Forge (population: 4,500) is like Charlottesville (population: 40,000-plus) in this regard: It wants to throw in the towel as a city. Its leaders are concluding this may be the only way out of a box the General Assembly has put Virginia cities in.
The box is the state's unique and debilitating local-government structure wherein cities are entirely independent of surrounding counties - meaning they must struggle alone with the problems afflicting population centers. Cities of all sizes see their tax bases shrinking and their prospects for economic development declining, at the same time as demands for services escalate.
Of course, such problems confront cities in other states as well. But they are aggravated and complicated in Virginia by a system that formally recognizes no interdependence between cities and counties, and by the General Assembly's two-decade-old ban against city annexations of land for growth.
In 1988, the legislature did open a little crack in the box for cities under 50,000: reversion to town status. Smaller cities were told, in effect, they could spread some of the financial pressures of local governance by chucking city charters and formally becoming part of a county's jurisdiction.
The former city of South Boston took this step. Now Charlottesville has begun the process, which involves review by the Virginia Commission on Local Governments and approval by special three-judge court. Clifton Forge is moving in this direction; several other smaller cities, including Martinsville, are toying with the idea. And some larger cities, including Roanoke, have hinted they might be interested if the window of opportunity were raised to the 125,000-population level, as the legislature's Grayson Commission once suggested.
In response, a bill has been introduced at the assembly's 1997 session that would require a county's voters to approve before a city could retreat into the county as a town. If passed, it would likely foreclose the possibility of reversion for most smaller cities.
Reversion, it must be said, is not a great answer. It's probably more practical for a city the size of Clifton Forge than one the size of Charlottesville. As a town, a former city could annex and grow. But the process would be awkward and wrenching.
A county might place unacceptable restraints on ``town'' services - because the county might soon find itself struggling under the same financial pressures the city sought to escape. The result could be unhappy campers in both county and ``town.''
Even so, the suburban-dominated General Assembly would only make matters worse by making reversion nigh-impossible. Instead of sealing that crack in the box, the legislature should hear cities' pained protest and try to address problems causing some of them to regard reversion as their only option. Lawmakers also need to seek more ways to encourage regional governance - for example, by providing more state aid to regions rather than individual municipalities.
Reversion attempts, like consolidation battles, are symptoms more than solutions - symptoms of a municipal structure out of whack with the challenges we face. The first step for legislators should be to acknowledge that Virginia's system of local government has become as much an obstacle as a vehicle for solving problems.
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