THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 12, 1994 TAG: 9406110081
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Medium
DATELINE: 940612 LENGTH:
By neglecting to keep residents of the Greenbrier area fully informed about the jail project, city officials set the stage for suspicion and apprehension. They should have known what the public reaction would be.
{REST} Surely, everyone in City Hall is familiar with the ``not-in-my-backyard'' syndrome. It comes up whenever there is an attempt to place a jail, a half-way house, a group home or a similar facility near where people live. Everybody realizes these things are necessary, but few want to live next door or down the block or across the street from one.
Knowing this, prudence dictates that the process of locating such a facility include carefully laying out a thorough and credible case well in advance of any final decision and making sure no citizen who might be affected is caught unaware.
There are good reasons why the Greenbrier site is appropriate for the project that has been proposed. For one thing, there's already a jail there. For another, the minimum security inmates housed there have never posed a serious threat to the security of the surrounding neighborhood.
But rather than paving the way for public acceptance of the project, city officials notified only those property owners immediately adjacent to the site and were remiss in sending out official information even to them. Some homeowners complained they had received their letter from the city just the afternoon before the council was scheduled to vote on the appropriation for the project.
Is it any wonder that the residents' instincts for self-protection were aroused? Lacking information to the contrary, citizens were left to assume the worst.
The negative reaction may force the City Council, a political body that can't help but be responsive to a roomful of agitated voters, to make a decision that isn't best for the fiscal well-being of the city. Delaying the $2.3 million appropriation for the jail annex may mean it won't be included in an advantageous lease-financing package through the Industrial Development Authority that wouldn't have to be counted against the city's charter bond limits. A separate funding arrangement later might be more expensive.
It's a problem that could have been avoided.
Citizens are not unreasonable. They know a city must have jails and that they must be built somewhere. If the city had made a reasonable effort to inform the Greenbrier homeowners of their plans, to answer their questions and to allay their fears, all the fuss might have been avoided.
by CNB