THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 4, 1994 TAG: 9408030118
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
Some familiar themes emerged as the City Council held its retreat last weekend. Rehashing Suffolk's problems is the easy part, even for a council with three newly elected members. The challenge is in ranking the needs and finding the money to meet them.
For as long as these sessions have been held - and long, long before that - council members have sung the refrain of inadequate housing and neighborhoods in dire need of municipal water and sewerage. So it was at this session.
And with that, another familiar but naive plaint was sounded: that people who have lived in Suffolk for years and years and still lack these basic services should get them ahead of residents in new developments. That's benevolent beyond the city's means.
There's refreshing recognition that one way to make the services possible is for those longtime residents to do just what others served by municipal water and sewerage, including builders and residents of new subdivisions, do: pay for them through special taxing districts or some similar mechanism.
Citizens who choose to live in sparsely populated areas apparently considered separation from the more urban area worth some sacrifices, including municipal services. It's right, then, that the council ask if the majority of certain areas wants the services badly enough to pay. If not, the offer should be extended elsewhere.
The discussed plan, to add services in areas that eventually would cover the entire city, is the only affordable way. City staff has prioritized areas; it's time for movement.
Other councils have offered sympathy and little else: yes, we know it's awful when the septic tank overflows into the children's play area; but, golly gee, we just don't know what we can do. It's time to say we'll enable you to do something.
Another oft-voiced concern was too-rapid residential development and too-slow business and industrial growth. It's vital that the council heed it, doing everything within its means to encourage this tax-generating growth. Otherwise, Suffolk will never get the money to meet needs that will only grow, among them police and fire protection, recreation and schools.
Forward-thinking is difficult work, but the council must dedicate much more time to it than reliving the merger of Nansemond and Suffolk and trying to do the impossible: provide the demanded level of urban services while maintaining rural taxing structures.
The council will have to decide whether it's willing to compete on the same level as other cities to lure industries and businesses to Suffolk or whether to impose more and higher taxes on its citizens.
Bold approaches are imperative if the themes of these retreats are to be anything but decades-old litanies. It's time to move on. by CNB