THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 25, 1994 TAG: 9408240113
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
LENGTH: Long : 146 lines
Staff writer Mike Knepler recently interviewed Mayor Paul D. Fraim. Here are excerpts.
Q: After eight years on the City Council, what are the one or two key things you've learned that will make you an effective mayor?
A: I've developed a certain sense of what the community expects out of its City Council. I've developed an appreciation for the need to listen to community leadership and help them communicate.
Q: What does the community expect?
A: Progressive, responsive and efficient government, to be listened to, for information to be shared with them. They will accept your best judgment if they've truly been included in the process. They really just want an opportunity, as much as anything, to be informed and then be heard.
Q: How do you define the job of mayor?
A: The mayor needs to help the council and the community form consensus and, once a consensus is formed on an issue, to carry it out in the most responsible fashion.
Q: On taking office, one of your predecessors, Joe Leafe, said he intended to use the position to prod things along at City Hall that he believed were going too slow or moving off course. Do you plan to use the mayoralty in a similar way?
A: As a mayor you have an obligation to get things done.
The mayor really has two main responsibilities. He's got to help form and shape vision for the future plus policy for the everyday functions.
Q: What sort of things need to be prodded?
A: We need to give constant attention to our educational system. Also crime and anti-social behavior needs to be dealt with in such a fashion that our citizens feel safe.
Q: What is not happening in those areas?
A: The physical facilities of the school system need a lot of attention. We still need to find a way to fund school renovations, air conditioning, etc.
We also need to find resources for early childhood education centers, which are very valuable.
The city has been conducting a study of its police department. We're waiting to receive the study.
Q: Do you have any pet areas?
A: Improve our recreational facilities. Economic development and creation of jobs also are vital.
Q: Mayor Leafe declared that Norfolk would become the business, educational and cultural hub of the mid-Atlantic.
Mayor Mason Andrews urged attention to children and neighborhoods and community aesthetics, such as landscaping in public spaces.
What will be Paul Fraim's themes?
A: Themes are largely in place. I think a balance needs to be struck between the positioning of the city in the mid-Atlantic as well as positioning the city as a leader in the region. I think there is now more attention being given to public spaces and neighborhoods, including schools.
Q: Should Norfolk have a different system, a directly elected mayor?
A: There's sort of a split of thought on that. It would be very helpful to have a popularly elected mayor. But the reality is that, whoever the mayor is, he has to get four votes to get anything done.
Q: What would be the advantage of having a directly elected mayor?
A: That the citizens themselves would decide. It also gives a certain strength to the position, in one sense, but the other sense is that in order to get anything done you still need the votes.
Q: What does being mayor mean to you?
A: It's a terrific honor and a responsibility.
I came from a family that - let me say this, we got a lot of help along the way from many different people.
I've always felt because of that, it was my responsibility to give something back. This is a generous city, and it's just my way to return the many favors that were given my family.
Q: How will this affect your family life and your job as an attorney?
A: It's making pretty drastic demands on me, mainly on the job. I'm trying to make sure I find enough time for my family.
Q: How do you relax?
A: I try to relax with the kids. I don't have a lot of hobbies. I enjoy working.
Q: For a long time, many neighborhoods complained that City Hall focuses too much on downtown but not enough throughout the rest of the city. Is that true? If not, why do you think that so many people have that perception?
A: I agree with the notion that there has to be a balance. But the city's budget is nearly $440 million, and when you talk about downtown improvements you're basically talking about capital improvements. The whole CIP budget is less than 10 percent of our overall budget, and the part that's spent downtown is even less than that. But they're high-profile items.
When you look at the budget as a whole, we spend less in developing downtown than people think we do.
But we have to pay a lot of attention to the creation of jobs and to maintaining a strong tax base. I think the success that the city enjoyed in that area has been a great deal more than experts in the field believed we had a right to expect.
Q: Do you think the makeup of this City Council will make it difficult to keep the city's long-range goals for downtown in focus?
A: I don't think so. I think that there is a common belief among the council members that the city very much needs a strong business community.
Q: What other downtown projects can we expect besides the MacArthur Center shopping mall and the downtown campus of Tidewater Community College?
A: We're starting to discuss, in a long-range fashion, a specific plan for Granby Street as well as how we might create a sports facility that might accommodate professional major league basketball or hockey.
Q: What do you think of the petition drive to create a separate city of Ocean View?
A: Not much.
Q: What new initiatives do you anticipate for other areas of the city?
A: We need to spend a lot of attention thinking about another north-south connector and improving approaches into and out of downtown. For instance, Llewellyn Avenue. I would really like to see improvements, especially as it winds through Park Place and Colonial Place. Also Granby Street, from the bridge on into downtown.
Q: Do you go along with City Manager Jim Oliver's personal commitment that City Hall will pay half the cost for the Attucks Theatre restoration project?
A: Yes.
Q: As mayor, how will you be involved with the project?
A: To the extent that the office of mayor could lend support to that project, I'm going to do it. I think it would be important for the minority community to see a good-faith effort.
Q: Several times over the past year, various black leaders have complained that City Hall was not doing enough to assure minority in city-sponsored projects, either as workers or subcontractors. How much more progress needs to be made in this area and how do you plan to achieve it?
A: We're making good progress in that. The vice mayor (Paul Riddick) has made his feelings known, as well as other minority members of the council. I think we're working hard on that goal. The city manager knows about it. The director of development, Bob Smithwick, is committed to the same goals. I'm confident that we're all in agreement on the goals. The question is, how you get there.
One of the most recent ways is what we're doing in Park Place with creation of a job bank. The city has gone out to the private sector and found corporations that are willing to hire from this job bank.
I think this new MacArthur Center also is a terrific opportunity. So we're making good efforts and we're making good strides.
Q: What's the one thing you would like Norfolk residents to understand better about you and the City Council?
A: That there's a limit to what the city can accomplish, that the citizens need to be willing to accept a certain amount of responsibility for improving the city. That's everything from being involved in neighborhood block security to code enforcement. And we need to hear from them on a constant basis as to what they think we should be doing. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by RICHARD L. DUNSTON
Paul D. Fraim says the city expects progressive and responsive
government.
by CNB