THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 18, 1994 TAG: 9411160114
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
The biggest challenge facing Portsmouth is ``not the money but the organization,'' Ray Gindroz said during a recent discussion of his 10-year economic development plan.
``The money can be found to do things,'' he said. ``But you need to get people to agree on what needs to be done.''
And getting the agreement is the challenge.
Gindroz recommended a volunteer task force, which might have had its beginnings in a Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce retreat over the past weekend.
``You also need someone to manage the plan,'' he said. ``You need a person whose only responsibility is to carry it out.''
That person, Gindroz said, should be able to coordinate public and private actions, should be able to facilitate communications between departments of city government as well as between factions in the city.
``An idea doesn't come together without communication,'' he said.
The most important part is having that individual whose sole job is the plan.
``You always have very well-intentioned people in city government but many a project never makes it with one person running it,'' he said.
Gindroz is right on the money with these comments and the Chamber of Commerce and Portsmouth Partnership could play a role in seeing that one person has the responsibility.
Some of the best things that actually happened here have been private/public efforts. Portsmouth Partnership itself was set up to facilitate those efforts. So was PortsEvents.
If Portsmouth Partnership would pay half the salary and the city the other for a full-time plan pusher, that person would be responsible to both and probably could accomplish more than either a city employee or a free agent.
The public must see action to believe.
We need to start accomplishing things almost immediately and continue at a measured pace into the 21st century.
Gindroz and his associates have suggested some small things as well as some major projects that can be done now, some at little public expense and many within the expenditures the city will make anyway.
The people need to see accomplishments as a result of the effort to create this plan or they will not support it.
A person charged with implementing the plan also would be responsible for explaining it and selling it to the people. That person also would have to relay to city departments the urgency of getting little things done.
As the bits and pieces are done, the overall picture will begin to emerge, giving hope to the public that this plan will work.
In addition to the local taxpayers, the city also must be concerned about its image as it appears to prospective business and industrial clients. It's very important to economic development prospects that we show determination to follow through on this plan.
Overseas investors, particularly the Japanese, are very concerned about planning, Gindroz said. Considering that our best investments in the past year or so have come from outside this country, that definitely is a good reason for having the plan.
But having a plan is not enough.
We must be working it all the time. The only way I see that happening is to have a single person responsible, one whose only job is to get up every morning and go do something to further the plan.
That person must be a communicator respected by all parts of the community, an organizer who can put together public and private interests to the good of all. That person must help coordinate everything that's happening in the city and understand the impact of each activity.
As Gindroz said, it's not going to be easy.
And, it won't happen at all without somebody running it every day, every week, every month. by CNB