THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 20, 1994 TAG: 9411180116
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
Creating an economic development plan for Portsmouth is different from all the places he's worked over the past several decades, Ray Gindroz said recently. And he's worked in hundreds of towns and cities of all descriptions.
``I've never been involved with a place with so many wonderful assets and such a monumental inferiority complex,'' he said.
Gindroz vows he's never seen a city with so much that has such a negative image of itself plus such a negative image in a region.
As has been his habit over the past six months, Gindroz again hit us with the truth.
Portsmouth is a lovely city in many, many ways.
Starting with the water and working around to the people, the good things pile up a big plus side.
Our rivers and and creeks are a tremendous asset. So is our drinking water supply. Most cities in the United States could envy this double dose of liquid assets.
We have great history, including an amazing record of accomplishments at the Naval Shipyard to change the course of the world and of warfare. Not only do we have the history of three centuries but we also have the artifacts to illustrate it.
Unlike many places that have destroyed most remnants of their past, we still have big items such as the first and oldest drydock and the building that housed the original Navy hospital. There are houses scattered all over town that were the homes of people who made history and Olde Towne is a fascinating array of the history of architecture over the centuries.
We have four museums and the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame. With the fabulous new Children's Museum, the art galleries in the restored 1846 Courthouse and, for the history buffs, the Naval Ship Museum and the Portsmouth Lightship, everybody can find something of interest.
Not only are the museums the creation of visionary citizens working both as volunteers and city officials. Willett Hall and City Park are two more of the most visible assets bequeathed us by far-sighted folks.
In the private sector, we have Coleman Nursery where the annual Christmas Wonderland will attract 400,000 people over the next five or six weeks.
Downtown we have the Commodore Theater, an expensive restoration that took years to catch on but which now brings hundreds of out-of-towners to High Street every week.
The list goes on and on. Yet, many Portsmouth people can only sit and moan about their hometown. This constant put-down by natives does not help our image outside the city.
People like Gindroz come to town and right away spot all the good things - and wonder about the local inferiority complex. Just last week I fell into conversation at the Willett box office with the wife of a naval officer stationed at the shipyard.
``I live on the base and I love this town,'' she told me. She too wonders about the unwarranted negative image.
The need to bolster everybody's ego makes it impossible to work on an economic development plan in one place at a time. That was part of the rationale for dividing the proposed economic development plan into four parts and picking a project in each segment to be done almost immediately.
In addition, Gindroz quickly grasped the schisms within the community that cost us so much time and energy.
``This is a city of factions,'' Gindroz said, accurately describing the cause of many frustrations for me. ``There is too much I, me and my in the language to think about OUR city.''
But success in the future depends on all of us thinking about OUR city.
It's such a small city that what happens in one corner almost immediately affects another corner. That fallout comes from both good and bad happenings.
Whether we spend public money to clean up a liability on the southeast side of town or to promote an asset in the northwest, everybody will benefit.
But nothing will make any difference if we can't figure out how to cure our inferiority complex.
A good start might be to look for assets instead of liabilities when we ride around town and then tell our friends in other cities.
A second positive step: commit to the total community. Get beyond me and mine to OUR future. by CNB