THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 23, 1994 TAG: 9411230489
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
After almost three hours of debate Tuesday over the repercussions of rejecting the Southeastern Expressway, the City Council voted against the proposed 20-mile road that would connect Chesapeake with Virginia Beach.
The vote was 7-2 in favor of asking the Virginia Department of Transportation to drop plans for the expressway, which has cost taxpayers about $4.5 million so far in impact studies.
Mayor William E. Ward and Councilman John W. Butt voted in opposition.
Moments earlier, a motion to postpone a decision failed by one vote, revealing a City Council that seemed split over whether this was the right time to back out of the expressway project.
Each council member argued in two separate rounds of discussion before the 5-4 vote against delay. Alan P. Krasnoff, W. Joe Newman, Butt and Ward voted to put off the decision.
The session began with impassioned pleas by state and local officials for a firm and immediate stand against a project that many have called wasteful and out of sync with local priorities.
``I think this is a perfect opportunity for the Chesapeake City Council to send a clear message to the state transportation officials,'' state Sen. Mark L. Earley said during the public comment period, ``and that is this: We don't even want toaddress the issue of the Southeastern Expressway until you, VDOT, address Route 168. Battlefield Boulevard is a disaster on top of a disaster waiting to happen.''
Councilman Robert T. Nance, who has spearheaded the effort to derail plans for the expressway, warned that postponing a vote could result in an expressway route that goes through the city's Greenbrier section.
``Ultimately,'' Nance said, ``the decision is up to the State Transportation Board. If we don't do anything on this tonight, the route will be chosen for us, and we'll have little or no recourse to stop hundreds of homes being relocated.''
But Krasnoff injected another twist into the debate: A vote against the expressway now, he said, could jeopardize federal funding for an extensive package of highway projects that includes Routes 168, 17 and 104 - the roads that are now the city's top priorities.
Getting those funds, Krasnoff said, depends on Hampton Roads passing an air quality analysis test that includes the expressway. If the council were to pull out of the expressway immediately, Krasnoff argued, the air quality analysis would have to be redone without it.
And without the expressway, Krasnoff argued, the region could find it more difficult to qualify. A regional planner said the Southeastern Expressway, with its HOV lanes and higher speed limits, would actually improve the region's air quality.
Should the air quality analysis fail, Krasnoff said, all federal funds for roads like Battlefield Boulevard would be cut off.
``Why turn it down tonight?'' Krasnoff asked. ``Why not wait just a couple of weeks for the results of the air quality analysis. We're talking about what is best for the city. Let's not turn down the possibility of getting funding that we can actually put our hands on for roads in the first place.''
Also causing concern for the council was the fate of a part of the expressway known as the Oak Grove Connector. The three-mile stretch of highway is expected to relieve congestion on Battlefield Boulevard by linking the Great Bridge Bypass to Interstate 464.
``I don't buy the argument that if we back out of it,'' Dwyer said of the expressway, ``that the agencies will come back to us and say we can't have the Oak Grove Connector.''
The concern was that studies already completed on the expressway as a whole would have to be redone or permits reworked should the connector be considered separately.
Several council members vowed they would not cave in to what they saw as veiled threats by the state transportation department to hold up or even halt the connector if the city did not support the expressway.
Transportation department officials said after the decision that the accusations of blackmail proved how much misinformation about the expressway was circulating.
``The blackmail theory is totally wrong,'' said Ken E. Wilkinson, a transportation department environmental planner. ``It's an easy way to argue something and make a point, but no more weight is being given to one project over the other.
``You've got to remember,'' Wilkinson said, ``the City of Chesapeake asked us to build this road. Now they're asking us not to build it, which is their right. But the idea that we're blackmailing them for something they asked for is just rhetoric.''
KEYWORDS: SOUTHEASTERN EXPRESSWAY CHESAPEAKE CITY COUNCIL
by CNB