THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 8, 1995 TAG: 9501070012
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
Governor Allen last year signed legislation triggering construction of Tidewater Community College's decades-overdue downtown-Norfolk campus. Last month the governor proposed that the state abandon its commitment to the enterprise by denying $1.25 million in state funds to TCC-Norfolk and striking language in the budget authorizing the campus.
The abrupt reversal was startling. It brought the state's credibility into question - a consequence that the governor could hardly have intended. The proposed cut seems to be the product of haste and superficial analysis by the staff of a governor understandably bent on keeping his spending-cut promises to the voters.
Based on a commitment solemnly inscribed in state law, the owners of the empty Smith & Welton department-store building in downtown Norfolk donated the property for the campus. Private sources swiftly pledged $1 million (toward a $3 million goal) to equip the school's classrooms with the most efficient interactive teaching technology available. More than $4.5 million in federal, state and local money was spent or obligated for design, planning, land acquisition and gutting and demolishing selected commercial structures.
So the construction process was well along when the governor switched signals. Norfolk was preparing to market $15 million Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority bonds this month. Preliminary offering statements had been issued to potential investors. That progress on the project hould be halted at this point defies belief.
Demolition of some Granby Street structures was initiated in September. In a large ceremony immediately befpre the first swing of the wrecking ball, former two-term Gov. Mills E. Godwin Jr. praised the state for making TCC-Norfolk possible at long last. Mr. Godwin, who resides in Suffolk, is the father of Virginia's enviable - and economically strengthening - community-college system. TCC-Norfolk dovetails neatly with Mr. Allen's plan to move able-bodied welfare recipients from dole to payroll.
There is much cause for regional celebration of the emerging campus, which currently serves 850 students in rented downtown office spaces:
The campus promises to be a godsend for legions of city residents - many of them from lower-income households - in quest of job skills demanded by employers.
TCC is moving to prepare minorities to compete for building contracts and jobs linked to the projected $270 million MacArthur Center regional shopping mecca on the vacant acreage between the MacArthur Memorial and Scope cultural and convention center.
The projected campus was an important factor in Norfolk's winning a Department of Housing and Urban Development loan and recruiting a first-rank department store, both in connection with MacArthur Center, and a key element in the city's gaining a $3 million federal enterprise-zone grant last month, because of its role in Norfolk's job-training/job-bank program that will connect residents in poor neighborhoods to employers.
The Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Norfolk Corp., Norfolk Southern Corp. and Norfolk State and Old Dominion universities, as well as TCC, are among the Norfolk campus' champions. They see TCC-Norfolk as an essential instrument for economic-development in Hampton Roads. Funding for the campus should not be deleted from the state budget - indeed, The governor would do well not to send his proposed defunding amendment to the legislature at all.
Virginia should honor its financial commitments. This is no small matter: In 1994, after years of close examination and deliberation, Virginia's state government formally directed the campus be established. The General Assembly acted after both the State Council of Higher Education and the Virginia Community College System had endorsed the campus. The legislation commanded the state to contract ``with the City of Norfolk, its agents and instrumentalities, to provide facilities for a (TCC) campus'' downtown. The law's terms called for Norfolk to underwrite construction of the campus and the state to pay back the city by leasing the facilities for 20 years for a sum not to ``exceed $1.3 million annually.''
What could be clearer? The bargain was advantageous to city and state alike. The state got a cap on spending and avoided adding another capital project to its indebtedness. The city got a measure of control over the project and a further push to its accelerating downtown revival. Business got an institution dedicated to preparing Norfolk residents to become productive workers.
Similar local-state partnerships have underwritten projects elsewhere in Virginia. Two examples: a Richmond biomedical park and a parking garage at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Reneging on the city-state deal in Norfolk could, as financiers put it, have a ``chilling'' effect on consideration of such deals in the future. Did Virginia, Norfolk and TCC have a deal or didn't they? Is Virginia's written commitment reliable or not? Government officials, private investors and philanthropic individuals and institutions alike will want to know.
To put a fine point on the argument: The state's unilateral canceling of a good-faith deal would be bad, bad, bad. That's not how Virginia supposedly does business. And it never should be. by CNB