THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 5, 1995 TAG: 9502030233
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: John Pruitt
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Once upon a time, in a land called Jolliff Woods, there lived the descendants of Rip Van Winkle.
They were mighty fine people, with nice homes and manicured lawns.
But ol' Rip was in their family tree, and that accounted for some of the furor when they woke up to the fact that the government of neighboring Suffolk had voted for a race track near their homes.
Unlike these folks, Rip had been a ne'er-do-well. He didn't do much of anything. In fact, he went into a sleep that lasted 20 years!
You can imagine how perplexing that must have been, with all the changes of two decades.
Over the generations, the mysterious thing that caused Rip's prolonged oblivion to this world has subsided. But some form persists.
This is illustrated in the story of the planned race track:
Wanting anyone who wanted a say about the proposal to have it, the Suffolk City Council published notices of their meetings. Among the topics was a race track to be in industrial park near the borders of Suffolk and Jolliff Woods in nearby Chesapeake.
Wanting to avoid skirmishes that so often result from overlooked details, city officials also sent not one but two missives to the city manager (somewhat akin to a king) of Chesapeake.
Scribes of newspapers serving surrounding territories told in great detail about the track, recording comments of people who favored the track and people who thought it would doom their peace and quiet.
Then, when the City Council voted for the track, the scribes dispatched that news to the mother territory called Hampton Roads.
All this news apparently arrived after Rip's malady had struck Jolliff Woods. Not a soul in that land knew a thing about the track until after the deal had been struck.
But when they woke up to that, they woke up good. They had been Ripped!
Off to Suffolk they went - at first, one or two of them, then what seemed like the whole neighborhood.
Recall this vote, they said, or we'll see you in court; you ignored your obligation to provide for the public good.
How can it be good, they asked, that roads will be clogged by people coming to watch cars zoom around the track, that fire engines and ambulances might not be able to get to the track or its neighbors, that when bombastic vroom-vroom-vrooms will shatter the tranquility?
Don't turn a deaf ear, the good folks of Jolliff Woods implored.
Too late, perhaps. For while Rip's descendants had slept, some Suffolk folks had pleaded with the council to consider how they would feel if a racetrack were speeding into their neighborhood, if narrow roads in their communities were about to be flooded with more cars than police say they can handle, if the home in which they'd poured their savings suddenly became less desirable.
Suffolk needs industry, the council had said, and the park and track would mean good things for the land as a whole.
Which might mean that Rip's grip had crossed territorial lines, so City Council members had slept through rejection by its own Planning Commission, Police Department and taxpaying citizens.
However, it remains more startling that all of Jolliff Woods could sleep while the neighboring territory undertook what residents now view as an assault on their way of life.
Ol' Rip might have been worthless, but he taught one lesson. He can't help it if his pupils slept in class. MEMO: John Pruitt is the editor of The Suffolk Sun.
This column also appeared in the Chesapeake Clipper on Sunday, February
5, 1995. by CNB