THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 1, 1995 TAG: 9503010482
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Short : 50 lines
Calling for a new level of fiscal restraint, the Chesapeake City Council unanimously adopted a $826 million capital spending budget on Tuesday.
In keeping with that spirit of frugality, the budget was $41 million less than the one the city approved last year.
It is also the first budget to set priorities for spending over the next five years, by dividing projects into three categories: critical, desirable and those that can be delayed.
Council eliminated $16 million in projects that had been slated to be delayed.
As in past years, the bulk of the budget will pay for school and road projects in Virginia's fastest growing city.
More than a quarter of the money will go to education. It will cover eight new schools, nine school additions, and renovations to six school facilities. Most of that construction will come from a $102 million school bond issue the city will seek within the next two months.
About $368 million will pay for road improvements throughout the city.
Before approving the budget, council members substituted several projects in low income-neighborhoods that residents requested at several public hearings in the past month.
They include sidewalks along Great Bridge Boulevard and on Campostella Road to make it safer for children walking along the congested and dangerous streets.
The council also shifted its priorities for parks and recreation in the city, killing plans for a $13 million city-owned golf course and focusing on smaller neighborhood parks in Campostella and other low-income neighborhoods.
``We can't just keep turning our backs on these areas of the city,'' said Vice Mayor Arthur L. Dwyer. ``They don't end up getting the attention, but they're just as important, and we have to make sure that we get recreation in those parts of the city.''
After three public hearings and as many work sessions on the 200-page document, Mayor William E. Ward called the budget approval process one of the smoothest and most critically reviewed he could remember.
``As we move into adopting of the Capital Improvement budget and look forward into the operating budget,'' Ward said, ``we have to be cognizant of the restraint that will come from outside (state and federal) forces. And we have to be careful in how we spend the money we generate from our taxpayers.'' by CNB