THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 3, 1995 TAG: 9503010187
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: E8D EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
A controversial $13 million public golf course is among a half-dozen projects put on a back burner as Chesapeake officials try to prioritize their spending over the next five years.
In a letter to City Council members last week, City Manager James W. Rein suggested breaking the city's proposed $826 million budget down into three categories: projects that are ``critical,'' those that are ``desirable,'' and those that ``can be delayed beyond five years.''
About $80 million, or one-tenth of total spending, was pushed off the critical list, with $16 million of that amount delayed indefinitely.
The move comes as council members struggle to balance two competing needs: the need to meet constant demands for services in the fastest growing city in the state and the need to face its mounting debt and its future ability to pay it back.
``The city wants to move very conservatively with all the projects we've got at the moment,'' said Vice Mayor Arthur L. Dwyer. ``And what we want to do is be very cautious with the amount of debt that we take on.
``The economy is very much in flux at the moment,'' Dwyer said, ``and we don't want to make any long-range decisions that will be impacted by a downturn in the economy.''
Rein proposed the list in response to budget concerns voiced by council at a retreat in Williamsburg three weeks ago.
At the retreat, council members said they could no longer count on paring down the city's internal operating budget to offset capital needs for new roads, schools and other infrastructure.
While the budget is itself a list of the city's priorities for the next five years, Dwyer said it did not give enough of a broad picture to help the council make hard but needed choices.
``The budget prioritizes the needs within every department,'' Dwyer said, ``but what we need is an overall set of priorities so we know where to go when considering how to approach the spending and the timing of that.
``For example,'' Dwyer said, ``we can know if one school is more urgent than another school, but the budget doesn't tell us whether one school is more or less important than one drainage project.''
Dwyer said the list was not definitive.
Two big-ticket projects on the ``desired'' list include delaying a $25 million school on Elbow Road and Centerville Turnpike. Also postponed is a $4.6 million project to widen Johnstown Road, one of the roads targeted in the city's successful November road bond referendum.
But Rein said that despite public protests to the $13 million golf course, holding off on its construction would not free up any funds to be put elsewhere.
``People are saying, `How can you build a golf course when you have neighborhoods that need sidewalks?' '' Rein said. ``But you can't take the golf course money and stick it somewhere else. It doesn't work that way, because the money that would pay for the golf course would come from the . . . fees generated by it.
``It's not some pot of money that already exists that we are using to build a golf course as opposed to building something else,'' Rein said. by CNB