THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 26, 1995 TAG: 9503250120
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Beth Barber
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
``We are dysfunctional as a family,'' Gerald Divaris said of South Hampton Roads. Nominate that one for Understatement of the Year. If local cities could fit on a couch, some Ph.D. would have a career cli-en-tele.
Beach developer Divaris was among representatives of neighboring localities who took a therapeutic turn on the dais at Tuesday's ``Talk of the Town,'' one of occasional debates sponsored by the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, Norfolk Division. (I'm on a volunteer committee that helps plan TOTTs. I of-fer that as both disclosure and a plug.)
Divaris continued his mild shock therapy: The military, he said, is an asset. But it's also ``a crutch'' that keeps the region limping rather than striding into economic de-vel-op-ment.
Nobody choked. That is mostly a credit to the special-operations team of locals - military, civilian and Ret - whose savvy about the base-closing proc-ess has kept that ``crutch'' un-der-arm.
But Divaris' remark and its reception signal progress of a sort in a region which has been co-dependent on the military, and which defense downsizing leaves scrambling for other sources of revenue. That scramble landed mayors of the Beach and Norfolk in the clash zone Tuesday night.
Paul Fraim started it. The state should raise incentives and lower bars, Norfolk's mayor said, to getting Virginia Beach and Norfolk ``to work together on economic development or to share revenues.''
Nobody choked at ``share revenues.'' But Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf hadn't yet arrived.
Venerable Realtor Hunter Hogan picked up where Fraim left off. ``Look,'' he said, ``at all the people who live in Virginia Beach and live off Norfolk.''
Norfolk loses a net 80,000 workers, and their real-estate, personal-property, utility, stormwater and sales taxes (fees), to Virginia Beach each night. The magic potion to recapture those revenues are ``pay-roll tax,'' which Fraim finally uttered. Still nobody choked. Nevermind that a payroll tax gives employers and employees one more reason to flee.
Meantime, Mayor Oberndorf had uttered another magic potion for revenues and economic development: water. She noted that regionalism won't happen without cooperation ``so one city can't use (water) as a club on another.''
Mayor Fraim replied that Norfolk clubbed nobody, ``hoards'' nothing and sells what water it can spare. ``We have an economic underclass,'' he said. `` . . . an expensive society . . . and we need help managing that prob-lem.''
Choke, and chokepoint, on a question too rude to ask but crucial to answer: Norfolk wants suburban neighbors to ``share revenues.'' But what has Norfolk to share with the 'burbs besides urban ills and development debt? by CNB