THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 6, 1995 TAG: 9504040122
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Long : 182 lines
FIGHT AGAINST THE SIGN
Citizens who are proud of the revitalization of our downtown need to let City Council know they are opposed to the electronic billboard. This is a huge two-faced sign proposed to go on Waterside Drive on public property.
This would be visual pollution at its worst, just where so much money and effort has been spent to beautify our city.
It would be ill-advised, inappropriate, tacky, and it would set a dangerous precedent.
Kirkland Clarkson
Hanover Avenue
A COSTLY TRIP HOME
On Feb. 28, our son stopped by to see his parents at 3 p.m., after a business trip to Virginia Beach and before returning to Williamsburg, his home.
He had been in our home but a few minutes when we looked out the window and saw a ``police scooter'' stopped by his car. He rushed out to find the officer writing a ticket for his car parked in front of our home (his former home). The officer said he was parked in a driveway, which is not a driveway. Gates Avenue was not full of parked cars as is the case on evenings and weekends.
During the protest from our son, the officer was ugly and spoke rudely to him. His remark to us was ``no wonder Norfolk has a bad reputation.'' He was furious and his parents were, too - all of us are Norfolk natives and law-abiding citizens!
Now he'll have to travel back to Norfolk and go to court and pay $26 in court costs and a fine of $15 for parking in front of his parents' home and his former home. What justice in a free city!
Margaret H. Metcalfe
Gates Avenue
GO AFTER THE REAL CRIMINALS
Go after the real criminals
Congratulations to Mr. Gonzales, who clearly and succinctly summarized the priorities of the city of Norfolk where crime prevention is concerned.
Like Mr. Gonzales in his March 23 letter to The Compass, I too, am amazed at the great emphasis placed on traffic control while our neighborhoods are riddled with violent crimes. Weekly where I live, the city's finest lurk behind the shrubbery at the Larchmont Library and in the parking lot of a local Episcopal church to pull over speeders. Are these offenders, as they hurry to their military duty on NOB or as they run errands and deliver their children to and from their Larchmont homes, worth the precious time and effort of our overworked police?
Often, four squad cars are devoted at one time to track down these vehicular miscreants. Could not at least one of these cars be better used to randomly patrol our neighborhoods as hoodlums walk away with our televisions?
Larchmont was recently cited as having the highest number of break-ins in the city. I doubt an effective means to prevent this is through speed traps. In the last year a man was shot at a Hampton Boulevard 7-Eleven across from ODU. I fear that unless the assailant was speeding down Hampton Boulevard in a Volvo, our current traffic-oriented law enforcement would not have prevented this.
You are right, Mr. Gonzales. Where is the priority of our law enforcement? Is the city bureaucracy too large to effectively perceive the real threat? Is the revenue provided by parking and speeding tickets a major budgetary line item? Perhaps our local constables would rather chase bowtie-wearing, Taurus driving, white-collar professionals than venture far from doughnut stores and aggressively uncover situations where real crime festers?
Mike Maddocks
Edgewater
IN SEARCH OF EXPANSION
While we can appreciate Vice Mayor Riddick's comments in the March 16 Compass regarding the Chesterfield pool, the area around the Fairlawn Recreation Center feels the expansion of our center is important for the children and adults in our area.
We certainly hope that you seriously take into consideration the information given to the council by Mr. Stanley Stein regarding the use of the pool and the amount of money needed to keep the pool open from Memorial Day to Labor Day.
Our center consists of two rooms. One game room is 27 feet by 20 feet and a multipurpose room is 25 feet by 30 feet. The center has a monthly attendance of 16,000, including the schools' physical education programs and group use of the basketball courts. The center is consistently used by area children, before- and after-school programs, adults, adult classes, outside groups, civic leagues and the athletic association. The staff at the center works diligently to keep the children busy and entertained at the center. We are constantly having holiday programs and parties, homework time, birthday activities and dinners. We simply cannot accommodate the people that attend the functions at our center.
We invite Mr. Riddick to attend our center and strongly urge you and council to do the expansion to our center.
Denise Matchen
President of Fairlawn Adult Advisory
LOOKING OUT FOR PEOPLE
Having read the article by Mike Knepler in the March Compass, I was happy to see where Mayor Fraim and various civic league presidents were talking and discussing problems confronting the city, its civic leagues and residents.
Mr. Knepler reported several areas that were being covered, including ``frustration.'' Many civic leagues are frustrated be the lack of resident participation unless there is a particular problem that directly affects the individual resident. I would say this is a problem that affects City Council as well.
Most people look upon a civic league as a problem-solving or griping forum. In some cases this might be true. That these leagues could be for neighborhood awareness and social activity does not often enter into their minds.
Mr. Knepler also has written about what some leagues are trying to do to increase involvement, such as spaghetti dinners, potluck suppers and barbecues. Where do they hold these functions? Are they held in private homes or in city facilities? Ingleside, in the past, tried holding functions such as a block party and a neighborhood fair. The roadblocks that the city threw up stopped any of these functions from being held. With the insurance requirements, permits, security and so forth, it was impractical for a civic league to meet these requirements from the financial standpoint alone.
Ingleside has a small recreation center that could be used, but it also has certain restrictions. Having social activity on city-owned property is stopped due to the city fear of being sued should an accident occur. There should be some way this fear can be overcome.
Civic leagues are the backbone of democracy within the city and country. Candidates for office come to the civic leagues for direct contact with the people. The city government should try and assist when a request is made, not just quote ordinances and restrictions. Is an insurance policy really necessary to hold a block party? The mayor or city manager might appoint a group to study some of the ordinances that make these requirements and see if they can be rewritten in order to help not hinder.
Keep up the good work, Mr. Knepler. It's good to have someone reporting the facts for the people.
Raymond L. Fields
Riverside Drive
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
I attended a town hall meeting held March 14 at Ruffner Middle School in Norfolk.
For the most part it was a productive meeting. However, the upper-crust population is still failing to see that the parents that they speak of are just not there. Their love may be there in part but unfortunately so is their inability to raise and educate their children. The school representative cried, ``woe is me - I can not take it upon my shoulders to solve this problem.''
But if our young children are to make it, the schools must look around and see that they are the largest social structure still standing to save the children and the future of society. Many individuals can step up to the task, but the larger structure to deal with the societal issues of crime, violence and drugs has to be our schools.
The one cry that was heard the loudest was the pleas from the mothers to keep their children in school. Discipline them, yes, but do not throw them out into the streets where they will do themselves harm as well as society. Out-of-school suspension or expulsion are dramatically being abused, and too many children without direction are left with no hope and only the gangs and drug lords to turn to for answers.
We need to break the code on the tough kids driven by societal problems of neglect, abuse, violence, alcohol, drugs and more. We cannot just simply say these kids are too hard and throw them to the streets, where society is being devoured by them.
We are building our own elitist box, and it has a lot of kindling in it ready to ignite at the slightest provocation. We as adults need to teach our children to take responsibility and stand up and be counted.
Alicia C.F. Brown
Making A Difference Foundation
TIRED OF BLUE MONSTERS
You would think the Norfolk City Council would have enough to do building multimillion dollar money-losing turkeys like Waterside, Nauticus and a downtown mall without trying to screw up the last remaining beachfront in Norfolk with authentic atmosphere - namely West Ocean View Avenue from Mama's Italian Kitchen to Harrison's Pier.
I guess they want to tear it down and turn it over to a handful of homeowners who will build more four-story blue monsters like the ones they built on the last of the amusement park beach.
The consultants the city hired have the most perverted idea of beauty I have ever heard of if they think the backs of a row of four-story blue monsters are nicer to look at than the Chesapeake Bay. I guess their idea is Myrtle Beach, S.C., or Wrightsville Beach, N.C., with nothing but miles of backs of houses where the ocean used to be. If the council needs something useful to do, let them work on the stretch of East Ocean View Avenue from Granby Street to the amphib base - that ought to keep them busy for about 50 years. The worst thing about Virginia is that the people have no voice in local government - no power of petition.
William R. Pierce
Maycox Avenue by CNB