THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 2, 1995 TAG: 9506010219
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Beth Barber
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
In nuclear arms control, the superpowers called it ``onus-shifting'': The aim of negotiators was as much to get the other side blamed if negotiations failed as to succeed in negotiations.
The script regarding Gaston so far echoes onus-shifting. Or at least the public script sounds that way.
Virginia Beach drops the first bomb: a proviso in its agreement with North Carolina that limits where Norfolk sells surplus water. Norfolk lobs back an ICBM: Incoming Cash from the Beach, Megabucks. Demand, coun-ter-of-fer, counter-counteroffer, back to counteroffer - is this solution-search-ing or onus-shifting?
Now, wizened folk wouldn't bet their three-gallon buckets that all this back-and-forth between the Beach and Norfolk isn't cover for back-room boys accustomed to demanding the moon, the stars and the sun and then settling at the wire for what by then seems a paltry sum. And a public even more cynical about government than the press (according to a nationwide poll last week) probably presumes that the ransom for their water has come to involve not just mucho moolah but that other elixir of modern life, politics. Mayhap it does.
The Democratic lea-der-ship of the General Assembly, which must approve the interstate compact that is part of the Beach-Carolina agreement, doubts the Assembly would approve the com-pact - but knows that if time runs out on the agreement, it's Republican Governor Allen's fault: He didn't call a special session.
But the governor hasn't called a special session, he says, because without agreement in advance Speaker of the House and Norfolk delegate Tom Moss will bury the compact in committee. So what's the point of a session?
A possible point: to let the pub-lic see who kills the Gaston agreement - George Allen or Tom Moss?
Closer to home, Mayor Obern-dorf, who is unwavering in support of Gaston, has been seen of late in the company of Dickie Cranwell, majority leader in the House of Delegates and rep-re-sen-ta-tive from Roanoke, where the sole excuse for the Gaston pipeline is extortion from Virginia Beach. That's nothing political on her part, the mayor assures. And for sure, courteous mayors attend all distinguished guests.
But what's not political about Dickie Cranwell, last heard at the local Democratic Party's Jefferson-Jackson gala exhorting diners to scare up Democratic challengers to the Beach's largely Republican state delegation (particularly the delegate Cranwell easily spots as lying: ``His lips are moving'')?
Cranwell's was a hardball act to follow, but House Speaker Tom Moss, visiting from Norfolk, ably seconded his motion.
And, behold, Democratic opponents have since surfaced against two Beach Republican incumbents, giving Democrats (they hope) two more chances to retain their three-seat advantage over Republicans in the House.
What has this to do with the price of water in Virginia Beach?
In a perfect world, nothing. But this is the political world, where Messrs. Speaker and Majority Leader mightn't mind a perception that Democratic savvy and seniority rescued, respectively, Norfolk and the Roanoke River Basin from the plumb theft of their water by a profligate Virginia Beach. Where Beach Republican legislators join in Norfolk-bashing but don't push the Republican governor for help. Where water moves heretofore reasonable, regional-minded men like Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim to leave reasonableness and regionalism behind.
It's also where Virginia Beach City Council bravely digs in against Norfolk's current exorbitant demands but declines to identify alternatives to recurring dependence on Norfolk: A regional authority without Norfolk and with Northeastern North Carolina? A supplemental desalt plant?
Shifting the onus on water to Norfolk isn't hard. But what's the reliable, reasonable, long-term source of water if blaming and shaming Norfolk aren't enough? by CNB