THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 13, 1995 TAG: 9508130351
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Beth Barber
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
It's partly generational: Thousands of kids couldn't tell a clothes-line from a church key. But it's urban/rural, too: More people mean less gets sun-dried.
The point came up as Henley and John Baum regaled the recent Council retreat with tales of their rural boroughs resisting urban notions. The city's south-ern half came off part Wal-den Pond, part the Clampett place, pre-``Texas gold.''
Apparently there are still active privies in rural Virginia Beach. Also rural landowners who prefer privies to the officialdom ac-com-pa-ny-ing septic tanks or sewers.
Seems to me some of these fierce-ly independent farmers and other rural landowners, big and small, have every mod-ern con-ven-ience and still resist government inspectors. Gov-ern-ment checks, yes; government checkers, no.
Seems to me, too, that some of the same folks willing to keep gov-ern-ment out of a rural landowner's privy also want gov-ern-ment in his face when he wants to raise a house for kin, or sub-di-vide for strangers. The quaint version of rural life doesn't always square with the personal aspirations, financial plans and property rights of rural lifers. Or with the law.
It was comical when Baum warned his colleagues that a prospective privy patrol could mean ``you're gonna lose a city inspector or two if you're not careful.'' But why should that be funny along Pungo Ridge when it was distinctly unfunny at Ruby Ridge?
The ``privy rights'' debate gives rise to these and other ironies and double standards. Councilman Dean raised this one: Are we to have one standard of law enforcement in urban areas and another in rural? The unofficial coop in Creeds can make it harder to condemn the unofficial deck in Alanton. And suppose Snooty Point South, like Snooty Point North, looks down on clotheslines?
Differences in density, culture and philosophy, most Council members seemed to agree, make the case for rural exceptions to urban rules. After all, a privy hasn't quite the ramifications in Blackwater (pop. 1,035) it would have in Kempsville (pop. 145,161).
And to ensure that those differences get their due, many Council members went a step further: A neighborhood that's mostly, say, farmers should have a councilperson who knows farming.
By the same token, however, a neigh-bor-hood of grumpy old men decided they should be represented by one of their own whom they alone should choose. To make a long story short, they wound up foisting on Virginia Beach not (yet) the ward system they wanted but the worst of two worlds: The city must now equalize populations within its seven boroughs. And Council is to ask Beach voters, again, if they want a true ward system, which requires equal borough populations. Either way, bye-bye, Blackwater. Adios, Pungo. Cheerio, clotheslines?
Baum had voted to squelch this change. Henley voted to approve - not, she said, because she preferred it but because some 22,000 city voters did.
The odds on Henley's losing her clothesline are still next to nil: One way and another, Council has stalled the (sub)urbanization of the south. But Pungo and Blackwater constituents stand not only to lose their boroughs. If a referendum on a true ward system comes to pass, they will lose six of the 11 votes they now cast for Council. And so, if you vote here, will you. by CNB