THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 4, 1995 TAG: 9510040001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: BETH BARBER
LENGTH: Long : 119 lines
Sixteen months and more than $50 million into Nauticus, officials still don't know what it is.
The several dozen folks who gathered last Saturday morning at Uncle Louie's Restaurant can tell you right quick:
Nauticus is the leading symbol of what's wrong with Norfolk's government.
It pays attention to its citizenry about like the ``National Maritime Center'' pays its bills.
Granted, most of this crowd opposed Nauticus from the start. They said it wouldn't meet the ambitious attendance goals required to pay for itself. They said city taxpayers would end up paying for more than the several million in infrastructure improvements.
They said the meals, admissions and sales taxes Nauticus generated - some $575,000 last year - would end up not in city coffers but applied to the debt service on $33 million in bonds with which the city financed Nauticus' construction.
They said city taxpayers would end up supplementing Nauticus' operating income from ticket sales and the millions raised in private donations.
They said this city of 54 square miles has more pressing needs than one more jewel in the crown of downtown.
Last year the city loaned Nauticus some $5 million to meet unexpected start-up expenses. Last week it announced that city taxpayers will have to meet Nauticus' debt payments over the next 20 years, and give Nauticus 35 years to pay them back. The crowd at Uncle Louie's has vindication, and ammunition. But they didn't take much satisfaction in having told City Hall so. They live here, too. It's their city, their future. And their money.
``The spirit here,'' said Louis Eisenberg, whose restaurant in Wards Corner will be the site of regular, monthly citizens' meetings, ``should be to resolve problems, not to create them.''
The problem this crowd most wants fixed isn't so much Nauticus as what its financial troubles signify: a local government that only grudgingly seeks public input, then feels free to ignore dissent. A City Hall that many citizens feel demands their trust but then abuses it.
The crowd at Uncle Louie's wanted the city to be straightforward about the costs of Nauticus, the available options and the implications, if any, for the city's decision to sink $97 million in local and federal tax money into MacArthur Center. An official, obligatory Oops! is not what they wanted, but Saturday morning Oops! is what they got.
Give Paul Fraim credit: The mayor doesn't shirk facing his critics. He took the mike at Uncle Louie's and acknowledged that Nauticus had ``missed (its) mark'' as a ``people generator.'' It was ``not very user-friendly.'' Attendance projections were ``overly optimistic'': Other cities don't expect ``people-generators'' to cover operations and maintenance and debt serv-ice.
So why did City Hall tell us Nauticus would?
Still, said Mayor Fraim, Nauticus has met two of its stated goals. It has helped ``celebrate our heritage'' as a maritime center. It has attracted enough out-of-town visitors to boost not only ``our image but our pocketbooks as well.''
Oh? Under the proposed ``debt restructuring,'' Norfolk taxpayers have to pick up $1 million of the average $2.58 million annual tab in debt service. Revenues Nauticus generates directly are, hopefully, to cover the rest. Revenues Nauticus generates indirectly go mostly to downtown businesses and landlords. Carlos Howard, who owns a funeral home in ever-beleaguered Park Place, called it ``corporate welfare'' - and as long as they're passing it out, he wants a good-sized slice.
Or, asked a citizen who once ran for City Council and lost, why doesn't the city designate downtown a special tax district? That way, the downtown beneficiaries tax themselves a premium to pay for downtown improvements.
We're looking at that, the mayor said.
Just who, asked another longtime Norfolk resident, is this ``we''? The debt restructuring was on council's ``consent agenda,'' which denotes items that usually pass without debate. Who wouldn't wonder, as this gentleman did, whether city officials aren't ``trying to sneak'' this maneuver - and its price tag - past city taxpayers?
Mayor Fraim explained a technicality that precluded a sneak. The crowd didn't buy it.
Mayor Fraim explained that the city ``speaks to citizens largely through the civic leagues,'' with whom he met Saturday afternoon. His own door, he stressed, is open regularly. And ultimately, the mayor said, citizens have a vote on Nauticus, the MacArthur Center, Waterside, Harbor Park: ``You get to vote for me, for elected officials.''
The mayor just doesn't get it, and he's not alone. Election to office is not carte blanche to spend tax money as elected officials and their hirelings please, regardless of citizens' second thoughts and second guesses. This group, along with Councilman Herb Collins, wants a provision for referendum and initiative, as in many other cities, whereby voters say aye or nay to any capital project over a certain amount - say, $10 million.
City officials seem to take the strong sentiment for that provision as a personal affront. And it is a direct response to City Hall's long-prevailing premise: that ``city fathers know best'' - and city taxpayers need know only those decisions and details officials choose to disclose when they choose to disclose them. For instance, Mayor Fraim announced Saturday that the city has hired a(nother) consultant to spiff up Nauticus. That was news to Councilman Collins as well as the crowd. ``Cancel the consultant,'' shouted a citizen, ``and use the people.''
Maybe this consultant will have the magic wand to make Nauticus interesting, fun, prosperous. In any case, taxpayers will have to pay the center's way or risk paying interest rates that rise as the city's excellent bond rating falls.
But at stake here as well is citizens' confidence in the judgment, integrity and responsiveness of City Hall. The ``showcases'' - MacArthur Park, Harbor Park, Waterside, and now Nauticus - the city tells us, will eventually pay off. When? And as what - a museum? A condo? A casino? Level with citizens on the numbers, the plans, the perils, the trade-offs.
This year's budget, Mayor Fraim told the crowd, designates $6.5 million in local taxes and $10 million in federal grants for neighborhoods. Great. Yet the $50-plus million for Nauticus would have air-conditioned a lot of schools, filled a lot of potholes, replaced a lot of sewer line, hired a lot of cops. Those, too, are investments. And they pay quick and visible dividends to residents and contribute to the long-term tax base.
More important to a city that's losing population to the suburbs and importing workers from them, investing in residential Norfolk contributes to its continued viability as a real city: a place where productive people want to work, bank, play, visit - and live. MEMO: Ms. Barber is an associate editor. by CNB