THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 14, 1996 TAG: 9602140447
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
Despite its reputation for being anti-regional, the City Council gave quiet approval Tuesday to three ideas that could help draw people in Hampton Roads together.
First, the council OK'd a regional study on luring a professional basketball or hockey team to the area. Although Norfolk leaders wanted to limit the study to Virginia Beach and Norfolk, Beach officials insisted that other area cities be invited to participate. Then, the council agreed to set aside some concerns with proposed state Urban Partnership legislation that would provide financial incentives to communities that pursue regional projects.
Former Gov. Linwood Holton Tuesday lobbied the council in favor of the statewide legislation that would promote regionalism. The council had opposed the proposal, which is nearing final approval in the state legislature, because it feared it would take money from Virginia Beach to benefit other communities.
Holton argued that the legislation would bring money to Virginia Beach and would help even more by bringing economic development to surrounding communities as well as Virginia Beach.
``I would emphasize this is not a poverty program, this is an economic development program,'' Holton told the council. ``And I would emphasize doubly that it's not regional government.
``You can build a region into a viable economic unit or you can let it keep on going the way it is,'' he said, ``and if you let it keep going the way it is, it is probably going to cost you more.''
In its third cooperative decision of the day, the council Tuesday gave informal, but unanimous, support to the creation of a public-private corporation to promote regional development. The organization would include all the mayors and county chairs in the region, as well as the presidents of area four-year colleges, military leaders and representatives of the business community.
The group would be charged with promoting the port and high tech economic development and helping the military privatize operations, City Manager James K. Spore told the council. Representatives of all those entities are scheduled to meet Thursday morning to discuss the creation of a nonprofit organization and get feedback from participants.
The council said it supported the organization in concept, but questioned the idea that the organization be led by an executive earning $100,000 a year.
``I guess what we're saying is go to the meeting, but don't bring the checkbook,'' council member Linwood O. Branch III told council member William W. Harrison, who will represent the Beach at Thursday's meeting. by CNB