THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 18, 1996 TAG: 9602150028
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K5 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REAL SLICES
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines
ARMS FOLDED across his chest, lips folded into the faintest of smirks, Sam Barfield beholds the disorder wrought by Thursday's approach.
Across the counter on this Monday afternoon stand the taxpayers - hundreds of them, in queues stretching across an entire wing of Norfolk City Hall.
Over the next three days, 30,000 of them will file by. One-fifth of the city's automobile owners will appear before him, bent on beating the Feb. 15 deadline to pay their personal property taxes.
``It'll be Wednesday and Thursday,'' Barfield says. ``Those'll be the days. I imagine that on Wednesday and Thursday we'll be here until 9, 10 at night.''
He shakes his head.
``They'll be lined up all day long.''
He shakes it again.
Norfolk's commissioner of the revenue shakes his head a lot.
Every year, Barfield mails out bills to the city's drivers. Every year, they have weeks to pay those bills by mail, and to receive a city sticker for their windshields the same way.
Every year, thousands don't do it. They wait until there's no time left. And every year, his office braces for a deluge that's usually unpleasant for all involved. The hours are long. Tempers are short.
``Why do they wait until the last minute? I don't know,'' Barfield says, eyeing his errant providers. ``You figure that one out, and you'll have the answer to the universe.
``I had one lady giving me hell, so I asked her, `Why did you wait so long?'
``And she said: `That's my business!' ''
He chuckles and, once again, shakes his head, then turns toward his office. He's stopped by a deputy before he can take a step. ``There's a blind lady wandering around out in the hall,'' the man says.
Barfield cocks an eyebrow. ``Is she really blind?''
``I don't know,'' the deputy says. ``She says she's legally blind, and she asked me if there were any step-downs on the way to the counter.''
``Well,'' Barfield says, chewing on the information. ``Maybe she is blind.''
But maybe not. With each day nearer the deadline, the lines grow - ultimately snaking down City Hall's main hallway, doubling back on themselves and jutting outside. Some days it can take more than three hours to reach the counter.
Taxpayers turn wily, facing such a wait. Last year, a woman showed up holding a small baby. Barfield always moves mothers with tiny babes to the front of the line. That's what he did. She paid her taxes, got her sticker and left.
A short time later, the baby reappeared in the arms of another women. ``One of the fellas said to me, `Boss, I've seen that same damn baby four times,' '' Barfield says, laughing.
``I've always told the deputies that if they have an obviously pregnant woman in line, move her up to the front. I swear we've had women in here with pillows stuffed under their clothes.''
The deputy runs off to handle the blind woman. Barfield heads for his office. None of the taxpayers in line seem to notice him.
If they did, they might recognize Barfield as the chief: He looks like a man who enforces the rules. Matching red tie and pocket hankie. Tiny Stars and Stripes pinned into his left lapel. Polished slip-ons. His 5-foot-6-inch, 78-year-old frame trimmed by regular exercise.
Most of his exchanges with the customers are pleasant: He merely has to explain the rules. Once people understand they have to pay their taxes to get a sticker, and that there's simply no evading that, problems evaporate.
Occasionally, of course, he's confronted by a customer whose complaint isn't about the rules, but about Barfield's performance.
One morning, Barfield says, he worked at an information booth out in the hallway, and a man in line complained that the long wait was ``a hell of a way to run a ship.''
``You're right, mister,'' the commissioner told him. ``How would you do it?''
``Well,'' said the man, ``I'd have to study it.''
Barfield snorts. ``I told him, `You'll have plenty of time to study it. You're at the foot of the line.' '' by CNB