THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 31, 1996 TAG: 9603300409
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MYLENE MANGALINDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 200 lines
When asked recently about the Hampton Roads Partnership, Henry Clay Hofheimer II sighed.
``We've had so many come and go,'' said Hofheimer, recalling other attempts to promote regionalism. ``I can't get excited. I've been disappointed too many times.''
To Hofheimer, one of the founders of the Future of Hampton Roads, a select group of business people lobbying for regional projects, the rally cry for regionalism was yesterday's news.
To others, however, it's an increasingly louder clarion. To prosper as a region, Hampton Roads' seven core cities need to cooperate.
Still in its embryonic stage, the Hampton Roads Partnership constitutes the latest - and perhaps most potent - group assembled to bolster the region's economic influence and bring its cities together. Despite its intention, many are confused about how this new group differs from previous endeavors.
``You've seen so many very good ideas tossed down the drain. The cities have cost us more jobs than I can remember over the years,'' Hofheimer said. ``It's petty jealousy.''
The advisory committee forming the Hampton Roads Partnership hopes to transcend inter-city bickering by acting as a forum for all those competing and diverse groups, to raise issues that affect the entire region.
Sponsored by the Mayors and Chairs Caucus, the Hampton Roads Partnership is an umbrella organization consisting of a combination of top officials from 15 municipalities, the universities, higher education, the military and business.
``It's trying to pull the senior-most executives in the largest entities together to put their full resources and good will behind developing this community as a whole region,'' said John O. Wynne, CEO of Landmark Communications Inc., the parent company of The Virginian-Pilot and InfiNet. `` No such organization has that at the moment.''
The public-private partnership is co-chaired by Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim and Hampton Mayor Jim Eason. It will meet in mid-April to ratify the group's formal structure as a nonprofit, nonstock corporation.
Members of the 40-person group are among the most influential public- and private-sector executives in the region. The advisory committee organizing the partnership includes Wynne, Norfolk Southern Corp. Chairman and CEO David R. Goode, Vincent J. Mastracco Jr. of the law firm Kaufman & Canoles, Old Dominion University President James V. Koch, Daniel A. Hoffler, chairman of the Armada/Hoffler commercial real-estate and construction group; Adm. William J. Flanagan Jr., commander of the Navy's Atlantic Fleet; and Pat Robertson, CEO and chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network.
In all, the group will comprise the mayors of the 15 local municipalities, the presidents of each four-year university, the executive director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, business leaders and military representatives.
A permanent staff of three - an executive director, an associate and an administrative assistant - will be hired. The private and public sector will contribute equally to the partnership's proposed budget of $350,000.
The partnership hopes its wide membership - pulling from the biggest constituencies in the region - will give it the clout to set a regional agenda of priorities for residents and institutions to tackle.
``It would deal with strategic planning and visioning for Hampton Roads,'' Eason said.
The group plans to draw on the resources of existing organizations and ideas like Plan 2007, the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce's strategy plan addressing job growth. So far, the partnership has outlined the port, privatization and technology, especially related to economic development, as the area's top priorities.
``I hope it works together with Forward Hampton Roads and with Plan 2007,'' Goode said. ``It's important that we not fall all over our feet and set up too many organizations trying to do the same thing. I don't think we're doing that.''
Many approve of their direction.
``I think any outfit that brings together the leaders of Hampton Roads has got to be a good thing,'' said James K. Hall, a managing partner at the accounting firm Edmondson, LedBetter & Ballard.
But not everyone agrees.
When the issue was introduced at their meetings, the Virginia Beach and Portsmouth city councils questioned the partnership's purpose and overlap with other organizations.
``I have a feeling that there are a lot of different folks with a lot of different viewpoints about what it is,'' said Barbara M. Henley, a Virginia Beach councilwoman. ``It's a little bit hard to understand how there wouldn't be a duplication of other groups. Will it replace something like Forward Hampton Roads? How will it fit in? How will it fit in with the Planning District Commission? I think there are still a lot of questions to be answered.''
When Flanagan, who heads the Navy's Atlantic Fleet, addressed the Portsmouth City Council on March 12, he was asked how the Hampton Roads Partnership differed from the planning district commission.
``The only thing I've been involved with is this effort,'' Flanagan said.
What he did convey, though, was the dire need for the Navy to work with just one organization when it must look for help in the community.
``It would be best for us, the Navy, that has a direct economic impact of $11 billion, to deal with a body to make these deliberations in an efficient fashion . . . because if we don't do that, we lose tremendous opportunities,'' Flanagan said. ``We lose revenues when we can't go at some pace and we find that when we get bogged down, we end up in some of the inefficiencies that lay before us now.''
He added, ``Many of our young men and women train and go to other parts of the world. They must leave their families behind. So, it's very important for us that these families that are here live in a region that has the best quality of life that can be developed by our mutual activity. It's for them that this request is made.
``There are other regions that have taken advantage of partnerships and the economic benefits of those things have been to their liking and certainly it's raised for those communities, their standard of living.''
The Hampton Roads Partnership clearly diverts from its predecessors in its membership. Previous groups have included the private sector, primarily business executives, high-level managers, small-business owners or corporate employees. And others have had local city representatives before, too.
This is the first group to incorporate the military, especially the Navy, in its ranks. It's also the first to represent all higher education, by including the presidents of the College of William and Mary, Hampton University, Old Dominion University and Norfolk State University.
This diverse cross-section of the community, the biggest swath that's been attempted, is the key to its influence, members say.
``The Navy cuts across the whole region, the military cuts across the whole region. And when Bud Flanagan stands up and says `We need this organization in order to get regionalism and to help me and the military move forward,' everybody listens,'' Wynne said. ``The second key ingredient is when businesses stand up and say they operate in a lot of communities and that they have to be able to recruit top quality people and keep them in a community.''
By having the leaders of the largest groups on board, the cities and others will listen to them, the partnership hopes. By virtue of their position, military, education, public and business leaders who belong to the partnership will exert influence within their own spheres or industries. They also plan to actively lobby different city councils, by sending representatives such as Flanagan to speak to them.
They consider themselves facilitators. They want a hand in economic development. They plan to help attract outside businesses and skills that the government wants to out-source and help them relocate to Hampton Roads. Their contacts and network will act as lines of communication to uncover new capital sources to target high technology.
Other ways the partnership will exert its influence are not completely clear yet. But it hopes to be successful where others have failed by having more groups on board from the outset than others have had, particularly military and educational leaders who don't hold alliances to one city.
``It's a group to look at the whole thing as opposed to right now,'' said one partnership member. ``We've got individual pieces that don't have a spot at the table. It's creating the table. And moving that agenda forward.''
Long-time residents ask why so many organizations flying the regionalism banner are necessary. Although not exactly alike, there are more than 10. And there are even more smaller local groups.
The Future of Hampton Roads started out like the partnership, hoping to promote discussion and rally people around common issues. Its members, too, are a crossover of public and private executives.
The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission is more of a quasi-public agency that lets the cities and counties talk about shared road projects and economic impact studies. Add to that service organizations like the Tidewater Rapid Transit public bus system and the Hampton Roads Sanitation District.
Yet another is The Urban Partnership. It was started in 1994 by declining urban cities that want financial cooperation like revenue sharing. Already 18 cities and counties, including Portsmouth and Norfolk, and the Virginia Chamber of Commerce belong to the organization.
``There's so many different things that people are tossing about. What partnership is this? There are too many partnerships,'' said Dave Conlon, a self-employed Carrollton businessman. ``I don't think they're anything other than window dressing.''
Obviously, not everyone is convinced about regionalism's benefits. Nor does everyone view it as necessary.
Some city officials worry that their neighborhoods will be ignored. Detractors say regionalism can only hurt their city, reduce its celebrity by diluting its name recognition and subordinate its needs to those of its neighbors.
Small-business owner Rowena Fullinwider, who owns a gourmet food operation called Rowena's in Norfolk, can't reconcile the competing interests.
``Areas that are cooperating are getting a lot more business than areas that aren't. I know we need regionalism,'' Fullinwider said. Yet, she also defended local politicians who might not agree with her.
``That's their job to protect their citizens,'' she said compassionately.
For folks like Fullinwider, Norfolk's mayor, Fraim, has given this assurance: ``This is no effort toward regional governance or bureaucracy.''
Hampton Roads Partnership wants to pull together all the other existing groups, its organizers say. It wants to facilitate discussion, contacts, networking, action, economic development, privatization, issues surrounding the port.
Chambers of commerce were formed to accomplish many of the same goals - discussion, common interests, networking - but they did it with mostly business constituencies from one city.
Community grassroots leaders like Gene Waters welcome the Hampton Roads Partnership.
``I think it's an excellent thing to do,'' said Waters, the chairman of Hampton Roads Council of Civic Organizations and president of Chesapeake Council of Civic Organizations. ``The Hampton Roads Partnership is something we've got to do to compete with other regions. We've got to get rid of this `my city first' attitude. We're not thinking that way in the Hampton Roads Council of Civic Organizations. We think in terms of people first.''
Waters also approved of one body to coordinate the other interests in the community and to shape the direction of their efforts.
But the chances of uniting these separate regional efforts are slim, many say, because they rotate like planets around a sun, without ever crossing paths.
``As long as we have competing political structures, we'll have competing regional structures,'' said Brad Face, CEO of The Face Cos. and president of the Future of Hampton Roads. ``Until we strive for a political unit to parallel the economic unit, we won't overcome the problem.'' by CNB