THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 4, 1996 TAG: 9605040354
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 126 lines
Not many city council or school board candidates are raising the matter of regional cooperation this spring.
And that's angering some voters in South Hampton Roads.
``There's a bigger picture that I don't see a lot of politicians talking about,'' said Ed Blind of Virginia Beach, a Navy commander at Oceana.
To voters like Blind, the bigger picture means better mass transit, fewer fights over water, a major professional sports team, cost efficiencies in local governments - and most of all, new businesses with higher-paying jobs.
``Until cooperation between the cities really gets going, we're going to stagnate,'' Blind said.
Citizen comments on regionalism were gathered at community forums on various topics, in news interviews and at several roundtable discussions on election issues conducted by The Virginian-Pilot.
The issue also seems to have been elevated by recent speculation about a regional sports arena for attracting a major league team and by renewed talk about a proposed light-rail transit system.
But observers of regional politics say it's often difficult for local elected officials to move beyond the parochial issues of their constituents.
Still, some politicians believe voters are becoming more sophisticated - and candidates would be wise to notice.
``Voters are going to be asking more of these questions and asking candidates more about their long-range vision. You're only seeing the tip now, only the beginning,'' said Virginia Beach City Council member Louisa Strayhorn, whose seat comes up for election in 1998.
In March, Strayhorn opened her monthly Kempsville borough forum to nearby neighborhoods in Chesapeake and Norfolk. She said her constituents thought it important for citizens to compare problems and solutions across city lines.
``Just as the whole world has shrunk, all of a sudden we're getting more wake-up calls about our regional problems,'' she said. ``People are understanding the ripple effects more than in past years . . . , especially in road projects.''
Strayhorn said she finds voter interest in regional cooperation goes up when people see how a problem or opportunity crosses municipal boundaries. Most regional discussions get too abstract, she said.
Regionalism - and how it's talked about - does matter to voters, agreed Leslie K. Fenlon, a Virginia Beach neighborhood activist.
``You bet they want to hear about it,'' Fenlon said. ``That's the future. And when you talk about the future, you can't talk about the future of just one city.''
But some city leaders, Fenlon said, often do disservice to regional issues - and to citizens - in the way they describe them. ``Usually you'll hear politicians frame it as regional government or as taking the wealth of one city and giving it to another instead of framing it as cooperation,'' he said.
Citizens would better understand regionalism in terms of trade-offs and shared benefits among the cities, Fenlon said.
Last year, Fenlon led the creation of a grass-roots group to promote such discussions as well as help neighborhoods exchange ideas over city lines. He was founding chairman of the Hampton Roads Coalition of Civic Organizations.
``Every city has its own problems, whether it's managed growth in Chesapeake, water in Virginia Beach . . . downtown development in Norfolk, crime in Portsmouth . . . ,'' he said. ``But there are bigger implications in it all.''
This spring, Gene Waters, chairman of the Hampton Roads Coalition of Civic Organizations, helped write the questions for a Chesapeake candidates forum. All the mayoral and council candidates were asked about regionalism.
``We wanted to see who really believed in the regional approach,'' said Waters. He is also president of the Chesapeake Council of Civic Organizations, a co-sponsor of the Chesapeake forum.
To Waters, better cooperation will improve the ability to lure Fortune 500-type corporations and higher-paying jobs. It's not so important which cities get the companies as long as the municipalities agree to share the tax revenue, he said.
But Waters said he was disappointed. Most candidates appeared to voice support for regional cooperation as long as Chesapeake benefited first, he said.
The Virginian-Pilot, in questionnaires to candidates in all five major cities of South Hampton Roads, also inquired about regionalism. The politicians were asked to name issues in which they would set aside parochial concerns in the best interest of the region.
Many candidates gave answers that seemed to indicate support for ``regional'' efforts that primarily helped their own cities - such as a shared water system - and only incidentally boosted the region.
Chesapeake resident Debbie Puckett attended the Chesapeake candidate forum and also Strayhorn's Kempsville borough meeting on regional issues.
``We have to get the people . . . who are running the cities to come to common ground,'' she said. Elected leaders in each city, she added, must be ``willing to cross those lines and make those concessions. Without that, I don't think it will work.''
Often, citizens who favor more regional cooperation relate the issue to jobs and transportation - and how the two are linked.
Francine Hutcheson of Virginia Beach wants to see leaders across South Hampton Roads join forces when lobbying the General Assembly or federal government for transportation projects, a key to economic development.
She also wants a regional approach to attracting commerce.
``You don't want to get into always trying to undercut your neighbor'' to entice businesses, Hutcheson said. ``You don't want to win the battle but lose the war.''
At a roundtable discussion in Norfolk, Fred Herman talked of the regional value of mass transit.
``We don't have an adequate urban or inter-urban transportation system. If you want to have industrial jobs,'' he said, ``they should be somewhere out in Virginia Beach or somewhere there's land available. But people from Norfolk can't get there because we don't have an adequate system.''
At the same session, Ken Wills of Norfolk had broader concerns: ``I would ask, `Where do you see this geographical and demographic region 30 years from now? Or 10 years from now? Do you see us competing with the Research Triangle or the Charlotte area?' ''
Some long-time advocates of regionalism have given up.
``In my view, regionalism is dead. We have such petty politicians around here . . . It's not even worth thinking about anymore,'' said Dan Ballard, a retired advertising executive who launched the Virginia Waterfront campaign to share tourist promotions.
Any hope for reviving regionalism, Ballard said, lies in the grassroots.
To Louisa Strayhorn, the move already has begun.
``We all better start answering better,'' she added. ``We should not sell the public short.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Leslie K. Fenlon...
KEYWORDS: REGIONALISM PUBLIC JOURNALISM by CNB