THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 17, 1997 TAG: 9701150182
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02B EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Meyera E. Oberndorf
LENGTH: 141 lines
The following is Mayor Meyera E. Oberndorf's annual State of Virginia Beach address. She presented it Jan. 8 to the Council of Civic Organizations and Jan. 15 to the Virginia Beach Division of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce.
Let me tell you about some exciting things happening in Virginia Beach. Each summer the Virginia Beach City Council meets to set goals for the city and to chart progress the city has made toward reaching these goals. Through these strategic planning sessions, the City Council has created a vision to guide our city into the next century. We discuss strategic long- and short-term options for the city. We set goals in order of priority and then come up with strategies to achieve these goals.
Our Operating Budget and Capital Improvement Program are based on these priorities. City Council met in August to set goals. We will meet again next month to evaluate our progress.
This strategic planning has led to a number of recent successes in Virginia Beach.
Last year, Virginia Beach experienced a banner year in corporate growth and expansion. In 1996, Virginia Beach welcomed 19 new companies to our city. We also facilitated the expansion or retention of an additional 24 companies. All this activity created more than 2,600 new jobs and resulted in capital investments exceeding $130 million.
Lately, Virginia Beach has welcomed a number of ``high-tech'' companies to our city. These companies offer high-paying, quality jobs to our citizens. While our city's roots go back to 1607, we have evolved into a growing, vibrant city with many high-tech businesses.
We were excited to work on four projects at Corporate Landing in 1996 - Oceana Sensor Technologies, JFH International, Membership Marketing and the headquarters for Al-Anon.
We are also seeing established Virginia Beach companies like Lillian Vernon and Stihl Incorporated undergoing major expansion of their current facilities.
Last spring, we opened the Virginia Beach Amphitheater, a 20,000-seat facility that is already drawing top-name entertainers to our city. The Amphitheater is one of the premier entertainment facilities in the country and is attracting world-renowned performers to our city, including Jimmy Buffett and the Eagles. As a great fan of music and the arts, I'm delighted that the Virginia Beach Amphitheater gives us the opportunity to offer excellent entertainment to our residents and visitors. The Virginia Beach Amphitheater is a shining star for our city.
Tourism in Virginia Beach got a boost with the opening of the newly expanded Virginia Marine Science Museum. The museum is one of the most popular in the state and the expansion has already drawn record-breaking crowds.
The new addition to the museum tripled its size. The Atlantic Ocean Pavilion features a 300,000-gallon aquarium and is home to a variety of sharks. There's also an outdoor aviary and a river otter habitat. In the Owls Creek Marsh Pavilion you can walk through a ``macro marsh'' where everything is 10 times its normal size. One exciting new feature is the IMAX 3-D Theater with a screen six stories high. The museum is a great educational tool for us to teach people of all ages about the importance of our environment.
The Resort Area Beautification Program is a face lift to the Oceanfront that began in 1987. The project includes improvements to Atlantic Avenue, adjacent side streets and Boardwalk connector parks from the Rudee Loop to 42nd Street. The 24th Street Park is a one-half city block park along the Oceanfront that includes permanent entertainment features. Atlantic Avenue and the Boardwalk are a showcase we are proud to put on display for our residents and visitors.
Construction is well under way on the Virginia Beach Erosion Control and Hurricane Protection Project. The first phase extends from Rudee Inlet to 8th Street and includes demolition of the existing Boardwalk, construction of a seawall and a higher, wider boardwalk and installation of storm drainage infrastructure. The first phase will be completed by the spring of 1997 and the entire project will be finished by the spring of 2000.
The project will provide protection for 2,000 businesses and homes, 21,000 seasonal and full-time jobs, and $35 million in annual tax revenue to the City of Virginia Beach.
Last spring, the city started an intensive review of our comprehensive plan. The plan helps to determine our city's future - to decide which empty lots become city parks and which turn into shopping centers, to suggest where new homes should be built or farmland preserved. To get citizen input, we held 17 public meetings throughout the city. These community workshops were an opportunity for our citizens to share their ideas and visions about future growth and land development issues in Virginia Beach. We expect the final result to be a revised Comprehensive Plan that reflects the interests and concerns of our residents.
Virginia Beach received the National Innovation Award from the American Society of Public Administration. This award recognizes Virginia Beach for its excellence and innovation. We have compiled our fourth report on Productivity and Quality Initiatives. It documents hundreds of productivity and quality initiatives from our departments. The bottom line shows that $3.4 million was saved with an additional $2.4 million in costs successfully avoided. New revenues, grants and fund-raising efforts brought in $5.3 million and another $1.9 million was identified as potential new revenue.
The City of Virginia Beach ended the 95/96 Fiscal Year with a general fund balance of $20 million. We are proud of the fact that our conservative fiscal policies have left us in such a strong position. Increased revenue in personal property taxes on things like automobiles as well as increases in general sales taxes and other local taxes indicate confidence in a strong local economy. We're also gratified that city departments were able to use their resources effectively.
The Lake Gaston Water Supply Project is going forward and construction is about two-thirds complete. We have received all the state and federal approvals needed for the project and have successfully defended all of them except for one final lawsuit which is under way and should be resolved some time this year.
Review after review has shown that the project is the most economical, reliable, safe and sensible source of water for a region that desperately needs it. North Carolina will continue to try to stall the project, but we are confident that the Lake Gaston project will survive these challenges, just as it has all the others that have been mounted over the past decade.
Virginia Beach continues to be a safe city. Our most recent citizen satisfaction survey showed that nine out of 10 citizens feel that their neighborhood is a safe place to live. Eighty-nine percent believe that Virginia Beach in general is a safe place to live. For nine years in a row, statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice show Virginia Beach with the lowest overall crime rate of cities with a population of 250,000 to 700,000. Money Magazine recently ranked Virginia Beach as the sixth safest city in the United States.
Virginia Beach is a city with quality schools and outstanding students. Our students consistently score above the national average for all grade levels on achievement tests. The School Board is working closely with City Council to make our school system strong. The Virginia Beach City Public Schools ended the year with a balanced budget.
In May, we broke ground for the Virginia Beach Higher Education Center. Slated for completion in 1998, the Center will be located next to Tidewater Community College and offer undergraduate and graduate courses from Old Dominion University and Norfolk State.
We are working hard to improve communications with our citizens in a number of ways. Beach Advisory is our citizen newsletter, published quarterly. Copies of our latest issue are available throughout Virginia Beach. Our Public Information Office publishes a monthly Civic League Advisory, which is packed with news about the City of Virginia Beach. This publication is provided to all area civic leagues.
We believe we're on the right track in Virginia Beach. In our most recent citizen survey, more than 94 percent of residents agreed that Virginia Beach is a good place to live and expressed satisfaction with city services. Virginia Beach is a city with a rich history and a bright future.
All of us on City Council are excited about the potential that exists in Virginia Beach. Through strategic planning, we've begun the process of making our vision a reality.
KEYWORDS: SPEECH