THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 6, 1997 TAG: 9702060001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A17 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Patrick Lackey
LENGTH: 101 lines
These days, Portsmouth is the little city that can.
Some of the improvements being made there are simplicity itself. Much of the city's prime waterfront property looks out on an ugly Norshipco drydock wall. The city asked Norshipco to paint the wall, and company officials readily said they will.
Some things being done are just smart. An inlet for the Elizabeth River Ferry is being dredged at the end of High Street. Rather than pay someone to take the dredged material, the city saved $130,000 by using it to create a narrow waterfront park nearby. Norfolk Southern has donated a caboose for the park.
Some things cost money but are well worth it. Recently, what Portsmouth City Manager Ronald W. Massie called ``250 of the crummiest units in Tidewater'' were razed. They had made up the crime-ravaged River Edge/Lake Shore neighborhood. The city provided $1.5 million of infrastructure to encourage the owner to build low-density, high-grade houses. As a result, the 250 dilapidated units will be replaced by 130 single-family homes in the $115,000 to $150,000 range, with a pond in the center. Crime there should be a bad memory.
Some things take vision and imagination. Massie is considering recommending that a nine-hole city-owned golf course in City Park be converted to all par threes and lighted for night play. He has dreams galore.
Massie first signed on with Portsmouth as interim city manager in July 1995. He reserved a minimum of four hours a week for driving around, and he saw possibilities. He was hired formally the following November. As he put it, ``We decided to get married.'' He now lives in the Churchland section of the city.
Massie had served 22 years in the city manager's office in Norfolk. During that time, he got to Portsmouth maybe three or four times a year. He knew little about it.
Last week, Massie showed me around the city, and he seems to have memorized it. He played the proud papa, boasting of this and that city accomplishment or plan, while readily conceding obstacles.
The city is a mostly developed 30 square miles, half the area of Norfolk, with no room for expanding its boundaries and few large open areas. In most cases, to build, it first must tear down.
It has 102,000 people, a couple of thousand less than a few years ago. Its population is roughly half black and half white, and the two halves don't always see eye to eye. More and more often, however, they do. The mayor and two other council members are black and four council members are white. Currently harmony rules the council, as members pursue a city master plan called Vision 2005.
Portsmouth residents are the poorest in the region. Family income there is 80 percent of the Hampton Roads average, which itself badly trails the national average.
Fifty-three percent of Portsmouth property is off the tax rolls because it is government- or church-owned. In compensation, the property tax rate is the highest in Hampton Roads. Retail sales peaked in 1989, then declined five straight years as retailers chased increasing populations south and west of Portsmouth. Retail sales have risen slightly the past two years, but remain far below the 1989 peak.
Worst of all, perhaps, many residents lost faith in their city.
That faith, however, is being restored by successes. A crime decline. A budgetary surplus. A city government with a plan.
The plan focuses on city fiscal health, economic development, public safety and neighborhood quality. Each one feeds the others.
The plan attempts to build on Portsmouth's strengths - not to transform Portsmouth into something it isn't. ``Portsmouth needs to be Portsmouth,'' was how Massie put it. He praised the city's ``homegrown community flavor'' and pointed out a number of the cities' other strengths.
It's an employment center, with 40,000 more jobs than workers. The Norfolk Naval Shipyard there employs about 4,500. The expanding Portsmouth Naval Hospital will employ 7,500 in about a year and a half.
Founded in 1752, Portsmouth is, to say the least, historic. ``Old Towne,'' Massie said, ``is probably the greatest concentration of antebellum construction between Alexandria and Charleston, South Carolina.''
Portsmouth is relatively inexpensive. Houses cost roughly 15 percent less than elsewhere in Hampton Roads, Massie said, and office space is $1 to $2 a square foot less.
Portsmouth's downtown seems like a downtown. It has more than a dozen restaurants and five museums. Much of High Street is tree-lined. Department stores are gone forever, but there are interesting shops.
Portsmouth is centrally located in Hampton Roads, within 20 to 25 minutes of just about anywhere. It's the only city that the I-64/I-664 beltway encircles.
Its variety of neighborhoods is large. Parts of the Churchland section resemble suburbia. Some old neighborhoods, like Port Norfolk, resemble small towns. ``Port Norfolk,'' Massie said as we drove through it, ``has low density, broad streets, big trees, cozy homes and is very affordable. If you like houses with porches, this is the place.''
Portsmouth has 280 churches - ``more than Virginia Beach,'' Massie said. Many of those churches are actively helping out in poorer neighborhoods.
Probably more than ever before, Portsmouth has citizen participation. Civic leagues are active. Neighborhoods have crime watches. Citizens are active on city commissions.
Portsmouth has no superstars, Massie said. But it does have hundreds of citizens involved one way or another in improving their city.
And Portsmouth has Massie, whose head is filled with doable dreams for his newfound love. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MR. MASSIE