THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 19, 1997 TAG: 9702190437
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 61 lines
The council made no secret Tuesday of its contempt for the proposed arena in downtown Norfolk.
At a seven-hour retreat at the Pavilion, council members made repeated cracks about the 20,000-seat arena and the National Hockey League expansion franchise that would play there.
Council members had remained mostly silent until Tuesday, suggesting that they were not pleased with the plans, but saying they lacked sufficient information to make any conclusions.
But when City Manager James K. Spore said he had told someone that nine of the 11 members opposed the plan, council members wanted to know which two he thought supported it.
And when a council member said that Raleigh was no longer in the running for a hockey team, Vice Mayor W.D. Sessoms Jr. mentioned that the NHL board was expected to winnow down the list of eight remaining competitors Tuesday.
``There are supposedly three more being cut today,'' Sessoms said. The NHL may announce today, at the earliest, the pared list of cities vying for expansion teams.
``With any luck . . .'' council member John A. Baum responded, making it clear he hoped Hampton Roads would be eliminated.
Council members said they were particularly upset by the lack of information they had received on the arena proposal.
They said they felt like they had been presented with a done deal and were now being portrayed as ``the bad guys'' when they tried to ask questions about the proposal.
``All decision-making occurred before this even became public,'' council member Louis R. Jones said.
``The strategy is to sock us into the deal, to where it's impossible for us not to approve it,'' he said. ``That's the kind of strategy I'm seeing in Hampton Roads, to put Virginia Beach in the position of: if we don't support these things, we're the bad guys.''
Council members reiterated their support for regional projects, but said the first priority for the area should be completing the Lake Gaston pipeline, which would bring up to 48 million gallons of water a day to Virginia Beach, 10 million gallons a day to Chesapeake and one million a day each to Franklin and Isle of Wight County.
``When the strategy is to shut one community out of a resource, that doesn't lend to regional cooperation,'' Jones said. ``If there's going to be regional cooperation, there's going to have to be some trust created.''
Council member Linwood O. Branch III said he would rather spend the region's money on a $60 million vo-tech high school that would serve students throughout Hampton Roads, rather than on an arena.
Regional groups appear to be ``working on little programs, not the big picture,'' council member Nancy K. Parker said. They are ``creating an agenda that we're being forced to react to.''
In terms of hockey, Parker said, ``we have other things that are more pressing for us.''
What needs to be done, the council members concluded, is to defer ``pet'' projects like an arena for 18 months to two years until the 15 cities and counties in the region can reach a common set of goals. City Manager Spore said local city managers have been working on such a regional wish-list for several months and would make that list public this spring.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH CITY COUNCIL NHL ARENA EXPANSION