DATE: Thursday, May 1, 1997                 TAG: 9705010001

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: OPINION 

SOURCE: Patrick Lackey

                                            LENGTH:   89 lines

HAMPTON ROADS HIRES DEAL-MAKER WHOSE FIRST TASK IS TO LISTEN

Perhaps Hampton Roads needs a shrink. The region's 15 sibling localities could lie on a couch, one at a time, and tell how their brothers and sisters mistreated them over the years. One would complain of toys and playmates stolen, another of the time it couldn't get a drink of water.

Hiring a shrink might be excessive, but it appears that the region has hired what it needs: someone neutral to listen to everybody.

He is Rick Horrow, a Miami-based consultant and Harvard Law School graduate who specializes in determining, by listening, an entire region's needs and then in building a regionwide consensus on the best way to satisfy those needs. If need be, he helps build a region's self-esteem, so it dares to think big.

Earlier this week, Horrow was hired for a year by the Hampton Roads Partnership, a regional organization of mainly business, military and education leaders, plus elected officials. For a fee of about $100,000, he'll be in the region four or five days a month - first listening and later discussing possible projects.

Apparently Horrow's ears are as tireless as a marathon runner's legs. In a similar deal in Oklahoma City in 1993, he attended about 250 meetings in 12 months. He wasn't asleep in the third row or daydreaming at the end of the table. He was listening, an activity that becomes exhausting to most persons once the same story has been heard 10 or 12 times.

Horrow's work in Oklahoma City led to a deal to construct nine sports, arts and recreational facilities for that metropolitan region. The goodies were sufficiently spread around that voters roundly passed a supporting referendum, even though it called for a 1-cent sales-tax levy for five years. That tax levy raised a total $250 million, and Horrow said the deal was the ``largest successful single-issue public-facility development referendum in United States history.''

Horrow's speciality is bundling a number or projects for a number of localities into a single-tax package that is palatable enough that the majority of voters favor it. So far, his deals are undefeated in referendums, which means he has delivered what the voters wanted, which must mean he listened well. Cities he has successfully worked with include Cleveland, Cincinnati, Nashville, Tampa Bay, Detroit and Miami.

Several of his deals in major cities involved, among other things, stadiums or arenas for big-league teams. The Oklahoma City deal was most complex of all, and he successfully sold it as a chance to build infrastructure that would spur economic development and create jobs.

After Oklahoma City voters approved the temporary tax increase there, he said, ``I think this signals a trend in public funding for facilities. Public sectors have groped for various funding mechanisms and avenues to sell public infrastructure projects for years. This one-time, limited-duration sales tax based on economic development and dedicated to a series of inter-related sports, arts and recreation facilities may be the forecast of the future.''

Hampton Roads is richer than the Oklahoma City region. A 1-cent sales tax increase here would generate about $113 million a year, or $565 million over five years, assuming all 15 localities participated.

That would buy a lot of bricks.

At this point, however, nothing is for sure. Horrow could eventually recommend that no deal be made. If a tax increase for projects were proposed, it would have to be approved by city councils and county boards of supervisors, the General Assembly and voters in referendums.

Possible projects Horrow has mentioned include a convention center in Virginia Beach, along with expansion of the city's soccer stadium to seat 30,000; a museum, high-tech training center and performing arts center on the Peninsula; and a 20,000-seat arena in Norfolk.

At the Partnership's meeting Monday, member Joshua E. Darden Jr., a Norfolk businessman whose opinion carries considerable weight, wondered whether transportation improvements might be more necessary than the projects mentioned by Horrow.

Partnership Co-chair John O. Wynne, president and CEO of Landmark Communications, which publishes The Pilot, also sounded cautious. ``This is not something we should do because we can do it,'' he said, ``but because we need to do it.''

Voters surely would not approve a 1-cent tax increase for one set of purposes and later approve another increase to satisfy some other need. The first deal has to be gotten right.

That deal, said Partnership President and CEO Barry E. DuVal, could include transportation.

Even if Horrow fails to forge a regional consensus, however, his time spent listening should be valuable to the region. More will be learned about what's needed here and about the region's willingness to pay to meet those needs. He has helped persuade such metropolitan regions as Nashville and Jacksonville that they should think of themselves as big-time players.

Horrow is no fool. He said Hampton Roads will offer a ``unique challenge.'' He's right. MEMO: Mr. Lackey is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. KEYWORDS: REGIONALISM

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