DATE: Thursday, September 4, 1997           TAG: 9709040001

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   52 lines

VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOLS REFERENDUM '98

Virginia Beach City Council voted Tuesday night to defer a referendum to renovate the city's oldest schools until November 1998.

That was a wise decision.

Had Council voted to put the referendum - as it was constructed - on the ballot this November, it would have perpetuated the Band-Aid approach to school maintenance that has plagued the school system for years and left many of its buildings crumbling.

The School Board shares in the blame. It had belatedly proposed a $62.5 million referendum to renovate eight schools and to study the needs of 16 more. Had that been approved by Council, taxpayers would have been faced with an almost 3-cent property tax hike, and a promise of more referendums and tax increases in the years to come to repair the remaining schools.

This piecemeal approach to school renovations needs to stop.

School staff must compile a comprehensive referendum proposal that addresses the broad needs of the city's decaying schools. Politically speaking, a wide-reaching referendum stands a better chance of voter approval than a narrow eight-school measure, which would be more difficult to sell around the city. It is also good government.

Voters will grow impatient with a school system that repeatedly asks for bond measures without giving taxpayers a long-range, comprehensive view of the needs of the schools.

We urge school officials to bring such a proposal to City Council early in 1998 and we urge Council to vote on the measure immediately thereafter.

City Council has a procrastination problem. It has a bad habit of voting on referendum measures literally at the eleventh hour (as it did Tuesday night), allowing supporters of ballot measures only the required 60 days to make their case to the public. Even when referendums are proposed well in advance, as was the case with a library measure, Council still can't pull the trigger. It dithered until the last minute over the library proposal and then refused to put it on the ballot.

That is not good government.

It is critical that Council be given a school referendum proposal in a timely fashion and that it not procrastinate again. These politicians need no reminder that City Council elections take place in May and a new Council will be seated July 1. It is imperative that this important referendum matter not be left to a possibly neophyte Council to decide.

The needs of the schools are great. School officials must articulate those needs clearly, comprehensively and quickly to City Council. Council should vote at the earliest possible date to put a school bond referendum on the November 1998 ballot. Voters must have time to understand what they are being asked to support and what rejection would mean for the schools and the quality of life in Virginia Beach.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu