DATE: Friday, October 10, 1997              TAG: 9710100673

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   61 lines

POLITICIANS SAY LOCALES' HOPE LIES IN SHARING DUTIES, BENEFITS A WOMEN'S VOTERS ORGANIZATION IS WORKING TO FOSTER ECONOMIC GROWTH.

Regional cooperation isn't pretty, and it won't be easy to attain, but it's essential for economic growth, present and former politicians told 250 dinner guests Thursday night.

Former Gov. A. Linwood Holton said the three Hampton Roads ports handled 100,000 tons of cargo when he won the state's top job in 1970. Twenty years after he helped combine them under the direction of the Port Authority, Holton said, the Port of Hampton Roads now handles 1 million tons a year.

Because regional cooperation doesn't come easily under Virginia's system of government, leadership has to come from outside political circles, Holton said at the League of Women Voters' second annual State of the Community Dinner at the Norfolk Airport Hilton.

``You can't hit your constituents over the head, if you're going to run again,'' said Holton, who retired from politics 23 years ago.

Oklahoma City Mayor Ronald J. Norick, the evening's second presenter, said he sold his constituents on the idea that cooperation was the only alternative to decay.

Simplicity and a grand vision were the keys to winning voter approval for a tax increase to pay for nine regional projects, including a library, a convention center and a sports arena, he said.

``We did not talk about projects,'' Norick said. ``We talked about what this was going to do for our community, what this was going to do for our grandchildren. . . . This isn't for you. It's for your grandkids.''

League member and Virginia Beach resident Doreen Maranger said Holton and Norick's real-world advice gave her more confidence in the possibility of regional cooperation.

``It seems like it's workable,'' she said. ``Like it's been done before.''

Jean Harrington said she heard the speeches as a call to this area to ``get with it.

``To get anywhere, you've got to be strong and think about the good of the area, because otherwise you're going to have no community at all,'' said Harrington, a league member who lives in Virginia Beach.

But Ralph Nahra, one of the organizers of the event, said he thought the speakers overlooked a key point. A region will not grow, he said, if it lacks the ``entrepreneurial spirit.''

``They're trying to move mortar, and we've got to move ideas,'' said Nahra, director of analysis and research on the staff of the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, and president of the World Affairs Council of Greater Hampton Roads, a group that fosters interest in international affairs.

``We have to find the people who are industry-makers and bring them here,'' he said.

The dinner was the league's second major attempt in as many years to spur discussion about regional cooperation. The group also has organized several small get-togethers in members' living rooms to talk about regionalism.

James F. Babcock and Tidewater Regional Transit executive assistant director Jayne B. Whitney received the league's Civic Contribution Award Thursday for their ``extraordinary leadership in regional cooperation.''

Babcock, chairman and chief executive officer of First Virginia Bank, led the Plan 2007 effort to devise a long-term economic development strategy for the region. Whitney has helped promote plans for a light rail system in Hampton Roads. KEYWORDS: REGIONALISM

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