Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 4, 1990 TAG: 9004040099
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
First, in October, they get an earthquake in the Bay Area.
Hayward folk worry about such things. The Hayward Fault runs beneath Mission Boulevard, a main drag.
The earthquake paled in comparison with finding benzene in the Perrier.
And finally, Hayward discovers that it is the 176th-largest city in the country, that Roanoke is the 175th, and that we ain't stepping aside for no sushi-sucking Californians.
So Tom Goff gets ticked off.
He's a columnist for The Daily Review in Hayward, and he's firing unprovoked bombshells toward Roanoke.
Goff calls Roanoke the Mountain Oyster of the Blue Ridge.
He claims that banjo-skin recycling is a major industry here.
He calls Roanoke a "cretin-birthing backwater," says we are the home of "that avant-garde flesh fest known as the Miss Virginia Pageant," writes that a major pastime here is "practicing for `Deliverance II' auditions."
I didn't plan to mention natural phenomena, figuring that they're beyond our control. So what if the Earth will eventually yawn wide to swallow the whole city with less belching than Godzilla? It's not their fault.
But Goff, astute meteorologist, he, learned that snow falls here and considers that a strike against Roanoke.
This guy doesn't know that snow melts. And earthquakes? They reduce a place to rubble, and you can't even sled on an earthquake. Ever made a rubbleman on the front lawn?
Let it snow.
Let's be fair.
Let's talk California, where every psychotic owns an arsenal of automatic weapons.
Bullets chirp like robins over the highways, the Golden Gate bridge rests gently in a thick fog of gunsmoke.
The FBI's most recent crime statistics show that 421 people were robbed in Hayward in 1988; 186 in Roanoke. There were 1,044 car thefts that year in Hayward; 230 in Roanoke.
Hayward's 151 cops are outmanned; Roanoke's 217 cops have criminals on the run. Two cities, same population, we have 66 more cops than they do. Hmmm.
Sure wish I wasn't busy this weekend, or I'd go to Hayward to be robbed and beaten within an inch of my life. I'd drive to the precinct house to report the crime if my car weren't stolen.
Not to fear, one popular idea these days in Hayward is a fee on new construction - $1,200 for a single-family house, $960 for a condominium, per-square-foot fees for businesses - to help pay for street repairs. On top of that, the city may impose a fee to help pay for more cops.
Whoa! Somebody get on the horn right now to Hayward's captains of industry.
You mean, they charge you to expand your business?
Leave your Richter scale at home and come to Roanoke. We'll build a six-floor parking garage in your basement. We'll tear down bridges. We'll spend $11.3 million to clear space for your new construction.
And if somebody gives you lip, call a cop. They'll respond by nightfall. This is the big time, the 175th-largest city.
by CNB