Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 14, 1993 TAG: 9309140228
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Thanks, but no thanks appeared to be council's reaction Monday night.
"I really hope people don't get caught up in the political rhetoric on this," Councilman James Harvey said. "It is going to take more than just money to solve the problems of the cities."
If Cranwell and the General Assembly had really been serious about providing more state aid for central cities, Harvey said, they could have approved an additional one-half cent local-option sales tax for localities long ago.
The Virginia Municipal League has been lobbying for the tax option for several years.
Such a tax would generate $6 million a year for Roanoke, Harvey said.
"Throwing money at the problems only treats the symptoms, but it does not cure the cause," Mayor David Bowers said.
Cranwell, a Roanoke County Democrat, opposes consolidation and annexation - which council members say would solve the city's fiscal and growth problems.
But Cranwell appeared to offer an olive branch to Roanoke last week by promising to work for state money for cities.
It didn't work.
Harvey urged Bowers to continue his effort to develop a statewide lobbying campaign by central cities to get the General Assembly to give more attention to their problems. Bowers said he will meet with the mayors of Norfolk and Richmond next month to discuss the issue.
"David, keep up the fight," Harvey said. "Don't drop the issue. It's the most important thing facing the city.
"The Roanoke Valley needs to grow as one," said Harvey, adding that some form of consolidation or governmental reorganization is needed. "We have to do it as one, not separately."
City Attorney Wilburn Dibling told council that the city is blocked at every step in expanding its boundaries to broaden its tax base and ease the financial pressures of providing regional services.
Without a change in state law, Roanoke is barred from altering its boundaries or status as an independent city, he said. The city needs the General Assembly's approval to revert to a town, surrender its charter or regain the power of annexation.
Bowers said the city needs a local educational campaign as well as the statewide effort.
He suggested that David Rusk, a national expert on cities, might be invited to come to the valley to speak.
Rusk says cities in states with liberal annexation laws, such as North Carolina, are healthier than cities in Virginia and other states that have been trapped within their city limits.
Bowers, long an advocate of consolidation, said he concurs with Rusk's analysis of what he calls "elastic" and "inelastic" cities.
Council asked City Manager Bob Herbert for a report and recommendation on an educational campaign to make sure residents understand the financial plight of central cities.
But it was not immediately clear whether the campaign would be directed at city residents, who already favor consolidation, or county residents, who opposed it nearly 3-to-1 in a 1990 referendum.
Asked whether he would try to get residents of Roanoke County and other localities in the valley involved in the campaign, Herbert said he wouldn't do that until he has talked with his counterparts in the other localities.
by CNB