THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 1, 1995 TAG: 9412300227
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
The New Year begins with great promise for Portsmouth.
The long-awaited Children's Museum of Virginia so far has exceeded the dreams of those citizens who believed in the museum and worked so hard to to make it a reality. The lines of children and their grown-ups waiting to get into the museum this past week more than proved their wisdom.
The Tidewater Community College Visual Arts Center will open this week, attracting hundreds of people to Downtown around the clock. The school will add a new dimension to the city. It is the beginning of a new life for Olde Towne, a life that has been waiting in the wings for the right cue.
The promise is here. The pieces are beginning to fall into place. But the future has just begun. Nothing more will happen without continuous effort. Nothing will come to fruition without a plan, without signposts to guide the city to a more prosperous future.
The future is promising only if it stays on a straight track. There have been other times in recent history when the city seemed on the right path and then swerved before it reached stated goals.
A dozen or so years ago, Olde Towne was bursting with promise. People invested in the resurrection of the history of this fascinating seaport city. But somehow the city failed to sustain that feeling. It lost control.
Many people who saw Portsmouth's potential have come and gone, tired of waiting for the city to find the way to the future. Others hang tight, hoping for the best.
Now on the first day of 1995, the city once again seems on the brink of a breakthrough. But the future cannot be left to fate. It can't be subject to the whims of one person or another. It can't zig zag with the political winds.
The city must be controlled and guided by a plan that has everybody going in the same direction. It can't be switching tracks to satisfy anybody's whims and that is why it is so important to adopt a plan to action that supersedes any individual politics.
Today, as the new year begins, Portsmouth has a head start. But it cannot rest and hope the future will take care of itself. Recent history has shown that the city must be ever vigilant and moving ahead or it will begin to waiver and fall backward.
Portsmouth has as much potential as any city anywhere. Let every city official and every citizen resolve today to make 1995 the year the future began. by CNB