THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 24, 1995 TAG: 9503230151
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Beth Barber
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
City Council's newest member, appointed last week to replace John Moss, is also an old Council hand: Harold Heischober has been both member (1980-92) and mayor (1984-86).
Mr. Heischober is a compromise choice, emerging ahead of the seeming front-runner, Bill Cashman, after an afternoon of poorly scripted public-interview proc-ess and an evening of back-room bargaining. An engineer, Mr. Cashman offered welcome expertise to Council. But his firm does much business with the city; when asked about it Friday, he said he saw no problem continuing to work on city contracts so long as he wasn't involved in procuring them.
The letter of the law sees no problem with that either (which says something about the law's shortcomings). But the spirit of the law, and the public, might see it differently.
Councilwoman Nancy Parker cast the lone ``no'' vote against Mr. Heischober, but Mayor Obern-dorf and Councilman Dean, who said ``yes,'' ``yes'' on the electronic vote board, seemed to be saying ``no,'' ``no'' with their faces. They have been great friends of Mr. Moss, who beat Mr. Heischober in '92.
But times can change, even when the faces don't. If life is a learning experience, Mr. Heischober, 75, is well-educated. That goes for Council, too: During his 12 years' experience on Council and the two years since, Mr. Heischober acknowledges having learned that development - of ever-spreading residences and ever-widening roads - can be excessive.
Good. The search for alternatives other than drying up all development, either from intrinsic opposition to it or the Gaston pipeline's glacial pace, will continue to be Council's first big order of business.
Speaking of Gaston and pace, efforts at mediation involving officials of Virginia Beach and North Carolina and conducted by two court-appointed attorneys continue.
One indication that the talks must be serious: So far, they're as leak-proof as the judge ordered and as engineers hope the pipeline will be.
Let's talk trash at the Oceanfront - talk now so it won't be a sore sight for tourists' eyes later. The city wants out of the commercial trash business, despite the fact that it's one of few city services that consistently please hard-to-please resort business owners. Maybe that's one reason they've gotten reprieves from previous deadlines for ending city pickup.
But not this time. The push to privatize has come to shove and, unusually, the shove comes from the public sector, not the private. Where are the entrepreneurs ready to mine the gold in a steady seasonal supply of resort garbage? For this contract, they don't even have to compete with Sheriff Frank Drew and his inmate cleanup-up crews . . . do they?
No prospective business ought to be off-limits to the city's consideration; but if Council thinks the NIMBY syndrome has been a thorn in the site of the amphitheater, wait 'til neighborhoods start vying not to get Grand Prix racing within miles of their back yards.
The groups that gripe when even one lane of Atlantic Avenue is closed off, or when the decibel level rises above the small roar of commuter traffic, or when tourists wander onto their lawns, or when they can't park within walking distance of their house - there's a coalition of caution flags that should slow any politician. by CNB