THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 23, 1995 TAG: 9504230030
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY FRANCIE LATOUR, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE LENGTH: Long : 167 lines
Along the walls of Dalton S. Edge's four-bedroom house, two paintings of Amish farmers harvesting open fields tell a simple lesson: work.
The lesson formed the core of his upbringing as a farmer, said Edge, who since Thursday has been Chesapeake's newest council member.
``Work is sacrifice,'' said Edge, 47. Dressed in a red shirt and blue jeans, the husband and father of two thinks back to the earliest possible memory of work, when he and his older brother covered four acres of grass with push mowers.
``Work is something that takes effort, and the pleasure you take in it comes from what effort went in.''
Edge said the harsh realities of work as a farmer and small businessman have prepared him well to serve the city for the next six months, and possibly beyond.
Edge was elected to the City Council Tuesday, and sworn in to office Thursday.
It was no ordinary election for Edge, a Republican and former president of the Chesapeake Farm Bureau: There was no official campaign. Only eight people voted. Where most winners have a month to prepare, Edge had two days.
But in a week that rivaled any election year in partisan back-biting and vitriol, five Republican council members ushered the laboring farmer into a temporary seat left vacant by the resignation of former Vice Mayor Arthur L. Dwyer.
Dwyer resigned April 14 amid accusations that he abused his position while seeking health benefits for a Chesapeake woman and her family. At the Nov. 7 election, residents will have their say on the council seat; Edge plans to run.
For Edge, the great potential bounty and the great uncertainty of farming mirrors the bounty of Chesapeake. The city, little more than 30 years old, has the fastest growth in the state. The uncertainty lies in paying for that growth. And in coming to terms with political conflicts that often have divided the city along party and racial lines.
Realizing the potential, he said, requires imagination. Avoiding the pitfalls requires stability. As in farming, Edge said, the city should plan for unexpected disasters while planting the seeds for success.
As Edge prepares to vote on his first policy issues Tuesday, he faces the competing demands and limited resources of a city many leaders say is at a critical juncture - economically, politically and morally:
A $402 million proposed operating budget and an $826 million capital budget approved earlier this month have once again forced the city to ask itself how much money it can afford to borrow to maintain the services needed as residential growth continues.
A mandate by voters to elect their School Board remains unfulfilled as the Department of Justice re-examines what it calls a record of ``racially polarized'' voting in the city.
And the resignation of one of Chesapeake's most powerful Republicans from the council began a chain of partisan politicking that has left council members divided both across and within party lines.
On Thursday, in Edge's first hour as councilman, he and five other Republicans elected Robert T. Nance to the post of vice mayor.
``Things are coming at me pretty fast,'' said Edge.
The area has transformed in every way, said Edge, who remembers crossing Virginia Route 168 on his bicycle as a child.
Cora Leigh Scott Edge wanted to be sure people knew where she raised Dalton, her second son.
``It's on Puddin' Ridge Road,'' Cora Edge said of the home she and her husband, J. Norwood Edge, have lived in since 1954.
Edge grew up in Moyock, N.C. The second of four children, Edge recalls trailing his father to the farm with his toy equipment and trucks.
Farming, he said, was his calling.
``I remember in school we had this project where we had to interview our parents,'' Edge said, ``and part of it was to ask whether our parents would recommend their job to someone else.
``My father said, `No. Farming's too hard.' But I was stubborn and hard-headed and did it anyway.''
The family, who had farmed land in North Carolina, bought their 1,500-acre Chesapeake farm in 1963. From high school, Edge went on to North Carolina State University. He didn't finish college, but he did find his future wife there. Edge married Beverly in 1975.
Two years before, after leaving N.C. State, Edge formed a partnership with his father, who gradually passed on more of the farm's management duties to his son.
It takes lots of management to make a farm go, Edge said.
``I have to know how to spend. I have to know what's a luxury and what's a necessity. Everything I own is out there,'' Edge said.
Having nothing but his crop to rely on is the root of Edge's fiscal philosophy - which, he said, is extremely conservative.
Edge defines conservatism this way: faith in God, personal sacrifice and personal responsibility.
``In our society we want to blame others,'' Edge said. ``We cannot strive to better ourselves if we blame others for our mistakes and everything that goes wrong.''
His crop is also how Edge became active in politics.
He joined the Chesapeake Farm Bureau in the 1970s, and over the years became increasingly involved, serving as its president in 1991-92 and again this year.
Edge crusaded for farmers, a group he described as endangered by ``excessive and ridiculous'' wetlands regulations that are ``legislating farmers out of business.'' He testified on the subject to the congressional subcommittee on small business in 1991.
Jack Peoples, who has known Edge and his family all his life, said Edge's farming and civic experience will serve him well, but that he will have to do more than advocate for farmers. ``I think it's time for him to stretch himself a little more,'' Peoples said. ``But I was kidding him: I said, `I don't know whether they did him a favor (by electing him) or not.' ''
As a councilman, Edge said he will continue to represent farmers. Still, he already seems to have his sights set on neighborhoods far beyond his own expansive, green coves of the Hickory section of Chesapeake.
Edge said he sees potential in developing the waterfront along South Norfolk, a dense, urban area that is not enjoying the same growth as other parts of Chesapeake. More industry, he said, would bring jobs that will draw more residents.
For other areas, such as Great Bridge and Western Branch, the challenge is directing future growth.
``We have to provide good services for good citizens,'' Edge said. ``Our schools are overcrowded, our roads are clogged.''
He said he was not familiar enough with the city's growth control policies to comment on whether he could support them.
In March, council members adopted a set of criteria that prohibit residential rezonings in areas where schools, roads and sewers are not adequate.
Unlike the Republican majority he has now joined, Edge said he would not oppose a ward system for School Board and council elections, as long as the districts ensured fair representation and kept existing neighborhoods intact.
Edge said a separate ward in rural Hickory would give him a sure advantage in the Nov. 7 special election.
The city charter states that an appointed council member can serve only until the next general election. The winner of that election will serve until May 1996, when Dwyer's term would have ended.
Edge recognized the partisan divisiveness that has emerged in the past month.
``I saw the partisanship come out with my appointment,'' he said. ``It may be too late. We may have already set the tone.
``I'm not going to attack any individual personally. I'm going to keep quiet first so I can absorb as much as I can.''
Tired of bitter partisan politics, citizens will look to Edge and others to resolve an age-old tension of democratic societies: how to balance the majority-rule mandate with the obligation to protect and value those in the minority.
``Partisanship is not anything new,'' Edge said. ``The Democrats just want things that I don't want. But that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be able to say or write whatever they want. And it doesn't mean that whoever has the biggest mob rules, because we can't have that.
``If you show me something that works better, then I'll listen, no matter who you are.''
It will take a combination of ``foresight, imagination and reasonableness'' by the council to serve citizens and realize a vision for the city, Edge said. Because the threats of unlimited spending are as great as the potential fruits of expansion, the balancing act between taking risks and restraint will be difficult.
``We have to look ahead and see what may be approaching us,'' Edge said.
``But we also have to see the possibilities. Chesapeake is a wonderful city, and the imagination comes in where we see what's possible before it happens.'' MEMO: Staff writer Tony Wharton contributed to this report.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/Staff
Dalton Edge, elected to the City Council last Tuesday, is filling a
temporary seat left vacant by former Vice Mayor Arthur L. Dwyer.
KEYWORDS: CHESAPEAKE CITY COUNCIL by CNB