THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 10, 1995 TAG: 9508080095
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: IN THE NEIGHBORHOODS
SOURCE: MIKE KNEPLER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
Heather Stone's job is to get to know Norfolk neighborhoods and its residents. Who is Heather Stone?
Stone, 28, a management analyst in the Department of Marketing and Communications, is helping City Hall learn its citizens.
Some of you know Stone from her visits to civic leagues. She also helps coordinate the mayor's quarterly ``citizen workshops.''
Her duties soon will include marketing surveys of Norfolk's citizens. They will be among the research tools funded by a $30,000 allocation from the City Council.
Stone and her colleagues also want to connect with citizens via computer networks. For folks without home computers, City Hall is considering access links from libraries and schools, she said.
City Hall plans to create an advisory board for these efforts, Stone said. She also hopes to learn what other cities do.
All this, she said, is ``to encourage open communications . . . People want to be a part of the process. They want to know that their concerns are heard. And, you can get some great ideas from citizens.''
The surveys and computer links are important, Stone said, because people who attend civic-league meetings are only a minority of Norfolk's population. ``They're a great source, but not a true representation,'' she said.
But, Stone agreed, surveys and computers don't substitute for meeting people in neighborhoods.
Stone moved to Hampton Roads in 1982 and graduated from Portsmouth's Churchland High School. She has a finance degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MBA from Old Dominion.
Before joining City Hall last fall, Stone managed small business and international services for the Small Business Development Center of the Chamber of Commerce.
A resident of Virginia Beach, Stone said she and her husband want to find a Norfolk home with a boat slip. They enjoy sailing. Heather Stone, 664-4266.
In the works. Paul Fraim, mayor since July 1994, says he still plans to give his first annual state of the city speech. But it probably won't be until late fall.
``I originally hoped to do it at the end of the budget session when we were entering the new (fiscal) year,'' he said. But ``there was an awful lot going on, including the Lake Gaston discussions. Some of the stuff got put on the back burner . . . It's something I want to do.''
Fraim is undecided about his format and theme. But intends it as a community event for neighborhood leaders and volunteers on boards and commissions.
Mason Andrews used the rostrum to talk up the need for beautiful public spaces and landmarks. Joe Leafe said Norfolk would be the business, educational and cultural hub of the mid-Atlantic.
Civic calendar. While Mayor Fraim has yet to pencil in his state-of-the-city speech, other citizen conferences are going forward.
Education is the topic of the mayor's next ``citizens workshop,'' Sept. 16 in Ruffner Middle School.
The Hampton Roads Coalition of Civic Organizations holds its next ``grass-roots regionalism'' forum Sept. 23. Suffolk Mayor Chris Jones talks on ``managed growth.''
The Chesapeake Council of Civic Organizations will host the conference in Oscar Smith High School. Call Les Fenlon, 481-2501.
Think February. Hampton neighborhood activists, with that city's Department of Neighborhood Services, want to hold a regional forum on neighborhood leadership. by CNB