THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 29, 1995 TAG: 9510270246
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Random Rambles
SOURCE: Tont Stein
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
There is no livelier sport for a couch potato like me than City Council watching. Maybe your body is still, but your brain and your emotions get a workout that would put a sweat on a statue.
And never more than in the last couple of weeks. It was a municipal ``dope opera'' as the council stomped City Manager Jim Rein. And if you think a city ought to be something more than concrete, asphalt and business blocks, you had to wring your hands over the ``village green'' issue.
When I heard how the council had fired Rein, I was mad enough to arm-wrestle an octopus. I still am. As has been said, Jim served at the pleasure of the council and when the pleasure ended so did the job. But the way he was dismissed was mud ugly.
I have known, liked, admired and respected Rein ever since he joined the city administration. Some of the problems that helped push him overboard were hangovers from the good ol' boy style with which the city was run for a long time. On the other hand, the city manager is like the captain of the ship. If it happens on his watch, he's to blame.
But what fans the flames of my anger is that Rein's stance against water rebates was a sudden noose around his neck. The rebate was a rotten idea. All of the city staff professionals who have to contend with the real world said so. Not the political world where you try to toss goodies to the voters; the real world where the bills have to be paid. And I'm one of those poor slobs in Great Bridge who would get a rebate. Even while I trudged to the fire station with my water jugs, I figured the rebate notion for a bummer.
Robert E. Lee once said that the mark of a gentleman was the way he used power. The way the council majority used their power on Jim Rein was ungentlemanly indeed.
Somewhere, I guess, there is a prospective city manager willing to tackle what seems to me to be a miserable job. You have nine bosses, each with his own agenda, each at least occasionally looking down the road at the next election. I see it as a task that would drive Mother Teresa to pulling wings off butterflies.
Then there's the matter of the ``village green,'' that property at Cedar Road and Battlefield Boulevard South. The council wrestled with its fate last Tuesday night, and I even felt sorry for the guys that made me mad about the way they treated Rein. It's a certified toughie. There are unhappy options of commercial development of the property. There is also the question of scrounging $1.5 million for the city to buy it and keep it as is - green and serene in the middle of the suburban snarl that Great Bridge has become.
Boy, do I ever hope they buy it. I'll even throw a few bucks in the pot, Yes, there are pressing needs in the city, buildings and roads that should be built. But I'll tell you this: Development of the city has been haphazard and helter-skelter. In the 24 years I have lived in Great Bridge, I have seen the quality of life melt like a snowman in July. I buck traffic jams on Battlefield and even on what was my quiet residential street.
Through it all, there is that lovely plot of green on Battlefield, a reminder that there is more to a successful town than shopping centers strung together like chains choking nature. Buy that land. Make it a park. Put a big gazebo on it, one big enough for a band, and have concerts on summer nights. Or plant flowers and trees and just make it a little oasis for quiet meditation.
There were a lot of speakers last Tuesday night who opposed commercial development of the site. I kept nodding my head as they said the added traffic would be an abomination. The commercial proposals were for a bank and a drug store or a strip shopping center. That end of Great Bridge needs either like the Sahara Desert needs sand.
Agreed, businesses pay taxes and a park could be considered a luxury. But Great Bridge, the municipal nerve center of the city, is already well on the way to becoming a clone of Kempsville in Virginia Beach. Some of Tuesday night's speakers pointed out how hard it is to make a left turn in Great Bridge, and they're right. If you start with a baby in your car, it'll be ready for pre-school by the time the traffic clears.
And ``quality of life'' is more than a phrase. It is a very real factor in what has made Chesapeake grow as phenomenally as it has. ``Quality of life'' has true value, and keeping the ``village green'' as it is would help preserve that value.
In the wake of Jim Rein's unceremonious firing, there was some talk about a lack of ``vision.'' Will the same guys who rapped Rein have the vision to rescue Great Bridge from a total stone-and-mortar shroud? by CNB