THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 25, 1996 TAG: 9605250001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: PATRICK LACKEY
LENGTH: 68 lines
The recently formed Hampton Roads Partnership brings together an impressive array of military, business, educational and elected leaders - a Who's Who of local movers and shakers.
The regions' top guns are volunteering their time and expertise to improve Hampton Roads, especially its economy and general quality of life.
All told, the Partnership has 52 leaders - mayors, company and university presidents, an admiral, et al. - and one follower, the 53rd and last person appointed.
He is neighborhood-activist Gene Waters, 48, of Chesapeake, and he could prove to be the Partnership's most-valuable player.
The reason is that the Partnership is an advisory organization, not another layer of government. Thus, the Partnership can propose and persuade but not compel, and Waters is uniquely positioned to persuade the leaders of neighborhoods throughout Hampton Roads to support the Partnership's positions.
He is president of both the Chesapeake Council of Civic Organizations and the Hampton Roads Coalition of Civic Organizations. He is, in other words, part of Hampton Roads' grass roots.
Waters, who leads computer-software-development teams for the Navy, became involved in a community league in 1987 for the same reason most residents do: The quality of life in his small neighborhood was threatened. A trucking company purchased a lot across the street from his home and proposed hauling away countless truckloads of sand and gravel, making lots of noise and dust and leaving a huge hole in the ground.
Although Waters had lived in the same house several years, he knew only the families two doors down in both directions. Still, he helped organize most of the 40 neighborhood families into the Clearfield Avenue Triangle Civic League. Together they defeated the borrow-pit proposal.
Today, no one knows Waters' neighborhood better than he does, and he knows the civic-league leaders who know their neighborhoods better than anyone else. Chesapeake alone has about 50 active civic leagues.
Waters knows the nine council members in his city, having debated proposals before them. He said civic-league leaders in other cities know their leaders as well.
All told, the 15 cities and counties in Hampton Roads are governed by 103 elected officials.
Cooperation across city and county lines can occur only when most of those 103 elected officials concur. The Partnership could formulate brilliant proposals for providing plentiful water, attracting high-paying jobs and building a major-league sports arena and light-rail system; but if the local elected leaders balked, the proposals would come to naught.
``To sell these concepts,'' Waters said, ``you are going to need more firepower. Why not use the grass roots as firepower?''
Before a regionwide tax would ever be approved, such as a tenth-of-a-penny sales-tax increase to fund an arena, a referendum probably would be conducted. The 1.6 million Hampton Roads residents, at least the adults, would need to be persuaded to support the tax increase - no small task.
Again, Waters said, civic-league leaders need to be involved. ``What we can do,'' he said, ``is listen to the ideas and try to sell those ideas to the people.'' He'd prefer to have several more civic-league leaders on the Partnership. Besides possessing the ability to sell ideas, he said, they can tell the other Partnership members which ideas the residents of their neighborhoods would reject.
For example, he said, if a sports arena were proposed for a spot difficult to get to, or if it would benefit only the wealthier residents, most residents would balk at supporting it.
Leaders can lead only if followers follow. So the followers had better be involved. MEMO: Mr. Lackey is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB