Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Editorial: Roanoke remains stuck in neutral
Leadership is the remedy to Roanoke City Council's pattern of backtracking on decisions.
From the RoundTable blog
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A splintered Roanoke City Council couldn't agree Monday to do what it previously had proposed: Hire a consultant to draft the fate of the Market Building.
Predictably, the mayor and council members delayed action until later this month.
It doesn't really matter -- hire the consultant, don't hire the consultant. The result is likely to be the same. Council will spin its wheels. The Market will remain in limbo. There is little cause to hope otherwise.
The only thing that can change that pattern is leadership. Sadly, leadership has been MIA in council chambers for far too many years.
Roanoke City Council has a pattern of attempting to buy vision from consultants, then rejecting the advice because members lack the backbone to stand up to critics -- even misinformed ones. The current mayor would do well to grasp the distinction between listening to the public as one component in making a decision and trying to please all factions equally. The latter is not leadership. It's pandering.
Whether the mayor is a leader isn't all that crucial, since he is but one of seven equal votes on council. But somebody needs to step up, show that vision doesn't need to be hired, then demonstrate the ability to build a consensus.
While Roanokers wait for a leader to emerge, council remains rudderless, aimlessly drifting from one concept to the next.
The Market Building debacle is merely repetition. (See: Victory Stadium, amphitheater, Countryside Golf Course, et al.)
There isn't one member of council who doesn't agree that something needs to be done with the aging, unprofitable, underutilized Market Building. There wasn't one member on the previous council who didn't think so either. So three years ago, the city paid Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co. $100,000 to tell it what to do. Then a wishy-washy council debated: What if we did what the consultants said? What if we brought in something like Dave & Buster's? What if ... say, what if we ask for more proposals? Let the broader market tell us what can be done.
The market did respond -- with just one proposal that was similar to the consultant's vision.
Rather than view this as confirmation of a good idea, the current council, not liking the old council's "leadership," rejected it. Then the new crew directed city staff to tell it what to do. It became clear that wasn't such a good idea, so council decided to seek new proposals from different consultants to tell it what to do. But when it came time to affirm that decision, council again waffled.
And that's where council is now: Stuck between spending $160,000 to purchase more vision or ... what? Nothing isn't an option.
It's time someone who campaigned to help lead this city stepped into the role and realized that inaction is action -- with costly consequences.
