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"Stuart Revercomb has a way of looking at the everyday and making it Divine."

-Ruth Graham

Thursday, Oct 18th 2007    

Should Salem Look to Roanoke?

OK, I can’t take it. Once was tough – twice was terrible, but The Roanoke Times whacking of Salem City Council a THIRD time for taking a retreat to Glade Springs West VA is just too much. (Actually, it’s four times now counting last Saturday’s cartoon, but who’s counting?)

First it was Marquita Brown, council reporter extraordinaire that sniffed out the big story – Salem City Council (get this!) took a retreat to Glade Springs, WV where they discussed some business and mixed in pleasure as part of a weekend getaway. The story, according to Marquita, is that those wily, conniving, devious Salem City Council people waited until, “many people had left the room,” before recessing the meeting to be later reconvened at Glade Springs. Dastardly - simply dastardly.

Excuse me Marquita, but do you think that if they were really trying to hide it from the public in lieu of merely trying to avoid the hassles of public notice requirements for a simple staff retreat, they would have done it with anyone left in the room? Especially (and clearly) you?

Talk about a slow day in the newsroom.

Then came Shanna Flowers with her rehash of Marquita’s serious findings, who added, “the way this thing went down smacks of the insular attitude often associated with Salem and its government.”

It does? Based on what information? Who says Salem and its government are insular? Is this a rumor? Or are there facts to back up such a statement. I don’t find Salem people insular – in fact, I find them to be genuine, honest, hard working people who are warm and welcoming. I know little of their government representatives, other than they sure seem to do a lot of things right. Which is what REALLY killed me about the third ‘story’ by the Times that came in the form of their lead editorial on October 23rd entitled, “Looking for Salem City Council? Check the golf resorts in West Virginia.”

I couldn’t believe it. All the critical issues our society faces nationally and locally and we were being treated to a third diatribe aimed at Salem Council members for going to meet and play golf at Pebble Be . . ., er, Glade Springs, WV. But the part that really put the dagger in the long dead horse and this reader in particular was the statement that, “Salem might look to Roanoke and Blacksburg for some ideas.”

Excuse me? I don’t know much about Blacksburg city government other than they must have their hands full with the explosive growth of  VA Tech up there, but asking Salem to look to Roanoke City for leadership ideas is like asking Peyton Manning to study a middle school playbook for next Sunday’s game.

Let’s see – Roanoke has one of the worst high school graduation rates in the state, tax rates that are forcing seniors to sell their homes, critical infrastructure problems and conflict of interest issues that would make Boss Tweed blush. Yup, that’s a good idea – let’s have Salem leaders look to Roanoke.

Maybe if Roanoke City Council had taken a trip or two to Glade Springs they would have made a far wiser decision on Victory Stadium in lieu of arguing about it for six years before tearing it down. Maybe we’d already have a viable outdoor concert venue where the majority of people want it. Maybe our Housing Authority wouldn’t be under federal investigation. Maybe we wouldn’t build 15 Million Dollar “event halls” that go largely unused. Maybe we wouldn’t be entertaining offers to commercially develop a cherished public park. Maybe we wouldn’t be ruining the long standing relationships we once had with the farmers and regular visitors to our city market.

Maybe we’d be more the genuine Roanoke and less of a contrived one.

And maybe one day we’ll have a print media source in Roanoke with a focus that is a far better match for a majority of its readers.

Stay tuned.

 

 

- Stuart