Parks and Politics
By Dan Winters
Port Folio Weekly
September 20, 2005
Please accept my compliments on your editorial, “Of Parks and Politics” (Editor’s Notebook, August 30.) Here in Hampton we have been waging the same sort of battle with our city council. If we but substitute “Hampton” for “Norfolk,” “Hampton City Council” for “Norfolk City Council,” and the “Buckroe Green Space” for “Bay Oaks Park,” the entire piece rings perfectly true. Even your call for a public referendum mirrors what many of us on this side of the water have been saying.
The incredible short sightedness of city governments everywhere makes the contention that no politician can see any farther into the future that the next election seem true. Lost in all of this is the pressure citizens put on their leaders to swear on a Bible that they will not raise taxes or they won’t be elected. I am sure that it is this pressure that often causes city leaders to look for the quick and easy money and to hell with the future. However, that doesn’t justify selling the future for the present.
I spent an hour with Jimmy Eason (Director of Development) listening to his rationale for selling much of this land to developers. In the end, he agreed that this was a one shot deal and once the property was sold, it was gone forever. But his mind was made up. I couldn’t help but think that he probably would never spend a day in the park that could be developed at Buckroe. But hundreds or thousands will never have the enjoyment a park could offer if City Council takes the quick and easy way to get the money they want to buy up blighted areas of Buckroe. It will be just another quick fix to an immediate problem that will deprive all future generations.
We may talk about how different we are on opposite sides of Hampton Roads, but this is a good example of how much alike we are and how we share the same problems.
Dan Winters
Hampton
