|
|
State of the City
2008 STATE OF THE CITY
Mayor David A. Bowers
August 21, 2008
NOTE: THE MAYOR MAY ABBREVIATE OR ADD TO THESE REMARKS.
With each new election comes a new spring for our democracy here in Roanoke...with new people, new ideas, new things to do and new ways to do them. It becomes a “rebirth” for our people.
My thanks today to the Greater Roanoke Chamber of Commerce for sponsoring this opportunity for the Mayor of Roanoke to take a few moments of your busy schedule to speak about those new ideas, new dreams, new hope and to set a new tone for our future.
Events such as this being held today, however, just don’t happen. People behind the scenes have made this happen, so I want to thank those many people involved, including:
• Chamber interim President Joyce Waugh, Chairman Lee Wilhelm and the Chamber staff.
• Members of Roanoke City Council.
• City Manager Darlene Burcham and her staff.
• City Clerk Stephanie Moon, the Assistant Clerks, the Administrative Assistant to the Mayor and my law office staff.
Thank you all.
And thank you all who are here today...citizens, business and civic leaders, administrators, elected officials, members of the Council and former members of Roanoke City Council...including:
___________________
No one knows better than these previous occupants the wonderful challenges and demands of the offices of Mayor and City Council of Roanoke, so I ask your acknowledgement, in particular of their contribution to our city.
____________________
Before I tell you my thoughts about the state of the city, let me share with you my thoughts about the state of the city...Council.
All 7 of us on City Council, I can report, since election day in May, have worked hard to build trust and positive, productive relationships. With the leadership of our Vice Mayor, Sherman Lea, former Vice Mayor Dave Trinkle and the input from Gwen Mason, Alvin Nash, Anita Price and Court Rosen, I think we’ve put the soap opera behind us.
The people of Roanoke don’t expect their 7 elected council members to agree on everything...and we don’t...and we won’t.
You do expect us to conduct our public trust with you in a friendly, open and professional way, and that we intend to do.
We will stumble, we will squabble from time to time...but we are, I submit to you, forming relationships based on trust, that will see us through troubled waters in the future, and cause us to come together...or come back together...time and again...and more importantly, to bring you, our citizens, back together so that we can all feel a part of the positive community spirit and steady progress of Roanoke.
This Council has set a new and positive tone for our city...the bus got its wheels back on...the train is back on the track...the state of the council is good once again...and we’re ready to move forward together.
__________________
And let me also report that the Council’s relationship with City Manager Darlene Burcham and our city staff and employees couldn’t be better.
Darlene Burcham has been gracious and forthcoming with me and this new Council...and, together, your city executive offices and the Council have forged a good checks and balance necessary to achievement of any democracy.
And I can’t say enough about our fine city employees. They are the best...anywhere! How grateful we are and should be for the teachers we have working hard every school day in our inner city school system, striving to provide our children with the tools they’ll need for this 21st century. And to the sanitation workers who pick up our garbage, the road crews who work to repair our streets, the employees who mow our parks, beautify our city or keep the pools open in the summer...these employees, too, are worthy of our appreciation.
From the clerks and secretaries at the Courthouse and City Hall to the top executive offices of this Government, Roanoke has employees who love and care about our people and demonstrate it through their dedication every work day.
And don’t think for a minute that I’ve forgotten how grateful the citizens of Roanoke are to the professional police officers, firefighters and Sheriff’s deputies who put their lives on the line every day...in the line of duty...to uphold the sacred and solemn oath each has taken: men and women in the uniforms of our city like police Officer Bryan Lawrence, one of our finest, who went to the aid of a family in distress, determined and courageous as he was to stand up and do the right thing in the face of a threat to the safety of others and himself. Our prayers go out to Officer Lawrence, for a complete rehabilitation and speedy recovery and return to the job of serving Roanoke’s citizens, a job he loves to do.
Service to Roanoke is a labor of love for our city government employees. Officer Lawrence serves as a model for that love and dedicated public service...so to him and for him and the thousands of other public safety personnel, teachers, city employees of every stripe and color...join me in saying
Thank you...
God Bless you...
Good and faithful servants of the people of Roanoke.
_____________________
Now, to the other business at hand.
As I return to the office of Mayor, I am pleased to see our city being recognized for its achievements. For example, Roanoke has made several technological advances:
• The City of Roanoke was named a Leading Digital City in 2007. Roanoke was ranked first in the survey in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, and 2006.
• Roanoke provides seamless services to citizens, allowing them to go to the city’s Web site to pay taxes and bills, apply for city jobs, and apply for permits and inspections.
• We’re completing Neighborhood Plans — for a livable and sustainable city, a total of 26 neighborhood plans that cover all of the city’s 49 neighborhoods.
Several initiatives are being implemented to enhance the livability of our city.
• Aggressive Code Enforcement – special emphasis has been placed on code enforcement and its relationship to crime prevention in our community. As a result, 6,437 code enforcement-related inspections and citations were processed in Fiscal Year 2007-08.
• Greenways – The city opened an additional 3.27 miles of greenway in Fiscal Year 2007-08, making our natural beauty easier for citizens to enjoy.
• Flood Reduction – After a delay of many years, federal funding in the amount of $27,184,000 million has been received by the city for the Roanoke River Flood Reduction Project, and construction of flood control improvements is moving forward.
• Public transportation
o The city has continued its support of the Valley Metro system and the Smart Way Bus. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, Valley Metro ridership was up, increasing 13.2% for the year. During June 2008, the SmartWay bus had a 64% increase in ridership over June 2007.
o Valley Metro’s "Students Ride Free" program is running between 25,000 and 26,000 student trips per month. Ridership for students 18 and younger in June 2008 was 26,455.
o Plans are underway for Star Line Trolley (for the Jefferson Corridor) — the trolley will be free to riders, and available from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, with service every 10 minutes between the Carilion Clinic and downtown Roanoke.
• We’re moving forward with the Public Libraries Master Plan with:
o E-branches at Valley View Mall and Garden City Rec Center, making services more accessible to the community, and
o Renovations are underway at the Jackson Park Branch and the Gainsboro Branch.
The city is offering incentives to draw residents, businesses, and visitors to our city, resulting in:
• Downtown development projects – Davidson’s, new Social Security building, renovations to the former Henri Kessler building and downtown condos and apartments.
• New businesses open – second Home Depot store on Franklin Road, Save-A-Lot grocery store on Melrose, the District at Valley View (including Panera Bread and Barnes & Noble)
• Business expansions – Carilion Clinic; Maple Leaf Bakery (RCIT); Steel Dynamics; Westport Corp.
• I can’t say enough about the Carilion Virginia Tech Medical School. 9 years ago, when I stood as a young Mayor announcing the Riverside Medical Redevelopment Project, we only hoped that our plans might create a medical school in Roanoke. Now that dream is becoming reality...and this is to be the biggest economic development initiative to come here since the railroad came to town.
Under the leadership of a very active School Board led by David Carson and our new School Superintendent Dr. Rita Bishop, Roanoke is taking steps to demonstrate a strong emphasis on education and young people in our community:
• The city is increasing funding for schools – in FY 2007-08, $66 million (26 percent of city’s budget) was allocated to Roanoke Public Schools.
• The city and the schools are sharing services such as joint purchase of biodiesel fuel, communications, potential consolidation of our health insurance program with schools’ program.
• VOYCE (Valuing Our Youth through Community Engagement) Initiative – listening to our youth. First VOYCE conference was just held at the Hotel Roanoke last week.
• In partnership with Roanoke Public Schools and Virginia Tech on “The Promise of Roanoke,” a citizen-led initiative, will take a broad look across the city to identify what should be done to prepare the children in our community to succeed as students in the public education system, and in life.
I’m very, very pleased to have Dr. Bishop as our School Superintendent. She is something else! Good luck, Rita, and to your staff and teachers in turning around our city schools and making us proud of them once again.
The city has achieved a high standard of excellence in its qualifications to provide outstanding services to its citizens and enhance the cultural life of our community.
• Safety – Roanoke is one of a select few municipalities whose Fire-EMS, Police Department, and Sheriff’s Office have all been recognized with national accreditation; for our police department, this was our 5th re-accreditation.
• City’s E-911 Center recently earned its accreditation as well (one of only 46 agencies out of more than 6,500 E-911 Centers nationally to earn this distinction).
• Recreation – Roanoke Parks and Recreation underwent accreditation assessment in July and achieved a near-perfect score, meeting 153 out of the 155 criteria. The city anticipates Parks and Recreation may soon be added to the list of accredited city departments.
• Cultural Events –The Art Museum of Western Virginia has been renamed the Taubman Museum of Art and will open its new $46 million-home in downtown Roanoke on November 8. Georgeanne Bingham and her crew have the most exciting and surprising opening planned.
• In conjunction with the opening of the Taubman Museum of Art, the Second Annual Roanoke Arts Festival will be held on Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 8-9. The festival will include free and ticketed events and activities to appeal to a wide range of audiences.
• Neighborhood Revitalization – the Hurt Park Project is part of an ongoing strategy that combines federal housing funds and other city resources to improve one area of the city at a time.
• Community Pride – The city dedicated the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Bridge and Monument in February 2008.
____________________
While these accomplishments are all important and vital to the success and growth of our city, there is another topic I must mention that has recently become paramount in its importance to city leaders: Environmental Stewardship.
While most people don’t know it, local governments—not federal or state governments—are leading the way when addressing issues related to global warming, climate change, energy and the environment.
Whether local governments are motivated by air quality, national security, global warming or just savings taxpayer dollars, they are answering the call to action to reduce harmful greenhouse gases.
Your local government is beginning to answer this call and is headed in the right direction. My congratulations to Councilwoman Gwen Mason for leading the way with Roanoke’s Clean and Green Initiative.
Examples
Let me tell you some of the environmental initiatives we are undertaking:
• Roanoke joined an organization called ICLEI- Local Governments for Sustainability. ICLEI provided Roanoke with a uniform method of developing our carbon footprint.
• By joining ICLEI, Roanoke adopted our “5 Milestones Program” which includes:
1. Conducting a baseline emissions inventory and forecast, commonly called a carbon footprint
2. Adopting an emissions reduction target
3. Developing a local action plan
4. Implementing policies and procedures and
5. Monitoring and verifying results
With assistance from Dr. Sean McGinnis, Director of the Green Engineering Program at Virginia Tech and Dr. C.J. Brodrick who is with the Center for Energy and Sustainability at James Madison University, Roanoke completed a “carbon footprint” for government operations and will soon complete a similar carbon footprint for the broader community. The footprint provides much needed information to determine the sectors that are creating most of the greenhouse gases, be it residential, commercial /industrial, or transportation.
While the 5 Milestone Model is the basis for measuring our progress, let me share with you other things Roanoke is doing to reduce carbon emissions:
• In 2000, recycling was extended to entire city. Look at it now: In 2007-08, the city collected 2,744.47 tons of recycling. Currently, 36 percent of residents participate in the city’s recycling program.
• Last year, the city partnered with Roanoke City Public Schools to reinvigorate the school recycling program. School personnel and students were educated about recycling, provided recycling containers, and monitored regularly to identify recycling needs and patterns. As a result of this partnership, school recycling increased from 10 tons in September 2007 to 29.8 tons in February 2008, resulting in a school savings of $13,200 in just six months.
• Roanoke was the first community in Virginia to adopt a special tax rate for energy efficient buildings. This tax break provides a four-year, 10% real estate tax decrease if the building is 30% more efficient than required by the Statewide Building Code.
• With the efforts of Gwen Mason and Stan Breakell, the Business Coalition on the Environment was formed that represents the largest employers in Roanoke. These employers plan to prepare their own carbon footprints, buy environmentally friendly products, and encourage their employees to recycle, reuse materials when possible, and keep the workplace litter free.
• A Green Office Checklist has been developed to help local businesses assess what they need to do to make their offices more energy efficient. This checklist is available at the table near the door, so be sure to pick up one for your office.
• We are also in the process of developing a residential checklist to help citizens assess the energy efficiency of their homes.
• Since the early 1990’s, Roanoke has been working to preserve its urban forest with a goal of increasing the tree canopy from 32% to 40% over the next 10 years.
• Construction of the new Williamson Road Fire Station—our first LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building project—is underway. The station will harvest rainwater and filter it for use in flushing toilets, washing vehicles, and irrigating landscaping.
• The city has purchased a number of hybrid vehicles for its fleet.
• Roanoke is the first local government is Southwest Virginia to use biodiesel in its fleet, including school buses; and to use blended ethanol in its gasoline-powered fleet.
• Roanoke has replaced incandescent traffic lights at 65 intersections with LED (Light Emitting Diode) lights.
Within city government a number of actions have been taken to save energy and reduce carbon dioxide including:
• The Municipal Building has been retrofitted with more energy efficient lighting, replacing over 700 incandescent lights with compact fluorescent lights.
• Heating and air-conditioning systems have been rebuilt and new energy-efficient boilers and heat pumps have been installed in city buildings.
While great strides have been made toward environmental stewardship, much more can be done. As Mayor, I challenge businesses and citizens to get on board with the city’s Clean and Green Campaign.
Here’s my state of the city challenge:
Help us make Roanoke the cleanest and greenest city in Virginia by taking an active role and responsibility for improving and preserving the visual appeal and natural beauty of our community.
I encourage you to look at the way you do business and see if some of the things we’re doing as a city are things you can do. For example:
• Replace existing bulbs with CFL – available today.
• Explore alternate work schedules (4 days a week/10 hours a day).
• Purchase copier paper made from recycled paper.
• Adopt a vehicle idling policy to limit idling to five minutes or less, which will reduce fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions.
• Provide incentives to your employees for ride-sharing or use of public transportation.
• Purchase local produce. During Roanoke’s growing season (April to October), people can purchase locally grown vegetables and fruits at the Historic Farmers’ Market. Remember, eating locally grown food significantly reduces transportation of produce thereby reducing the impact of greenhouse gas emissions.
With all this in mind, I’m pleased to announce today 2 important environmental conferences coming soon to Roanoke, as we enter “The Year of the Environment in Roanoke.”
First, on September 23, here at the Civic Center, Roanoke will host our first ever Clean and Green Environmental Summit. You’ll want to have your employees or interested environmentalists present as we, the city government, begin to help you, our citizens and local businesses, learn how to deal with today’s environmental and energy issues. There’s more information to come about this September 23rd summit, and you can find out more on the city’s website.
The 2nd major environmental conference to be held here in Roanoke this fall, I’m pleased to also announce, is the International Conference of Environmental Journalists at the Hotel Roanoke on October 15. This conference, sponsored in conjunction with Virginia Tech, will bring people interested and knowledgeable in conservation, energy, environmental and sustainability issues to the Star City. We’ll have much to learn from them, and we’ll welcome the opportunity to showcase Roanoke to the world as a community emerging into a leadership role on these critical issues facing our earth.
________________
I want to conclude by telling you of an experience I had recently that has left an indelible impression on my mind.
In traveling overseas after the May election and before taking office on July 1, 2008...my “extended family” and I visited 5 countries on a once-in-a-lifetime train trip across southern Europe from Germany to Spain and ending up in Paris.
We encountered all types of people: Hotel personnel, train conductors, bus drivers, waiters and waitresses and even guards carrying uzi’s. Everyone was friendly and cordial and smiling and helpful to us strangers.
It was not until we arrived back here in the states that we encountered flight personnel, airport bus drivers, border guards and government immigration officials who were rude, inconsiderate and intimidating to us and foreigners. No one – not one- said “Welcome Home” or smiled and said “Welcome to America.”
And I thought...what has happened to this great country? Have we been gripped with such fear and stress that we can’t treat others in a friendly way...welcoming our guests to America instead of shouting at them and ordering them around needlessly?
And then I arrive home to Roanoke...and that momentary negative feeling was instantly rectified. Roanokers welcomed us home. Roanokers helped with our luggage. Roanokers asked us how our trip went. My temporarily lost faith and doubt was restored by you...the people of Roanoke.
And it has made me think...every day since arriving home...how truly fortunate we are to live in this blessed and beautiful valley of Virginia.
We are not a Charlotte or Philadelphia nor Paris...
But we are unique, beautiful and praiseworthy in our own way.
While we strive for progress, while we still suffer many wrongs and injustices...I submit to you that...at least most days...we share and should share those old-fashioned, All American virtues of friendliness, helpfulness and a just plain common sense value of appreciating what we have here, compared to others in the world.
The Bible says that God came to praise this world...not to condemn it.
So while we take on the many challenges of Roanoke facing us, while we strive to heal our wounds, correct our mistakes, lift up our poor and the unfortunate ones among us,...while we argue and sometimes heatedly debate what needs to be done here, and how to do it, nonetheless...
Let us learn to daily appreciate that we are all in this together, that each of us has a noble contribution to make, that this city is worthy of praise...not condemnation...and that our lives here should be filled with that sense of friendliness, openness, desire to help and listen and welcome others in and tot and for this democracy of Roanoke.
In the final analysis, it is not the Mayor in his once-a-year long-winded state of the city speech that solely convinces people that these are good items in Roanoke and life here is worthy of our positive praise.
It is you, the people, who will say so...and it is you who must feel positive about Roanoke…then it will become so...EVERYDAY...in everything we do.
I want to reach out to you, all of our people, we now have 88 different nationalities here in Roanoke.
I want to reach out to make certain that we not only have a city government that is friendly and helpful...but that we strive for a community of people having a good time working together, solving problems together, creating progress together...
Praising our life here together so that we not only say, but continue to truly mean it when we say:
Welcome home!
Welcome to Roanoke!
|
|
|