Here's why this Virginian-Pilot editorial is interesting for true friends of Fort Monroe. Norfolk City Council wanted to build upscale houses on publicly owned near-bayfront green space. Citizens opposed the idea, and took steps to overcome it. The city council used public money to hire lawyers to thwart the public will -- and the city council lost resoundingly and embarrassingly. In Hampton, the city council closely controls the city's participation in the SuperFADA, the new 18-person planning panel for Fort Monroe. Recently Hampton formally reiterated, somewhat emphatically, that -- in Hampton's view, anyway -- the public last summer demanded that the heart of the potential green space at Fort Monroe be filled with upscale houses. Almost no private citizens who actually participated in last summer's public meetings about Fort Monroe believe that claim about the public will. Does Hampton City Council still intend to thwart the public will? If so, could the public defeat them as resoundingly as was done in Norfolk? (Please see also Kerry Dougherty's June 12Virginian-Pilot column about Bay Oaks.)Twin victories on Bay Oaks
Virginian-Pilot editorial
June 12, 2007Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim and City Council have surrendered to the inevitable, sounding a hasty retreat on plans to sell off the publicly owned Bay Oaks tract in East Ocean View for a high-end subdivision.
Anyone following the controversy knew the subdivision was dead if the Virginia Supreme Court certified the right of Norfolk citizens to have a final say, as it did Friday. Within a couple hours of the unanimous court decision, the white flag went up at City Hall.
The only question left now is how the subdivision will be killed - by the say of council, or by the say of citizens with their ballots.
The vote of the council is the most expedient way. Given how much political damage Bay Oaks has inflicted, the council is in a hurry to be seen as gracious in defeat. Rescinding the development decisions as soon as possible, and starting talks about creating a park, would acknowledge that Norfolk citizens have been heard.
But that was never in question. At issue was what recourse citizens have when they are not heard.
Several petitions, each with thousands of names, showed the unpopularity of giving the property over to private developers. But that didn't deter the council.
A hasty rewind of that action fails to acknowledge that the Bay Oaks citizens' committee won over thousands of citizens not just to change municipal open space priorities, but to secure a broader political principle as well.
The committee won two victories for preservation on Friday - the first for preserving a public park and a second, equally important one for a public vote.
Since it rejected the last petition in October 2005 for a public vote, the council has wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to gut the initiative powers guaranteed in the Norfolk city charter. The total bill won't be known until later this week.
Those powers give Norfolk citizens a check and balance that's got real teeth. Few cities in Virginia have it. It's not easy to exercise, nor should it be, and the hurdles are very high. But had the justices ruled as Norfolk wanted, the initiative provisions would have been put out of reach forever.
Friday's ruling clears the way for a question to be put on the Nov. 6 General Assembly ballot without additional public expense. The Bay Oaks committee has spent four years fighting this battle. For the past two years, it has fought an army of lawyers retained by City Council arguing that Norfolk citizens had the right to be heard, but not to have the final say.
Such a vote might be just a formality. However, by insisting that citizens exercise the right on Nov. 6 to have the final word, the Bay Oaks Committee will win a third victory.
It will have set a precedent making future councils a little more wary of ignoring what they're hearing from the public.
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