Charlotte mayor offers civics lesson

Richard A. Vinroot had just been elected mayor of Charlotte, N.C., when he had lunch with former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young.

The former civil-rights leader had this advice for Vinroot: "He said, 'Don't make the mistake of thinking you are mayor of Charlotte, when what you really are is mayor in a region that will sink or swim together.'"

Vinroot delivered the same message to hundreds of Richmond-area leaders yesterday, mincing no words about the alternative if local governments in the region fail to work together.

If that happens, he said, Richmond will continue to lose the battle for jobs, investment -- even college sporting events -- to competitors such as Charlotte.

"We are competing with you for things that are good for our community," Vinroot said at a breakfast meeting of Hope in the Cities at the Richmond Marriott Hotel.

Vinroot received a standing ovation from an estimated 600 people at the breakfast meeting, which was followed by a community dialogue and panel discussion about how to build trust among local leaders in an often-fractious metropolitan area.

"Relationships are fundamental for doing anything good in your community," Vinroot said.

Without regional trust -- in all directions -- the result is something like Detroit, said Christy Coleman, who moved from the Michigan city seven months ago to become president of the American Civil War Center in Richmond.

"The distrust there is so high that the city has slowly continued to die," said Coleman, a Williamsburg native who was co-chairwoman of the meeting with Dominion Resources executive Thomas N. Chewning.

For Charlotte, building trust required small steps toward regional cooperation before bigger things could be accomplished, Vinroot said. It meant a city-sponsored committee on regional projects and a city-backed regional bus service.

But most of all, it meant convincing people in suburban localities that they had an interest in making the central city work, he said. "Crime, poor education and those kinds of things do not respect political lines."

Charlotte still has its divisions, he said after his speech. Most public services are consolidated in the region, but political jurisdiction is not. Charlotte and Mecklenburg County political bodies continue to meet separately in the same building. "It's a tremendous waste of money, but it's a fact," he said in an interview.

On the other hand, he said, Charlotte has grown with a state law that allows annexation automatically as surrounding areas reach a threshold of population density, while Richmond has been denied annexation for 30 years and is forever barred.

"You can't run away from our city," Vinroot said.

Those distinctions make a difference, said Henrico County Manager Virgil R. Hazelett, who attended yesterday's meeting. "You have to realize North Carolina is a different structure."

Henrico recently raised concerns in the city about a breakaway identity when the county abandoned the Richmond postal address in favor of a Henrico address in order to better capture tax revenue. "We changed the address for financial purposes, not for recognition outside of the Richmond area," Hazelett explained.

Hazelett remains upbeat about the Richmond region's assets and potential, but he added, "Cohesiveness is still something we need to work on."
Contact Michael Martz at (804) 649-6964 or .