Councilman Trinkle was quoted in a recent copy of the Sentinel as saying even the proponents of renovating Victory Stadium have to admit that building the stadiums at the high schools was the right decision.
Not me.
The WWII generation gave us an enormous resource in the form of a 25,000 seat stadium fully paid for and what did we do? Tear it down. Only in the eyes of Roanoke City “leadership” during the past 10 years would trading two 3,500 seat stadiums at our high schools for a 25,000 seat already-paid-for stadium be viewed as “progress.”
The economic opportunity from a 25,000-seat fully renovated historic stadium versus two stadiums too small for anything but high school sports was enormous. We could have had hundreds of annual events ranging from outdoor music, to major college sports like soccer and lacrosse, to small college sports like football, to regional and state high school tournaments to AAU-type tournaments to outdoor fair events and on and on. All of which would have helped fill our hotels and frequented our restaurants and retailers.
For those who could not see the potential, all they had to do is look at the once shuttered (for 5-years) Hotel Roanoke. With a first class renovation and an aggressive approach to marketing the Hotel has been successful beyond anyone’s expectations.
Not only has our local leadership lacked vision, they continually put their emphasis on the wrong things. Salem High School constantly has one of the best football teams in the State and they routinely sell out their football games. Yet their stadium is not on their campus. On the other hand, Salem’s school system consistently has the highest teacher salaries outside of Northern Virginia and coincidently, is among the highest performing schools on standardized tests.
Roanoke City children did not “deserve” a stadium on their campus, nor $150 million+ new buildings – they deserve a good education. Until our leadership puts its priorities in the right place we will continue to struggle.
-Brian Wishneff Roanoke
AMEN, Councilman! It was never about education nor what was needed. The city council during the last years of your term as well as the school board were perfectly willing to sacrifice a year or two of education with their tactics…using the school board, the newly hired super. and his staff, to engage in the public farst under the world class school banner. Why anyone would bring a family with school aged kids into Roanoke city is beyond my understanding. Funny too, your ex city manager is now running one of the most depressed towns in all of Va. Some justice! It’s where she should have been all along.
Trinkle, isn’t this the guy who voted a meals tax increase while not paying his meals taxes until a WDBJ reporter asked him about it?