Commentary – Roanoke Spends $1,745,000 and Has Nothing to Show for It

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck! – or, is it a “study”? Maybe it’s a study duck. Enough, yet already! (If It’s Not a Study and It’s Not an Amphitheater It Must Be A ‘Civic Plan'”, March 11, 2011).

Can you believe it? Ten years after tearing down Victory Stadium, which was a substantial public structure that was paid for and could have been successfully remodeled and refurbished; and the never ending studying of multiple amphitheater sites to be located on either Reserve Avenue or in Elmwood Park, we are told city council will yet again authorize another study, to cost $300,000.

This makes a grand total of$1,745,000, yes just under $2,000,000, spent on studies and plans alone, and no building structure is even in sight much less open and operating. What an embarrassment! I thought we had seen it all with the fumbling around at Countryside, at Explore Park and the grossly unnecessary expense for two parcel condemnations in the Reserve Avenue area, but this takes the cake.

Whatever happened to all the pious, disingenuous statements from “For the City” council candidates? Do we now hear citizens saying, “I told you so”? Had Victory Stadium been renovated for $8 to $11 million as a clear majority wanted, Roanoke would  now have in operation a beautiful, modem multi-purpose use structure, including an  Olympic track, a recommended Sports Medicine Complex, 16,000 comfortable seats, and  ample on site parking – no busing to and from would be necessary.

But regrettably, it is what it is. The rest of Virginia’s metro areas invest carefully in worthwhile and successful projects and move on while our elected council advised and supported by business leaders are still wandering around with studies, studies, and more studies.

-Senator J. Granger MacFarlane

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