Hope requires leaders to act

Leo Tolstoy famously observed a telling distinction between happy and unhappy families. It is reversed for towns: Unhappy towns are all alike, but every happy town is each happy in its own way. Well, almost. Some ingredients are common, but less so the mixes that stir towns to life. That which rouses one community might not rouse another.

Jimmy LaRoue’s story in today’s newspaper provides a slight sampling, offering as part of The News Virginian’s River City 2020 visioning project a look at Staunton’s economic ascension on the wings of a downtown like few others. Augmented by ornate pre-Civil War architecture and the presence of Mary Baldwin College, Staunton shook from its back the dust of decades of decline and rejuvenated its core as a bustling arts, cultural and historic district.

Fifteen minutes away, as Route 250 turns into West Main and then Main Street, an intrepid traveler can whisk himself from small-town bustle into the kind of desolation that drove Ben Gunn, the marooned buccaneer in “Treasure Island,” to the brink. How to turn Waynesboro into a facsimile of that merry Queen City to the west? The answer is the same that one seeking directions might receive in the Appalachians: You can’t get there from here.

Waynesboro might sooner become Paris than Staunton, but this city wants no more than any other for the opportunity to be happy in its own way. To become so, those interested in compelling the downtown’s rousing from more than a quarter-century of slumber must begin by identifying what makes this place unique.

Among the reasons we have struggled to cultivate enthusiasm for the Wayne Theatre project equal to that felt by its backers is that we think it might be a better match for the place Waynesboro was once but is no more. The hue of the town’s collar has turned bluer as General Electric and DuPont have vanished from the local economy, taking with them high-paying jobs. Staunton, meanwhile, offers a theater of its own whose renown the Wayne could not rival. Opening the Wayne does not guarantee many will come.

For similar reasons, we were ardent supporters of a baseball stadium proposed on the banks of the South River as a home for a minor league club perhaps affiliated with the Boston Red Sox. This city’s embrace of the Valley League’s Waynesboro Generals, and the fervor we witness building with Chris Graham as general manager, demonstrates its affection for the great game. The regional market, we believe, with population centers in nearby Harrisonburg and Charlottesville, and travelers off the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline Drive would provide plenty of patrons. That, in turn, would spark further growth.

In either case, there is a singular question that backers must answer: How will it work? And a secondary question, if the city contributes taxpayer money to the effort, how can it be demonstrated based upon reasonable expectations rather than mere fancy that the spending will generate a return? We prefer the latter to be in the form of tax abatement, which costs taxpayers nothing. But if return can be shown under soundly reasoned projections, then other funding options might merit consideration.

Whether the city puts another nickel into the Wayne or a baseball park ever sprouts downtown, what our leaders should not do is turn their sights from the city core as some officials now and before long have done. Otherwise, the city will find itself unhappy, like so many others, with an aging population, a dwindling tax base, crumbling infrastructure and an economic malaise thick enough to obscure hope for generations rather than a mere moment. The line between those two points fades as leaders silently watch.