The political ambitions of a very few are hurting South Norfolk and the City of Chesapeake; sadly we elected them: John de Triquet, Alan Krasnoff and Debbie Ritter. We all know that elected politicians will often reward close allies, and hence themselves; in an effort to stay elected, but the disingenuous mask these three wear is alarming.
(The South Norfolk Civic League has a good reference article on www.southnorfolkcivicleague.com entitled “Its that time again, Election Time and the politicians are hard at it” and the South Norfolk Strategic Development Plan, also helpful background, can be found at www.chesva.com/sono.html).
De Triquet was in favor of the South Norfolk Strategic Development Plan (SoNo plan) and voted in March 2005 to establish the South Norfolk Tax Increment Financing District- the SoNo TIF. He and Krasnoff then went on to vote in 2006 for the Gateway and Belharbour projects as vital parts of that SoNo plan. But around this same time three high profile projects on the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River were proposed: Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan for a 130’ ammonia storage tower; BioEnergy International for a large ethanol plant, Covanta for the famous “trashport”. All were defeated and voting no were de Triquet, Krasnoff and Ritter (before she was voted off the Council that year). Industry along the river then became alarmed that Chesapeake no longer supported their interests and later it became known that Mayor Edge would not seek reelection in 2008. Suddenly de Triquet and Krasnoff became the friends of corporate industry voting in March 2007 against the Belharbour project, expressing concern about its proposed marina, citing the proximity of pleasure boats with naval or working vessels; even though the proposed marina is on the intracoastal waterway where pleasure craft are routine; and marina approval was included in the original rezoning. It is clear in hind-sight today that as a Republican, Krasnoff wanted corporate sponsors and their money in his bid to win the office of Mayor; and far more than he wanted to keep promises to South Norfolk. So goes Krasnoff, so goes de Triquet and Ritter. They are trying to build a Republican political machine that rewards the areas of Chesapeake that will help keep them in office and expand their influence. The ends justify the means and they mean to disregard years of promises and commitments the City has made to South Norfolk because it tends to favor Democratic candidates. De Triquet recently said in a South Norfolk campaign forum that he has collected and analyzed the necessary data to determine that South Norfolk can do better than the SoNo plan; even though professional land planners, consultants and dozens of South Norfolk citizens spent thousands of hours studying South Norfolk’s situation and finally recommending that plan of redevelopment. It is incredible that de Triquet expects us to believe that only he has drawn the proper conclusions. It is far more credible to believe that de Triquet, Krasnoff and Ritter want to remove the reasons for South Norfolk’s financing district thus keeping a largely Democratic borough from reaching its full potential.
