ONE CITIZEN'S FORT MONROE QUESTION FOR VIRGINIA'S GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATES:

 

(This was an e-mail message from CFMNP's Steve Corneliussen to friends of Fort Monroe. It contains his personal views.)

 

It's possible that friends of Fort Monroe might be interested in the question that I'm personally working to see asked of the three candidates running for governor in Virginia's June 9 primary. My question appears below the dashed line. It's followed by a background summary that explains my personal view of how things stand for Fort Monroe at the moment.

 

Now that candidate Creigh Deeds has publicly committed to a Fort Monroe National Park -- and now that candidate Brian Moran has declined to do so, as reported below -- it seems to me that friends of Fort Monroe should work hard to make sure that Fort Monroe gets discussed in the campaign and in civic venues generally. So I'll be posting versions of my question on Virginia blogs, and I'll be asking journalists to consider using my question. (At one blog right now, blog.vivianpaige.com, questions are being collected for an upcoming debate.)

 

If you have your own Fort Monroe question, I hope you'll do the same (though it's fine just to forward mine if you like). In my view it's especially important to get the Washington Post to pay greater attention to this issue, which will inevitably get national attention that might as well start now.

 

Please alert me if you learn of opportunities for getting Fort Monroe discussed publicly.

 

Steve Corneliussen

 

 

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QUESTION FOR VIRGINIA'S DEMOCRATIC GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATES:

 

Last month, for the third year in a row, the Civil War Preservation Trust declared Fort Monroe at risk of inappropriate, counterproductive, financially unnecessary overdevelopment. How instead could Virginians best capitalize on that national treasure's strategic potential to enrich Tidewater and the commonwealth -- not only financially, but culturally, recreationally and environmentally? (Please see also the following background summary.)

Steven T. Corneliussen

Poquoson, Virginia

 

BACKGROUND SUMMARY:

 

When the Army leaves in 2011, the commonwealth takes over Fort Monroe, a 570-acre national historic landmark that overlooks Hampton Roads, the Chesapeake Bay and four centuries of American history. As reported below, candidates Creigh Deeds and Brian Moran have conflicting stands on what to do with it. To my knowledge, candidate Terry McAuliffe remains noncommittal.

 

The aerial photograph on the home page of Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park (CFMNP.org) illustrates the stakes involved in the planning. Please see also the Norfolk PBS station's moving, 27-minute Fort Monroe documentary "Kingdom by the Sea," which is easily found online, including via a link on the CFMNP.org "What's New" page. (I'm a CFMNP co-founder. That volunteer, grassroots civic organization advocates a self-sustaining, revenue-generating Grand Public Place at Fort Monroe -- for everybody.)

 

For Tidewater, the Trust for Public Land calls Fort Monroe both economically and recreationally crucial as potential waterfront green space. For America, Robert Nieweg of the National Trust for Historic Preservation ranks Fort Monroe with Monticello and Mount Vernon. Historians say Fort Monroe is where the first Africans arrived on their way to Jamestown four centuries ago -- and where, a quarter of a millennium later, American slavery began to die.

 

That unique place for Fort Monroe in the history of liberty stems most tellingly from the brave initiative of three self-emancipating Americans -- Frank Baker, Sheppard Mallory, and James Townsend. When the Civil War began, they escaped enslavement and gained sanctuary at Fort Monroe, the Union's bastion in Confederate Virginia. Here and across the South, their example led tens of thousands more to escape, to join the Union cause, and to contribute to freedom's victory. That's why Fort Monroe is also called Freedom's Fortress.

 

With the Monitor Center nearby, and with the Museum of the Confederacy planning a major Fort Monroe presence, Fort Monroe could anchor the fourth corner of an upgrade of Virginia's Historic Triangle. With the resulting Historic Quadrangle, Virginia could tell the world the complete story of America's founding. Many believe that's a higher and better use for Fort Monroe than business-as-usual overdevelopment.

 

Unfortunately, however, in 2005 and 2007, political insiders with a focus on narrow, parochial development seized control of the state's Fort Monroe planning panel. It's dominated by the Hampton City Council. Even if council members are well-intentioned, the ups and downs of one city's politics would still constitute a risk over the coming decades for this national treasure that has international historical significance. One present-day example: The planning panel's vice chairman, a well-recognized leading Hampton citizen, is also a leading Hampton developer, and well recognized as a city hall insider.

 

Over 2300 Hampton citizens are acting formally, under the city charter's citizens' initiative provisions, to help steer Virginia's planning toward a Grand Public Place for everybody, possibly an innovatively structured national park. And in fact Tidewater citizens generally -- though shut out from representation on that overdevelopment-focused planning panel -- believe overwhelmingly that Fort Monroe should become a self-sustaining national park, structured innovatively so as to generate its own revenue and pay its own way.

 

The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot's editorial board has regularly called for such a national park. On October 9, 2006, the Civil War Preservation Trust issued a formal resolution calling for a national park. Yet last month, for the third year in a row, those internationally respected preservationists declared Fort Monroe at risk of inappropriate, counterproductive, financially unnecessary overdevelopment.

 

Virginia's governor has enormous power to redirect the planning so that Fort Monroe can instead enrich Virginia not only financially, but culturally, recreationally and environmentally as well. In 2005, then-Governor (now Senator) Mark Warner, and Gov. Tim Kaine since 2006, set the planning direction that's so deeply in question now, causing the conflict between candidates Deeds and Moran -- and challenging candidate McAuliffe (and for that matter, Republican candidate McDonnell) to take a stand. 

 

To my knowledge, Gov. Kaine has never discussed Fort Monroe in any public forum with citizens, who after all are Fort Monroe's actual owners. On separate occasions in 2006 and 2007, he looked me in the eye and personally promised me that he'd discuss it with Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park. He also promised my CFMNP colleagues.

 

No such discussion has yet taken place. Especially given that Gov. Kaine chairs a national political party in the Obama era, his treatment of this unique symbol of slavery's death seems ironic -- and puzzling, given his otherwise fine record in such matters. Is it relevant, or is it merely unfair, to add that developers often lead in funding Virginia political campaigns?

 

Fort Monroe is in the congressional district of Rep. Glenn Nye, who has expressed interest in a government study of the possibilities for a self-sustaining, revenue-generating, innovatively structured national park. On April 24, however, on Tony Macrini's morning radio call-in show in Norfolk, Rep. Nye seemed hesitant about those prospects, and spoke only in vague generalities about them.

 

If Virginia's governor, U.S. senators, and Rep. Nye wanted a Fort Monroe National Park -- or a Freedom's Fortress National Park, which might be a better name -- we'd have one. Contrary to a mistaken popular belief, the decision is not in the hands of National Park Service officials, who are naturally wary of unfunded mandates, especially in cases when a state seems focused on overdevelopment. These four Virginia officials, especially if backed by Virginia's General Assembly, could overcome the funding problem -- and could correct an errant focus -- by creating a self-sustaining national park.

 

So at this moment, the Fort Monroe spotlight is on Virginia's Democratic gubernatorial candidates. Here's how things stand with them, as far as I know:

 

On April 20 on Cathy Lewis's "HearSay" civic-affairs call-in show in Norfolk, candidate Deeds committed unambiguously to a Fort Monroe National Park.

 

On April 24 on Tony Macrini's show, candidate Moran received not one but two calls challenging him to match Sen. Deeds's commitment. He replied that "frankly" he wants decisions from the local jurisdictions -- "particularly Hampton," he made sure to add. (Note, however, that under a 2007 Virginia law created by Democratic Gov. Kaine and former Republican state Senator Marty Williams, no local jurisdiction but Hampton has any say.)

 

To my knowledge, candidate McAuliffe has not yet commented.

 

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