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As noted above, the Metropolitan Richmond Chamber of Commerce played a critical
role in resolving the water dispute between Richmond and Henrico, especially by
establishing the Technical Committee and, later on, the Water Review Panel. However,
the role of these two bodies in the dispute was of a decidedly different character. While
the members of the Technical Committee expended a significant of time and effort in
regard to the dispute and set forth a multiple number of clearly defined alternatives, the
“economic notables” who made up the membership of the Water Review Panel in
actuality did little work on their own but simply served to in their brief report of three
pages to “legitimatize” the findings and recommendations of the Technical Committee.
On this score, one is reminded of Robert A. Dahl’s assessment of the role of the Citizens
Action Commission (CAC), composed largely of the economic notables of the
community, in regard to the renewal program in New Haven, Connecticut during the
1960s: “Except for a few trivial instances, the “muscles” never directly initiated,
approved, vetoed, or altered any proposal brought before them by the Mayor and his
Development Administrator.” (Dahl 1961, 131) And, further, as noted by Dahl:
“…citizen participation [as expressed through the Citizens Action Commission] gave
legitimacy and acceptability to the decisions of the leaders, created a corps of loyal
auxiliaries who helped to engender public support for the program and to forestall
disputes.” (Dahl 1961, 133)
The events and developments leading to the resolution of the “Water War” dispute
underscore that City and County managers, in addition to being competent
administrators, need to be and are, as Karl Bosworth noted years ago (Bosworth 1958),
politicians endowed with superb negotiating skills. We have long learned that there is no
Convention