Unfortunately, we believe Gatling’s time here was wasted time. Few shows, late payments, a house party called Bunnies in Stilettos, which ended with the cops coming.

We all know the story by now and a new city council has a new chance to erase the sordid chalkboard that has become the Roanoke Rapids Theatre.

This story, however, is not only about the Roanoke Rapids Theatre. It is about the Carolina Crossroads project, a dream to make this area better which remains unfulfilled.

There are talented people behind this project who, we believe from the initial failure of the theatre, may be gun shy in troubled economic times about putting their names to the endeavor.

These people have to, however, to make Carolina Crossroads and the theater a success.

There are too many cars traveling the interstate to not make this happen. There are too many local people who want quality entertainment in the theater and want somewhere to go besides out of town to do their shopping.

Perhaps to make this work there needs to be compromise, compromise between buyers and sellers.

Maybe buyers shouldn’t demand the lowest price possible for land in the development and maybe sellers shouldn’t demand the highest price possible for land in the development.

Perhaps there should be consideration of price reductions. Maybe there should be incentives. Maybe there should be creative approaches to get development going in Carolina Crossroads.

In the excitement of Carolina Crossroads no one figured there would be an economic crash. Now that the economy has crash landed some tradeoffs are to be expected to make this work.

We agree with Mayor Emery Doughtie the theater should be the focus of the city. We don’t believe the city should meddle in the affairs of private developers but some prodding probably wouldn’t hurt and some gentle nudging from county officials would probably be helpful, too.

The city has been bruised by the theater and to help ease this pain there has to be movement from developers and buyers to be able to agree to terms which will satisfy both.

By taking the action it did Monday, city council made a bold step to help ease the pain and we believe they will find someone capable who can run the theater in the short and long term.

Land owners now must step in and show they still believe in this project and in the economic betterment of Roanoke Rapids and Halifax County. We believe they have the ability, the creativity and the business sense to make this happen — Editor.