Roanoke’s request for 15% of Botetourt’s tax revenue from Google data center is unprecedented. It also harkens to a darker era in the Roanoke Valley.

Roanoke’s request for 15% of Botetourt’s tax revenue from Google data center is unprecedented. It also harkens to a darker era in the Roanoke Valley.

For four decades — the 1960s through the 1990s — the Roanoke Valley was something of a laughingstock in Virginia.  The valley was well-known as a place where local governments were notoriously unable to cooperate with one another. In 1967, when what was then known as the Salem-Roanoke County Civic Center opened (today it’s just the Salem Civic Center), Gov. Mills Godwin came to preside over the dedication. Godwin was a masterful politician: He d…