Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 26, 1991 TAG: 9102260332
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN/ NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
A state law passed last year requires that registrar's offices be separate from private enterprise. It takes effect April 1.
City Council voted Monday to pursue space in the Recreation Department for the office.
Morris Lepchitz, registrar since 1966, has kept the registrar's office at two stores he operated - Felix's in downtown Radford and, since 1988, Felix's Books & Gifts on Tyler Avenue. Registrars before him also ran the office out of stores, he said.
Lepchitz believes Radford is one of only three localities affected by the new requirement.
"I'd much rather keep it where it is," he told council.
City Manager Robert Asbury had provided council with a list of several alternatives, including renting office space. He said there was no room in the municipal building for the office.
But Mayor Tom Starnes and other council members rejected renting space as too costly. The area of the recreation department proposed for the office now is used by children who stop by to play table tennis or watch television after school, Asbury said.
Asbury will ask Bob Dowless, recreation director, to poll members of the Recreation Commission for a response. Council will discuss the matter again when it meets next Monday.
Lepchitz said registrar's offices are required to operate five days a week for eight hours a day. On a normal day, only one to three people come into his store to register.
"I go many a day not seeing one," he said, adding that his busiest registration period is one month before the voter-roll books close prior to an election.
In other action, City Attorney John B. Spiers Jr. told council that Simmons Cable TV should be told to remove a line on its bills that refers to a tax.
At council's Feb. 11 meeting, city officials complained that new bills issued by the cable company were misleading the public into thinking a local tax has been added. Asbury and Spiers said the company's new payment coupons implies that a new local tax is being imposed when Simmons actually is passing on the cost of its franchise fee.
"This irritates me to death," Spiers said Monday.
He suggested, in a memorandum to council, that Simmons be told to "cease such a practice and if it fails to do so to file suit for an injunction, damages and fees."
"The practice followed by the cable TV company in its billing is false, misleading and deceptive," Spiers wrote.
"It is merely a clever vehicle to mask what is in fact a part of the fee charged for basic services."
Simmons raised its monthly basic service rates Feb. 1 by $1.50. Charges for additional outlets and Home Box Office also increased and the charge labeled "tax" also was added.
Ervin Stauss, Simmons' general manager, had said earlier that the new line in the billings had been explained in letters to customers. The letter said the tax was to pass on the franchise fee imposed by local governments. And the coupon payment books also include an explanation, he said.
Cable bills are sent as a coupon book covering 12 months. If the company doesn't want to print new coupons, council member Polly Corn suggested, it should send a letter to customers apologizing for misleading them.
by CNB