Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 16, 1993 TAG: 9303160079
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Greg Edwards
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
OPENNESS MIGHT GET BETTER IDEAS
Since October, a curious drama has played itself out at the twice-monthly meetings of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors.The story began when a group of people from the Bradshaw Valley and Ironto areas in southeastern Montgomery County got wind that the supervisors were considering 180 acres of farmland between Flatwoods Road and Bradshaw Creek for a new county landfill.
The people understandably were concerned. It was a concern rooted in history.
Outsiders, it seemed, were determined to ruin the pleasant rural life they enjoy. Years ago, it was talk of a dam on the Roanoke River. More recently, it was promoters of a "smart" highway between Blacksburg and Roanoke who talked about bulldozing and paving the countryside.
Where those efforts failed, the railroad last year succeeded.
Workers on heavy equipment already have changed the face of the Bradshaw Valley from the North Fork of the Roanoke River to the Roanoke-Montgomery county line, building a Norfolk Southern rail line to the new Roanoke Valley regional landfill.
Now, it appears their own county government is going to change their valley even further.
The people want to know what the supervisors are up to.
The supervisors aren't talking.
On Oct. 26, several residents from the Ironto area showed up for the supervisors meeting. They wanted to know about the core drilling the county was doing at the Flatwoods Road farm.
Pat Lavery, who lives near the confluence of Bradshaw Creek and the Roanoke River, pressed the supervisors to reveal what they were doing on the farmland. When she stepped up the pressure a notch, County Attorney Roy Thorpe jumped in and advised the board not to answer Lavery.
The board had talked about the farmland in meetings that were closed to the public and wasn't required to tell the residents what they had discussed, Thorpe said. What he didn't say was that supervisors could have explained what they were doing if they had wanted to.
At the beginning of every supervisors meeting since then, the scene has been pretty much the same. Ironto area residents - now organized into a group called Save Our Soil - show up to ask the board what its plans are for the farmland and to plead with the board not to put a landfill on it.
And at each meeting, the residents get pretty much the same reception. A stony-faced group of supervisors sits politely listening to them and then politely ignores their pleadings for information. Occasionally, some supervisor will make a tight-lipped reference to the board's landfill discussions being an executive-session (i.e. closed-door) matter.
But is the board within the law in talking about its landfill plans for the property in secret?
Before the board's interest in the property became public knowledge, the answer was clearly yes.
Virginia's Freedom of Information Act, whether you agree with it or not, allows government to talk in secret about the purchase of real estate for public use when the value of the property could be adversely affected.
But what can open discussion do to the price of the property when everyone already knows the supervisors are interested in it? It might even be to the taxpayers' advantage if the board talked openly about its landfill plans. Someone might have a better idea.
The fact that open discussion about buying land - for whatever purpose - might cause a public controversy is not legal grounds for holding secret meetings and keeping the public ignorant about county business.
When Roanoke County went looking for a new landfill site, it publicly identified four or five pieces of property and rated their suitability by a complex system that took such factors as cost and access into consideration. Then it held public hearings on the sites.
Montgomery County might benefit from similar open discussion of its plans.
Greg Edwards is a New River Valley bureau staff writer.