Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 1, 1993 TAG: 9307010412
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BOONES MILL LENGTH: Medium
Walking out of the Town Council's meeting Wednesday night, one man told a passerby, "Well, you missed it - the biggest circus in town."
Representatives from three television stations, a radio station and two newspapers crammed into the tiny, cinder-block Town Hall to watch "the circus." Following is a rundown of the evening's governmental action:
7 p.m.: Residents who have showed up for a public hearing on the town's $122,000 budget find a note on the Town Hall door saying the hearing has been postponed. Three members of the council, as brought to Vice Mayor Maurice Turner's attention by the Franklin County newspaper, apparently worked up the budget illegally. They devised it over the telephone, and they advertised it without ever discussing it with the rest of the council.
7:53 p.m.: Turner explains the town will have to advertise the budget again.
"When does the fiscal year end?" town resident Steve Palmer asks Turner.
"Supposedly, it's June 30," Turner says. "It's just a mistake was made this time, so we want to do it legally."
So Boones Mill enters fiscal year 1993-94 today without a budget.
8:12 p.m.: Thomas R. Guthrie, a member of the audience, says the town may have problems upgrading the water system it bought last year. Town policeman Lynn Frith, instead of an attorney, has drawn up land easements for new water lines.
"I'd just like you to know," Guthrie says, "you have no legal right to go through my land. As a matter of fact, right now I have 200 feet of pipeline running across my land that's uncovered. I'd appreciate it being covered up."
8:17 p.m.: Turner advises the gathering that 90 percent of the former North American Housing Corp. parking lot - which the company deeded to the town instead of removing it from the floodplain - has been dug up and hauled away.
Tom Roucek, whose cafe's deck sticks three feet into the floodplain, asks, "What did you do with that dirt?" Roucek charges that some of the dirt was taken to Turner's house and put in the floodplain.
"Well," Turner says, "that property is across the road. I consider it state property."
Frith, as the town's law enforcement officer, rules that because last year's flood washed dirt away from Turner's property, it is all right to replace the dirt.
8:25 p.m.: A town resident asks about the final cost of a backhoe the town bought.
"Thirty-four something," Frith says of the $34,000 backhoe.
A resident says he thought the town approved spending only $33,000, but Councilman Dale Fisher says the town's water committee approved spending a few hundred more dollars to get some extra features.
A reporter from the Franklin County newspaper asks if the water committee meeting was open to the public. "It was an open meeting," Fisher says. "I don't know if anybody was notified."
Councilwoman Virginia Carroll, who sees herself as a reformer, says only two members of the town's governing body are not on the water committee. That means, if the public was not notified of the meetings, the water committee has been violating the state's Freedom of Information Act.
8:35 p.m.: The discussion turns to council's reprimand of Carroll for allegedly trespassing on Frith's property. Carroll has said she was investigating possible misuse of the town's new backhoe. Instead of acting on a petition asking the council to rescind the reprimand, the council decides to "have the signatures certified," Turner says.
8:52 p.m.: Town Clerk Craig Drewry reads Mayor Juanita Murray's resignation letter. She has resigned for health reasons. Drewry then announces his own resignation, because he says he no longer has time for the job.
"That'd be a good time for a special election," Roucek says.
But the council decides to let Turner step in as mayor, let Marti Boyer become vice mayor and to appoint a new council member.
9:08 p.m.: The council decides it would be a good idea, and would make its monthly meetings more efficient, if it developed an agenda for each meeting.
On that suggestion, there is no argument. It is approved 6-0.
by CNB