Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 12, 1993 TAG: 9308120171
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Monday night, the Board of Supervisors approved putting bond issues on the November ballot to finance renovation of the Blacksburg branch library, a new county Health and Human Services building in Christiansburg and site improvements at the county's new industrial park on Falling Branch Road.
The supervisors voted 3-2 to present each project separately to the voters in hopes that strong objections to one project might not bring down the other two.
Similar projects were included in the November 1990 referendum and all were defeated by margins of approximately 2-1.
Supervisor Joe Gorman of Blacksburg said he supported asking for separate votes on each project in hopes that they would have a better chance of passing that way.
Recent experience in other referendums across the state shows that projects standing alone are the ones that pass.
The projects on the 1990 referendum were doomed to failure because popular projects were lumped with unpopular ones, Gorman said.
Board Chairman Ira Long agreed that $2 million in proposed improvements to the industrial park should be voted on separately, but Long voted against calling for a separate vote on all the projects.
The Health and Human Services Building and the Blacksburg branch library improvements will have a better chance of passing if they are considered together because voters in Blacksburg may vote for the library and not for the health building, Long said. "It pits the two side of the county against each other."
Approval of the referendum on the industrial site improvements is important to providing new jobs in the county, Long said.
The county found out the hard way the need for having a developed industrial site when it lost Seicor Corp., a fiber optics maker, and its 600 jobs to North Carolina this year, he said.
Long said he would have liked to have seen a new $200,000 Shawsville fire substation included on the ballot with the library and health building as it was in 1990. But none of Long's fellow supervisors would go along, including Supervisor Joe Stewart of Shawsville.
Stewart said he's not opposed to the fire station but does oppose the bond referendum overall and that's why he voted against it. The county came up with $900,000 needed to buy the industrial park site this year and should be able to come up with the money to finance the projects, he said.
It's not appropriate to compare this year's referendum to the 1990 vote because circumstances are different, Long said. The voters have more confidence in the current Board of Supervisors, he said.
Financing the projects through a bond referendum probably would mean lower taxes for county residents because otherwise the projects would have to be paid for by raising taxes and putting the money in a special fund, Long said.
If the voters don't approve the bonds for the projects, the projects still will get built; it will just take longer, Gorman said.
Gorman is particularly interested in the library project having served on a committee planning library improvements. He said he's concerned that some people try to make the division between Blacksburg residents and those in other parts of the county look stronger than it really is.
The library branch is not a Blacksburg library, it's a Montgomery County library, Gorman said. The plans call for renovating and adding onto the existing library and site and avoiding any frills, he said.
The county will provide informational literature on the referendum projects, but the supervisors are forbidden by law from spending taxpayers' money to try to sell the projects to the public. That will be up to citizens who use and support the different projects, supervisors said.
The Blacksburg branch library has approximately 27 percent more use than the Montgomery-Floyd Regional Library headquarters in Christiansburg. The estimated cost of renovating the new building is $2 million.
The Health and Human Services Building, which would be located on a lot between Roanoke Street and Pepper Street in Christiansburg, would bring together the Health Department, the Department of Social Services and other county human service agencies in one building. The estimated cost is roughly $2.5 million.
by CNB