Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 21, 1993 TAG: 9310280300
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The city is presenting us with numbers (possible savings) from a $60,000 study it conducted. All fine and good, except that the study is based on Roanoke Gas Co.'s cooperating with the plan! It should be apparent by now that Roanoke Gas is not in support of this move and does not believe it is in the best interest of gas customers. (With good reason in my opinion, but that is not the point.) The point is this:
Without Roanoke Gas supporting this move and agreeing to manage the existing system, the city must incur start up costs running way up in the millions! How is the city going to recoup this huge investment and maintain or lower the gas rates to citizens? (Pay no mind that all other municipal gas companies in Virginia have higher rates than those currently charged by Roanoke Gas!)
Even if the city could save "x" million a year, which would be a best-case scenario and never happen, it would be 20 to 40 years before it would even break even. It cites facts that Richmond, Danville and Charlottesville operations (all municipal) made millions of dollars for those respective cities. Where did the money come from? The citizens! It does not matter how much money the utility "saved" by being tax exempt, those millions came from the citizens' wallets and the rates they pay. The city is using the above fact as a positive point for its case. Only uninformed citizens could possibly accept this.
The city also is using the point that the gas company said no to extending the current agreement while the city "studies" the issue. Am I wrong or did the gas company contact the city a full year in advance (August 1992) to start the process? It was the city that mismanaged the situation and is now faced with this issue a couple of weeks before the franchise agreement ends. It did not even start its study until November, and it was completed in April 1993. Why did the city wait until July to inform Roanoke Gas of its intentions?
If the city is in such need of revenue that it is considering going into business, then I suggest that it open a business downtown where the parking is so plentiful! D. ANDREW McGUIRE
ROANOKE
Not even Honest Abe?
IN THE Aug. 4 letter to the editor by Brett King (``Taking no orders from Yankees''), he states, ``The [Civil War] was fought over people being tired of being told what to do by some Yankee.'' Earlier in his letter, he suggests ``people read their history.''
In my history book, Abe Lincoln was born in Kentucky, a slave state that tried to remain neutral in the war and was, in fact, represented by one of the stars on the Confederate flag.
Perhaps King would be kind enough to explain who is this ``some Yankee'' he wrote about.
JAY EKLOND
SALEM
Downtown is prettier
WE KNOW that we live in a gorgeous part of the country. Are we also aware that Roanoke is made more beautiful by our horticulturalist, Marilyn Arbogast? We tend to take things for granted, but I can remember when we had no hanging baskets downtown, nor lovely flower beds on the medians. Thank you, Marilyn, and the city, for your gift of beauty to all of us who live here!
Thanks, too, to the Roanoke Times & World-News for canceling ``Outland.'' I always considered it to be in bad taste.
HELEN C. FITZPATRICK
ROANOKE
Still fighting the Civil War
aFTER READING Brett King's Aug. 4 letter to the editor (``Taking no orders from Yankees''), I find myself once again in awe of Southern ignorance and arrogance.
Yes, I am a ``Yankee.'' My family is originally from Ohio. I know many Southerners who have pride in their heritage, but who live in the present, not the past. All I can say to King and those who feel as he does is that the South lost the war 128 years ago, so get over it already!
JEFFREY B. COYLE
BLACKSBURG
by CNB