Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 15, 1993 TAG: 9310180290
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Supervisor Larry Linkous, member of a joint committee studying the issue, asked his colleagues for guidance. He said the county and school finance chiefs had met four times over the past month.
The problem, Linkous said, is whether the committee is to decide how to proceed with consolidation, or find other ways of ensuring the supervisors' timely access to the schools' financial information.
Several supervisors summarily rejected the latter course as resisting the mandate the board passed during the spring.
``It's not a question of negotiating options, it's a question of when and how and nothing more,'' said Supervisor Joe Gorman.
Board Chairman Ira Long and member Henry Jablonski also supported consolidation; Supervisor Jim Moore repeated his contention that the move might not save money.
The Board of Supervisors is keen on consolidation because several members believed they could not get the financial information on school operations they needed at budget time. Also, members say, the merger could save money in the long run.
Linkous said Wednesday he has written school Superintendent Herman Bartlett and School Board Chairman Roy Vickers to request another committee meeting to reaffirm the supervisors` intent.
The merger will have to occur at the beginning of a fiscal year and will not result in layoffs, Linkous said. Rather, the county will reduce the merged department's size through attrition.
In other business Tuesday:
The board approved 5-1 the addition of 141 acres to two agricultural and forestaldistricts near Riner and the areas near Wilson and Den creeks, and renewed a 1,400-acre district south of Shawsville. But not before Moore expressed his belief that the ordinance allowing the district is extremely one- sided because it gives 168 landowners a tax break, but allows them to pull out and develop their land at any time. He suggested the eight-year lifespan of the districts is too short.
Gorman, head of a committee that will study the issue, said taxes on these landowners are not forgiven, merely deferred. If a landowner withdraws to develop his land, he faces a ``tremendous penalty'' of back taxes plus interest, Gorman said. But he conceded there are some landowners who are not acting in the spirit of the ordinance. He also said state law limits the term of the districts to eight years.
A state highway engineer briefed the board on the proposed Detroit-to-South- Carolina interstate highway project and how it could affect Montgomery County. Dan Brugh said the Interstate 73 corridor project, buried deep in the 1991 federal transportation spending bill, is motivated by politics rather than transportation needs. U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., is pushing the project as a potential economic development engine for his state.
Giles and Floyd counties have passed resolutions favoring a route passing through their boundaries. Franklin County has favored another route that would reach Interstate 81 at Christiansburg and head north to the Roanoke area, then south down the U.S. 220 corridor.
Brugh said the Virginia Department of Transportation is working on the project but thus far there is no preferred route in Virginia. He said there is no money for either a corridor study or construction. It could be included in the next federal transportation bill, in 1996.
One question board members did not ask is how I-73 could affect the proposed ``smart'' highway linking Blacksburg with I-81 to speed up the trip to Roanoke.
Brugh said ``smart'' road planners are interested in I-73 because it would be a controlled access highway, the type they need to employ new safety technology, and because one of the proposed routes would head toward Roanoke. He said if the interstate passed through the area, it could affect the proposed link between the Blacksburg and Christiansburg bypasses of U.S. 460. The increased traffic brought by an I-73 would mean the bypass would need to be three lanes in each direction rather than two, Brugh said.
The board took no action on the I-73 question.
A Sept. 30 traffic accident that killed Christiansburg Elementary School teacher Emily S. Bowles has prompted complaints from Blacksburg-area residents that the traffic light where Bowles' car and a dump truck collided changes from green to red too quickly, Linkous reported.
He asked County Administrator Betty Thomas to write a letter to VDOT requesting a study of the light at Toms Creek Road and U.S. 460.
``There's a real quick light there,'' Linkous said. ``If there were even a little bit of a delay, it maybe could help."
Memo: ***CORRECTION***