Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: THURSDAY, November 4, 1993 TAG: 9311040214 SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY SOURCE: KAREN BARNES STAFF WRITER DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Long
With a volunteer force of almost 40 people, the Garners collected signatures at the polls Tuesday, hoping to catch the 15 percent of city and county voters they need to sign petitions supporting the merger of Bedford and Bedford County.
The Garners and their neighbors undertook the petition drive about a week ago hoping to collect enough signatures to force the county's Board of Supervisors and City Council to form a charter committee to create a unified government. They fear that neighboring Lynchburg will annex the affluent Forest area to increase its tax base to repair its crumbling sewer system.
Consolidation would be an immediate and permanent remedy to that scenario - under state law, a city cannot annex portions of another city. A state-mandated moratorium prohibiting annexations is in effect until 1995.
Although Lynchburg officials have denied any intention to annex Forest, eastern Bedford County residents and even some city dwellers are not convinced. Their convictions led more than 2,400 to sign petitions Tuesday, almost two-thirds of the 3,850 signatures needed.
"I think we'll have it by next week," Anita Garner said. Volunteers will start going door to door in both the city and county to collect the remaining signatures, she said.
Although most of the supporters live in eastern Bedford County, Garner is hoping for widespread support. "This isn't slanted toward Forest. I want it to represent everyone," she said. "To have only one area wouldn't be right. The broader the coverage is, the clearer the message will be to the politicians."
Some politicians see the message clearly already - two even signed the petitions - both City Councilman W.D. "Skip" Tharp and Del. Lacey Putney, I-Bedford, added their names to the list.
Tharp has voiced his interest in the idea, offering to meet with Forest-area Supervisor Henry Creasy to launch initial negotiations.
Creasy said he encountered interested citizens at the two precincts he visited Tuesday. "I'm looking forward to getting preliminary discussions under way," he said, adding that he would like to serve on the charter committee.
Putney offered advice to the consolidation effort's leaders. "Those who advocate this, I hope they realize this will not be a pushover, that it's going to take a real effort," he said. "They must anticipate strong resistance from certain individuals and office holders, but especially in the city of Bedford."
A city official said he regards the petition more as an anti-annexation petition rather than a consolidation one, but if the plan looks like it might provide mutual advantages, it needs to be studied.
"Just as Forest residents are concerned they may have to pay for Lynchburg's improvements, Bedford city residents are concerned they may end up paying for growth in rural areas," City Manager Jack Gross said. "I think citizens will be required to make a large expenditure for a plan that will ultimately be voted down."
But city resident Nancy Strachan voiced a different opinion. "I told them I wanted my name at the top of the list," the former city/county library director said. "I think it would benefit everybody."
Ida Faye Roach reached the polls at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday to distribute petitions. She and her husband moved to their Forest home after their old neighborhood was swallowed in Lynchburg's 1976 annexation. "We moved to Bedford County because we wanted to live in the country," she said. Others must have felt the same way, she said, adding that "People were very eager to sign."
Flip Hicks, general counsel for the Virginia Association of Counties, said that consolidation drives in general fail because county residents think taxes will increase. But the Bedford County effort might succeed because the two governments share several services already - Health Department, social services, court system, library, schools and Extension Service. "A real plus is that the school system is already consolidated," he said. "The real problem will be highways."
But a precedent exists to solve that dilemma, he said. When Suffolk and Nansemond County merged in 1974 to become the city of Suffolk, city leaders promised county officials that city crews would maintain former county roads for 10 years, replacing state crews.
But solving final details of consolidation is a long way away. If the Garners and the volunteers collect the required number of signatures, the charter committee would form and try to develop a consolidation plan within a year. If the committee failed to produce a cogent plan in the allotted time, a circuit court judge could appoint a citizens' committee. After the creation of a plan, city and county residents would vote in a special referendum to decide the fate of consolidation.
Two 1987 consolidation efforts were petition-driven, said Ted McCormack, assistant director of the Commission on Local Governments. Efforts to merge Allegheny County, Clifton Forge and Covington failed, as did a consolidation push in the city of Emporia and Greenville County.
Other municipalities have vetoed consolidation as well. Voters in Roanoke County soundly defeated a proposal to merge with Roanoke in 1990. In 1991, Clifton Forge and Allegheny County remained separate governments after voters rejected the idea of combining.
Earlier in the 1980s, Staunton and Augusta County attempted to converge but voters sank the idea. A 1983 effort in Pulaski County, Dublin and Pulaski met a similar fate.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.