Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 28, 1994 TAG: 9411090020
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
The county and town have been at odds over the memorial since the town's Architectural Review Board recently required some changes in the county's war memorial design: elimination of several sidewalks, a change in one flagpole, and not including the old courthouse bell which barely survived a 1989 fire as part of the display.
The county appealed that decision to Pulaski Town Council, but council supported the review board.
Late Monday night the county Board of Supervisors voted to file an appeal of council's decision to the circuit court. County Administrator Joe Morgan said later that this was mainly to keep the county's options open; notice of an appeal had to be given within 30 days of council's Sept. 6 vote.
But the supervisors are looking beyond the historic stone courthouse.
Supervisor Bruce Fariss urged the board to consider demolishing the old Pulaski Theatre building on Main Street, donated to the county after it stopped being used as a movie house several years ago, to provide space for public parking.
He said maintenance on the building is costing the county money, and parking is scarce in downtown Pulaski.
But even the possibility is upsetting news for a group calling itself Friends of the Pulaski Theatre, which has been seeking grants and other funding to renovate the facility and reopen it as a community arts and entertainment center. In fact, the county has money in its current budget toward that project.
Fariss also suggested action banning any commercial activity on courthouse property, saying public property should not be used to benefit profit-making enterprises.
Fariss said that restriction should apply to all county property. But he tabled both that policy decision and the Pulaski Theatre question until the board's next meeting Oct. 24 after other supervisors said they would like more time to consider them.
The board voted to offer the former Office on Youth building near the courthouses complex to the Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce for office space. If the chamber has no use for it, the old building will be put on the market.
The chamber is currently slated to move from offices it occupies in the Pulaski Municipal Building to the town's train station on Washington Avenue. The town spent years renovating the former depot, donated by Norfolk Southern Corp., to house the chamber, a museum and other facilities.
The Office on Youth moved from its quarters last year to the former Jefferson Elementary School building in Pulaski. The county later declared the former building as surplus property.
``This is an offer that has caught me off guard,'' chamber President Wade Lephew said Tuesday. He said he is pleased at the county's generosity in offering the option, and that it would be discussed at the chamber's executive board meeting early in October.
But he said the plan all along has been for the chamber facilities to move to the Train Station. The delay has been because the chamber and town are still working out space requirements for the chamber offices, and those negotiations are scheduled to continue in the next few days.
by CNB