Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 16, 1995 TAG: 9508160082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
After all, it's not every Board of Supervisors candidate who campaigns for voters to commit a misdemeanor punishable by a $100 fine.
But that's exactly what Crouch wants them to do, at least until they get some answers from Bedford County about when they can expect a $2 fee on their monthly telephone bills to be lowered.
``There's going to be a rebellion,'' he said. ``The people will quit paying it.''
Crouch - a machinist who's running for the seat representing Montvale - said he supports the enhanced 911 system that the fee is being used to set up. But he says the fee is excessive and taxpayers were suckered into thinking it would be lowered long ago.
Bedford and Bedford County phone customers pay more than anyone else in the region in E-911 fees.
Botetourt County is a close second with a $1.75 fee, but everybody else is far behind. Roanoke charges 99 cents, Salem charges 90 cents, Roanoke County charges $1.06, and Vinton charges $1.
Crouch claims the board promised in 1991 to consider lowering the fee in two years.
The 1991 resolution that imposed Bedford County's fee states that it may be lowered to a maintenance fee after the E-911 system is on line. At the time, that was supposed to be January 1995. Now the target date is next August.
So far, about $1 million has been spent, and the budget calls for another $1.2 million in expenses - a total of $2.2 million. The E-911 fee has raised about $2 million from Bedford and Bedford County residents. Another year of $2 fees - which bring in about $40,000 a month - would amount to $480,000. That's more than twice what the county projects it needs to put the system on line.
Chairman Dale Wheeler, who made the motion to impose the fee, said the board never promised to lower the fee after two years.
``That fairy tale has floated through their minds for a long time,'' Wheeler said. Advocating not paying the fee, Wheeler said, ``is perfect ostrich politics. Just stick your head in the sand and hope for the best.
``But we're trying to build the best possible 911 system. And it has to be paid for. We're growing too fast. We have to plan ahead.''
Crouch also criticizes the board for putting interest earned on the 911 fees into the county's general fund, rather than applying it back to the E-911 fund and possibly lowering the fee.
But Assistant County Administrator Kathleen Guzi said the money collected from the 911 funds is not in a separate account, and like all other county funds, interest from it goes to lower all county taxes and expenses.
If interest from the E-911 payments were applied to that fund, Guzi said, the impact would be minimal. At 3 percent interest, the account would have raised about $60,000 in interest since the fee was imposed in September 1991 - only about a month and a half's revenue.
And, even though the county is two years behind its original target date for getting the E-911 system working, it is coming in under budget.
The state Department of Transportation will save the county about $170,000 by installing street signs, and money allocated for construction of a new dispatch center probably will be reduced significantly because the county probably will build an addition to the Sheriff's Office instead of building on a new site.
Still, Crouch says, ``I absolutely advocate people not paying [the fee] because we were deceived on this. The phone company's not going to disconnect people's phones. They don't want to touch this.''
That's true. The phone company won't disconnect for not paying the county-imposed fee. But the county can take scofflaws to court.
It hasn't happened so far, Guzi said, but the county did send warnings to about 10 people who stopped paying the fee over the past few years.
At least two phone subscribers pulled out extra phone lines rather than pay the fee.
John Sublett, who's running against Wheeler for the board seat in Stewartsville, said many voters in his area are asking when the fee will end.
``Everybody had this idea that it was going to be two years,'' he said. ``But now it's been four years, and they haven't seen nothing yet.
``People are asking me, `Where did the money go?'''
About $1 million of the $2 million raised so far has been spent on or allocated for creating aerial maps of the county, naming streets, placing signs on streets and creating a computerized database so emergency dispatchers can pinpoint the source of a 911 call.
The county plans to spend about $1.2 million on computer equipment, dispatch center construction, telephone company fees and notification of homeowners of their new addresses.
Residents in Big Island will be notified of their new addresses by the end of this month. Contracts for E-911 computer equipment will be announced in October.
Keywords:
POLITICS
Memo: Note: Shorter version ran in metro.