Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 16, 1995 TAG: 9508170006
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Library of Virginia will hold the hearing to determine whether Bedford has violated its contract for $178,000 in grant money. The hearing will be at 10 a.m. at Bedford City Hall.
The agency has withheld the money since last month, after a group of residents alleged that the city was going to tear the house down.
According to the state, the city's 1991 application for the grant to build a new library was approved in part because construction would not have an impact on the 112-year-old Wharton House, which is part of Bedford's registered historic district. The red-brick building and adjacent wildflower gardens are shown on a master site plan submitted along with the application.
Bedford officials maintain they have not violated the grant and that the funds should be released immediately.
``The Wharton building was never part of the project,'' City Manager Jack Gross wrote to the state last month, citing a passage in the grant application that states the house's future is not part of the study.
``... Bedford has no agreement requiring it to preserve any structures within the city of Bedford, and no funds have been set aside in our budget for that purpose,'' he wrote in another letter.
The controversy flared when Robert B. Lambeth Jr., an attorney hired by the Bedford Historical Society, alerted state officials to the group's concerns that the city planned to raze the building, which had housed the library's children's collection and headquarters until recently.
City Council has taken no action, but appointed a subcommittee to review options, including renovating the house, moving it or razing it.
That the city is even considering demolition is enough to invoke the federal National Historic Preservation Act, which requires a public hearing when construction projects pose threats to designated historic structures or areas, wrote Anthony Yankus, director of library development for the Library of Virginia.
State librarian Noland Yelich, who administers the federal grants, was advised by the attorney general's office to hold onto the grant until the matter is settled.
``It can't be that complicated an issue, from our perspective. You're either in compliance or not,'' Yelich said Tuesday.
Yelich said his office has never before held this type of hearing or had to withhold grant money. He is relying on the attorney general's office and the state Department of Historic Resources for guidance on how to proceed, and is not sure whether he will be at the hearing, even though he will make the final ruling, he said.
by CNB