ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 21, 1996 TAG: 9601220009
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV12 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
WYTHEVILLE - Now that Wythe County is unlikely to have a new jail built by a private prison company, it is facing the problem of how to replace its aging and overcrowded facility.
Corrections Corporation of America, which ignited a county controversy with plans to build a 1,500-bed private prison in the county, had tried to sweeten the project by offering to build a new county jail at the same site. But the state awarded that prison contract to another firm to be built elsewhere.
Wythe County Supervisor Carleton Rose said that puts the matter back in the county's lap and asked the other board members at last week's meeting how they planned to handle it.
"I can tell you that the county doesn't have the money to build one right now," County Administrator Billy Branson said. A bond issue would be necessary to fund it.
Wythe had been part of a consortium of localities pursuing a regional jail, but later dropped out of the project. Radford and counties of Pulaski, Giles and Grayson now are planning to build the regional facility in the Dublin area.
Branson said it might still be possible for Wythe County to get in on that project. A jail study committee consisting of Supervisors Tom DuPuis and Bucky Sharitz and Sheriff Wayne Pike will make a recommendation to the board on how to proceed.
"You can build your own or you can go with them," DuPuis said about the localities in the regional jail project.
Hospital in Radford looks for volunteers
RADFORD - Radford Community Hospital is accepting applications for its college volunteer program. Students who are able to volunteer two to four hours a week are needed in business services, admissions, clinical departments, public affairs and other departments.
Applications are available at the career, planning and placement offices at New River Community College, Radford University and Virginia Tech. Completed applications must be returned by Jan. 26 to Volunteer Services, Radford Community Hospital, 700 Randolph St., Radford, Va. 24141.
An orientation for volunteers will be held Tuesday, Feb. 6 at 5:30 p.m. For more information, contact the Volunteer Services Manager at 731-2558. Green box overflow fills meeting agenda
WYTHEVILLE - Wythe County officials have about decided that much of the trash in their overflowing green boxes is coming from Wytheville residents avoiding the town's new per-bag pickup charge.
Garbage men are spending so much time picking up the overflow that they cannot keep up the maintenance work at county recycling centers, County Administrator Billy Branson told the Board of Supervisors last week.
Branson suggested removing the green boxes where county residents have been disposing of their solid wastes for years, and directing them instead to the county's seven recycling centers. Five more centers are planned. "We're getting an influx from the town that we can't handle," he said.
The overflow is continuing even though the green boxes in most locations are emptied daily, he said.
The county will bring up the problem at the 7 p.m. meeting Jan. 29 at the Wytheville Municipal Building among the Wytheville and Rural Retreat town councils and the county Board of Supervisors.
Board Chairman Charles Dix said many people believe that only separated plastics, metals, papers and other recyclables can be brought to the recycling centers. He said they often fail to realize those centers also have a place to dispose of nonrecyclable trash.
"What we're basically doing is operating two trash systems," he said, the green boxes and recycling centers.
Wythe County seeks industrial sites
WYTHEVILLE - The search for industrial sites is being stepped up in Wythe County.
Last week, the Joint Wythe County Industrial Development Authority reviewed data on six potential industrial park sites provided by Anderson and Associates, a Blacksburg consultant. IDA Executive Director Benny Burkett said he had asked four area contractors to give informal cost estimates for excavating two existing parcels in the Fairview Industrial Park to make them suitable as industrial sites.
In other business, the IDA honored former member John H. Crowgey Jr. with a resolution and plaque. Crowgey had served on the former county IDA and the joint IDA, which included Wytheville and Rural Retreat from 1973 to 1995.
Concert band sets rehearsal
WYTHEVILLE - The Wytheville Community College Concert Band directed by Jack O. White will have its first spring season rehearsal at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the George Wythe High School Band Room.
Adults from the region who play a band instrument can join by attending weekly rehearsals from 7 to 9 p.m. each Tuesday. The band had 90 members in the fall and performed in Wytheville and Bluefield and at Dollywood.
Participants can enroll for college credit as band members, but that is not required. There is no tuition charge for those not enrolling.
Wythe supervisors juggle meeting dates
WYTHEVILLE - The Wythe County Board of Supervisors has changed its meeting dates and times.
The new board, which met last week, decided to change its meeting dates from the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month to the first and third Tuesdays.
The governing body will meet at 7 p.m. on the first Tuesday, and 10 a.m. on the third Tuesday. Until now, its day meeting had been the first one and its night meeting, the second.
The change will mean that county invoices will be paid a week later, following the meeting on the third Tuesday. The invoices could not be prepared in time for the first Tuesday meeting, and had been paid after being approved on the second Tuesday.
The new dates and times will not become effective until February. The board has one more meeting scheduled for this month, at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
Charles Dix will be the board chairman for 1996, under a new policy rotating the chairmanship among the members each year. Mark Munsey, the former chairman, became vice chairman.
The board accepted County Administrator Billy Branson's request to count Jan. 8, when a snowstorm hit the eastern part of the nation, as a snow day so that county employees unable to come to work would still be paid. Those who managed to make it to work will get eight hours in compensatory time.
Is board bound for cable show?
WYTHEVILLE - Is the public ready for television to show videotaped meetings of the Wythe County Board of Supervisors?
County Administrator Billy Branson said he had been approached about videotaping the twice-a-month meetings and making the tapes available to the three television cable companies that serve different parts of the county.
The company serving the Rural Retreat area has been broadcasting Rural Retreat Town Council meetings for years. Branson said it is one way of getting people more familiar with the workings of their local governments. The supervisors took the matter under advisement.
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