ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 10, 1997 TAG: 9702100023
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: AMSTERDAM
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
BOTETOURT'S BOB BAGNOLI does such a great job keeping an eye on the Board of Supervisors, it made him the county's citizen representative to the regional planning district.
The Botetourt County Board of Supervisors has been under the watchful eye of Bob Bagnoli for a couple of years.
He never misses a meeting. He has blasted them for their secrecy on this project, needled them on the cost of that one and asked tough questions when few others seemed willing or even interested.
He has become an unelected voice for a constituency of others who, like him, came to Botetourt for the tranquility of the mountains and don't necessarily care for all the growth.
His ideas are at times diametrically opposed to those of the supervisors and County Administrator Jerry Burgess.
But he has acted with class and intelligence, the supervisors and Burgess said. He has a genuine interest in community planning and the good of the county in mind.
Whether he cares to be or not, he's in their good graces.
In January, the board voted unanimously to appoint him a citizen representative on the board of the Fifth Planning District Commission, a confederation of elected officials and residents from area localities organized to provide planning assistance and support cooperation among local governments. He'll finish out the 17 months remaining on a term started out by Steve Powell, who recently resigned.
The supervisors said it's definitely not an attempt to hush the outspoken New Jersey native. Bagnoli, 73, says it wouldn't work anyway.
"I feel free to be as critical of things I think are wrong as I always did," he said. "And if that's inappropriate for this position, then I won't be in that environment anymore, because I value that freedom of expression more than I value political correctness."
Amsterdam Supervisor Bobby Layman said "Heck, no" to the prospect of Bagnoli suddenly quieting down. Though he often disagrees with Bagnoli, he said Bagnoli's disappearance from the governmental process would be a loss.
"He asks questions that need to be asked," he said.
"I expect him still to be outspoken," said Fincastle Supervisor Bonnie Mayo, who nominated Bagnoli for the post. "Only now he may see where we are coming from."
Bagnoli and his wife, Sue, retired to Botetourt - he calls it "Bah-tee-tot" - and lived for six years in solitude on a 6-acre spread by a small lake surrounded by gentle, green hills without the supervisors ever hearing of him.
But when the county announced it had purchased a 900-acre farm for $4.5 million to make room for more industry, the supervisors got to know him in a hurry. Botetourt Center at Greenfield, as the project has come to be called, was almost literally in his back yard.
Bagnoli joined with David Mankin to form Citizens for Responsible Land Use in Botetourt County.
The group criticized the county for developing a plan and buying the land before county residents knew anything about it. Bagnoli said it was too secretive.
"It seemed to me to be spot planning ... and hindsight planning," he said. "They revised the comprehensive plan to accommodate Greenfield rather than having a comprehensive plan that Greenfield fit into, and that's bass ackwards to me."
He said in 1995 that the supervisors could not be trusted with projects such as industrial parks.
"It is the fox watching the chickens," he said. It's a view he hasn't changed.
"I really don't think governments ought to be in the real estate development business," he said recently. "I think that's fundamentally wrong."
If Bagnoli has changed little, the supervisors' opinions of him have.
"I first thought of Bob as having more interest in his own little part of the county," said Vice Chairman John Shiflett.
"I felt like ... he was opposed to everything we wanted to do," Mayo said.
They are both now convinced that he is interested in the welfare of the whole county. Mayo added that Bagnoli has "toned down the rhetoric."
Perhaps.
Just a few months ago, when the supervisors were about to approve the rezoning for Greenfield, Bagnoli reminded them that the county's seal has a haystack on it, not a smokestack.
And he still believes the county lacks a long-term view of its planning. Bagnoli said he is particularly concerned about what will happen to the U.S. 220 corridor.
"I admire a laborer who cuts lawns and does it well," he said. "And I don't like a laborer who is capable of doing it well and is doing it poorly. And I don't care whether it's a laborer or a scientist or a supervisor. ...
"I think the supervisors are extremely conscientious people, hard working," he said. "They just haven't had the negative experience of seeing how these things develop if you don't cut them off at the pass."
He had that experience in Orange County, Calif., he said, which used to be a farming community.
"There are shopping centers and strip malls scattered all over the town," he said. "Industry splattered here, there and the other place. Residential districts that have walls around them because they don't want to be associated with their neighbor, which is a strip mall or something. And it's just a conglomerate mess."
That's one area where Layman said he and Bagnoli agree. "I don't think anybody wants to see it end up like Williamson Road," he said.
But simply agreeing on it isn't enough, Bagnoli said. The county must have zoning ordinances that will protect it from that kind of development; and right now, those ordinances don't exist.
"I'm not resisting the development of the county, I just think that it should be done with some planning and some taste, good judgment," he said. "And it seems to me that we are running at 60 miles per hour through a dense fog. And we're going to get some place but we don't know quite where, or whether it's the right way to get there."
LENGTH: Long : 117 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY/Staff. Bob Bagnoli has urged Botetourtby CNBofficials to proceed cautiously with bringing industry to the
county, including the Center at Greenfield site visible behind him
and his yard. ``I'm not resisting the development of the county, I
just think that it should be done with some planning and some taste,
good judgment,'' he said. He stands beside a sculpture he made from
welding rods. color.