Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 19, 1990 TAG: 9004190538
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-6 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
The decision to hire a program director will leave interim director Charles Maus more time to devote to administrative duties, such as working with the state to meet requirements for the new sanitary landfill the authority is locating at the former Dan Bar Farms site in Pulaski County, now know as the Richard Matson property.
In the last month, the authority had interviewed three people out of 37 applicants for the executive director position.
Maus has been interim director of the resource authority for more than two years, but is also employed full time as executive director of the Peppers Ferry Regional Wastewater Treatment Authority.
Jerry White, chairman of the resource authority, said hiring someone to handle community relations projects had been discussed in the past and became more necessary as the group got more into recycling.
Before the executive session, members of the small audience attending Wednesday meeting scolded the authority for not putting more effort into increasing community awareness of the authority and committing to recycling projects.
Their comments came after the authority accepted a recycling committee report that called for two collection and buy-back recycling centers, starting a curbside pickup program for recyclables and acting on a previously authorized drop-off box program throughout Radford and Pulaski County.
After some authority members mentioned concern about the cost of starting curbside collections and a buy-back center and also asked for continued study of the suggestions, Bruce Fariss urged the board to take definitive action.
"You can study it to death," said Fariss, a member of the Pulaski County Board of Supervisors. "If you're going to get things done, you have to set time limits."
Delaying action means the authority was missing an opportunity to improve its image, the audience said.
"The public awareness of what goes on here is zip," said David Hoover, who has regularly attended resource authority meetings for more than two years.
Debbie Lineweaver urged the board to "take a risk" and commit to recycling projects. "I encourage you to move with this in a really gung-ho way," she said. "You say can we afford to do these things, but you also have to ask the question, can we afford not to."
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on April 25, 1990 in the New River Edition\ Correction:\ Because of a copy editor's error, a headline in last Thursday's paper stated that the board of the New River Resource Authority had hired a recycling director. The board authorized its executive director to hire a person for the job.
Memo: correction