Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 5, 1990 TAG: 9006050475
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: MARK LAYMAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Eddy questioned Roanoke City Councilman Howard Musser's claim that the county, which gets 84 percent of its tax revenue from homeowners, needs the city's commercial and industrial tax base.
In fact, Eddy said, the county's real-estate tax base is stronger than the city's. Each penny on the county's real-estate tax rate brings in $247,000 in revenue. In the city, each penny brings in $240,000, he said.
And it's not necessarily true anymore that residential development in the county doesn't pay for itself, Eddy said. Soaring real-estate values have changed that. The real-estate and personal-property taxes from a new house valued at $150,000 cover the cost of a public-school education for the typical number of children who would live there, he said.
Eddy also took Don Terp of Citizens Against Merger to task for suggesting that the tax rate in the consolidated government soon would rise to as much as $2 per $100 of assessed value.
The sample budget included in the consolidation plan showed a tax rate of $1.10 for residents of the former county and $1.23 for residents of the former city. But that was based on the two localities' 1989-1990 budgets and was intended to show only what the rates might have been if the city and the county had consolidated this year.
Eddy has done his own analysis of the localities' current budgets and the expected startup costs of the consolidated government. He has concluded that a tax rate of $1.21 in the former county and $1.34 in the former city are more reasonable projections.
"It could be more; it could be less," he said. "I'm sure there will be some arguments over this."
Still, he said. "It's hard for me to believe the tax rate will go to $2."
The 60-some people who attended Monday's meeting, like the smaller crowd at Bent Mountain last week, appeared to be solidly opposed to consolidation. And like other rural residents in the county, they expressed deep distrust of city leaders, downtown businesses and the local news media.
Gary Caldwell Sr., who lives in Back Creek and works for Carter Machinery Co. in Salem, seemed to sum up the feelings of many when he asked Eddy, "Isn't this really an attempt by big business to annex Roanoke County . . . ?"
Caldwell suggested that the Roanoke Valley be renamed "Warner Dalhouse Valley," after the Dominion Bankshares chief executive officer.
Eddy didn't tackle Caldwell's question head-on, but he did agree that many of the valley's business leaders favor consolidation because they are convinced it will lead to "more growth, more profits, more jobs."
Eddy said some Back Creek and Bent Mountain residents have asked for the chance to become a part of Salem if the consolidation plan is approved.
Most residents of the Catawba Magisterial District will get that chance - if a financial settlement is reached with Salem - because they have a strong community of interest with Salem, he explained. But even though residents along U.S. 221 are close to Salem on the map, most don't shop, go to church or bank there.
That is largely due to poor roads, he said. Few people traveling from Bent Mountain or Back Creek take 12 O'Clock Knob Road or Poor Mountain Road into Salem. Most take 221 to Virginia 419 at Cave Spring.
Eddy told the crowd, "If I had to vote today, I'd still vote against" the consolidation plan. But his opposition isn't as strong as it was a few months ago because of recent changes in the plan, he said.
Those changes haven't made a bit of difference to Charles Lavinder, president of the civic league. "I'll tell you how I feel about it," he said. "I'm strictly against it."
by CNB