Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 7, 1990 TAG: 9006080304
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Long
It was the late '70s, and the Board of Supervisors had proposed a five-buck increase on the cost of a county auto decal.
As Ware remembers it, the supervisors did not have any special plans for the extra money they would get, but they wanted to raise the fee anyway. He and a bunch of his neighbors decided they didn't like the idea one bit.
"We went up there and hollered at the public hearing," Ware recalled. In his speech, Ware told his own district supervisor - from the northern part of the county - that if he voted for the increase, he would be looking at his last term in office.
The supervisor didn't heed the warning and voted yes.
As Ware walked out the courthouse doors, he was approached by a former county official who predicted that Ware would be the next supervisor from that northern district.
Ware, who has been the District 5 supervisor since the election after that decal fight, knows well that that kind of community activism has produced results in Bedford County, in the form of election outcomes and policy changes, for decades.
Community groups - some as informal as Ware's bunch, others with official titles and formal meeting times - were around 10 years ago as they are now. In many cases, the names and causes have changed. But the 1980s brought even more active groups to Bedford County's communities, many people here say.
When the U.S. Department of Energy put Bedford County on a list of 12 possible sites for a high-level nuclear dump in early 1986, Bedford County residents showed how mad and just how active they could get.
In what may have been the largest countywide shows of activism during the last decade, residents from all over the county and the city turned out en masse to DOE public hearings on the issue. In fact, they held a candlelight vigil outside one hearing.
A Bedford resident geologist analyzed the county's terrain and concluded that Bedford County wasn't right for the dump site. With that information, city, county and state officials lobbied against it.
Most of the time, countywide issues haven't sparked community action with such consensus.
When county officials proposed passing a zoning ordinance in the late '80s, a group formed to fight the action. The unusual zoning plan - which is the first of its kind in Virginia - should be addressed with a countywide referendum, the opponents said.
Led by Jimmie Saunders, the group paid to bring in a woman from a Kentucky county, which had an ordinance similar to the one proposed for Bedford, to tell the Bedford supervisors why she hated it and what damage it would do to Bedford County. They got petitions signed and angrily spoke out on the issue.
Despite their community activism, they lost.
The supervisors passed the ordinance last fall, but Saunders believes that doesn't mean the activism wasn't worthwhile. "It was definitely worth it," he said. Aside from raising people's consciousness, the countywide group continues meeting even now. It has not given up its fight.
Another countywide group has had a chance to work with - instead of against - the elected officials.
A citizens' group, appointed to help find a new county landfill site, is just one example of how the current Board of Supervisors has encouraged citizen participation in recent years, County Administrator William Rolfe said.
"We did that after reviewing the ways other counties were dealing with selecting landfills," he said. "There seemed to be a public perception that business was being done behind closed doors, so we decided from the beginning to let the citizens help set the pace and direction on our search.
"The ultimate decision rests with the Board of Supervisors, but it's nice to know the feelings of the constituents beforehand," he said.
Most of the time, community efforts in Bedford have been more localized.
With at least 41,000 people spread out over the county's 760 square miles, the pockets of population have had different worries and interests - and community groups.
A group in Forest lobbied to build a new park. Big Island residents wanted to widen and straighten the curvy road, U.S. 501, that twists past their homes. Bedford City residents wanted to keep their streets clean, plant flowers and hire a city horticulturist.
Moneta residents were dealing with their own problem. And they had been dealing with it for decades. "We worked on getting the overpass since 1955," explained Ron Ayers, of the Moneta Ruritan Club. "Our drive really started up in 1985."
Virginia 122 darts down from the city of Bedford, through Moneta and on to Smith Mountain Lake. At Moneta it crosses a set of train tracks.
Residents grew weary of long waits and traffic pileups at the intersection as trains chugged past. They worried about similar - but life-threatening - waits that rescue squad vehicles or fire trucks might encounter there.
So Ayers and his crew of Ruritans started counting. They periodically count the cars, trucks and trailers that cross the tracks. They've spent weeks sitting in trucks with homemade counting devices 24 hours a day logging the heavy traffic there.
With those statistics in hand, they've asked state transportation officials for an overpass. For all their efforts, the Moneta residents are still waiting. But their request has been put in a list of road projects in the state's five-year plan.
Ayers says the Ruritans' project is one indication of increased activism in the community there. He attributes that to the population boom that struck Moneta - and Smith Mountain Lake - in the '80s.
In the city of Bedford, a whole different problem was brewing in the '80s. The downtown sections of small cities everywhere were deteriorating.
Asked to recall downtown Bedford before 1985, retired school teacher Sara Oliver says: "Dull facades and lots of electrical wires."
"We felt we were about to die downtown," Oliver said.
Bedford's merchants association, Centertown, got together and drew up a plan. The city - which pledged to fix up aging sewer drains and pipes - and the association managed to make Bedford one of Virginia's first five cities in the national Main Street program.
At first, merchants were skeptical of the promises that the downtown area would be revitalized, said Oliver, Bedford Main Street's president. "They felt like they'd heard that story before."
But once the city fixed up the street and sewers, one or two stores started working on their facades. "Once a store was completed, it just kind of ricocheted right down the block," she said. "That was the exciting part; it caught on and just spread out."
Five years later, the facades are mostly done. The focus of Bedford Main Street has changed somewhat - from appearances to business recruitment. Keeping excitement up within the community hasn't been as easy, particularly during a six-month period without an executive director last year.
"There was kind of a little lull when some people were wondering, `Is it over?' " Oliver said. With director Linda Kochendarfer's arrival last November, though, things are getting back in gear, she said.
by CNB