Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 12, 1990                   TAG: 9006120280
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN 
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

BEDFORD BOARD OKS PURCHASE OF PATROL BOAT

The county Board of Supervisors Monday authorized Wells to spend $32,576.66 on a Sheriff's Department boat to take care of crime on Smith Mountain Lake.

For a time earlier this year, it seemed the supervisors were not going to pay for a boat at all. In their 1989-90 budget process, the supervisors had authorized the sheriff to spend $25,000 on the boat. That was half the amount he had requested.

The sheriff came back to the supervisors this year, asking that he get an additional $25,000 in the next fiscal year. If he got that, he could buy the boat he had asked for in the first place.

Instead, the supervisors gave him nothing for the boat in next year's budget. And, come June 30 - the end of this fiscal year - the original $25,000 would no longer be his to spend, the supervisors said.

Monday, Sheriff Wells asked the supervisors for a smaller, cheaper boat than he had initially hoped to buy. "We've got a problem on the lake that's screaming for help," Wells said. "This will at least give us the opportunity to get out there and serve some area."

Wells' deputies will use the boat for surveillance of the shoreline and safety of boatways and property owners, he said.

The supervisors gave Wells authorization to spend $7,200 more than they had originally offered. And the whole amount had to be spent before July 1, the supervisors pointed out. At the doorway of their meeting room, Wells promised that the order would be placed before 9 a.m. today.

Wells plans to buy a 22-foot Grady White Seafarer with a 175-horsepower outboard motor.

Monday, supervisors also heard from a state Department of Corrections official who reported that the county jail needs to be expanded by more than 60 beds as soon as possible. According to a needs assessment report from the department, the county needs a 100-bed facility. Its current two-story jail, built in 1968, has 36 beds.

By the year 2000, an estimated 149 prisoners will be housed in the jail, the report says.

The report also recommends:

Any expansion should be constructed to provide for the possibility of beds added later.

A larger and more secure visitation facility in the jail.

Added space for laundry, kitchen and programs.