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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 13, 1991                   TAG: 9102130385
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: BEDFORD/FRANKLIN 
SOURCE: MONICA DAVEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

CERTIFICATION GOAL AFFIRMED BY BEDFORD

The city of Bedford is just as committed to getting industrial certification from the state as it was when it agreed to work on the economic development program jointly with Bedford County a year ago, Mayor Mike Shelton said Tuesday night.

City Council reaffirmed its support of the joint certification program Tuesday in response to a resolution from the county Board of Supervisors a night earlier.

The supervisors, citing concerns about what they considered a related industrial park, had asked the city to decide whether it planned to continue on with the joint certification plan.

"Our support still stands, and it has not changed," Shelton said, holding the letter from Supervisors' Chairman A.A. "Gus" Saarnijoki.

But, Shelton stressed, a joint industrial park with the county was never part of the city's agreement in the first place. "A joint industrial park and joint certification do not necessarily go hand in hand," Shelton said. "Let's don't link those two issues."

The state does require that an area develop 100 acres of usable industrial land in order to be certified. But it doesn't say where that land must be.

A state representative had analyzed - among others - a piece of land in the county, just outside the city. The Little Otter Business Park along U.S. 221 would need sewer lines extended to it to qualify, the representative said.

City officials, who could extend sewer lines to the site, have said they will not do that unless they can share in the revenue generated from the site to help make up their capital costs.

Monday, county Supervisor T.D. Thornton said Little Otter was the "logical site for a joint effort."

Urging the city to decide to extend their sewer lines in pursuit of joint state certification, Thornton said, "We have the land, the city has the utilities."

If the city didn't want to do that, Thornton said, it should speak up so the county could go ahead with certification plans separately.

Tuesday, Shelton again said the city could not build sewer extensions unless the county found some way to share revenues derived from Little Otter.

But that question, he said, has nothing to do with joint certification. Bedford City and county can find enough usable industrial land elsewhere to meet the certification requirements, he said.

A proposed site in Forest as well as one in the city could qualify the area, he said.

"A joint industrial park may not come about," Shelton said after the council meeting. "But that does not have to be an impediment to joint certification."

Other council members agreed.

Council member Ronnie Rice said he, too, still wanted to pursue joint certification. "But I think it's time we sit down eyeball to eyeball" with the county supervisors, Rice said.

by CNB