Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 20, 1991 TAG: 9102200469
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
Two citizens spoke before the adoption opposing the new rules that, among other things, limit speakers to five minutes unless the presiding officer extends the time.
"Council must feel threatened," said J.B. Warner, president of Concerned Citizens for Planned Progress, a group whose members have had their share of speaking time before council over the last three years. "I as a citizen feel threatened by what is in this document."
Warner spoke for 13 minutes and concluded that "we are being deprived of our freedom of speech."
The other speaker was Claud Kirkland, who felt the restrictions would discourage citizens from addressing council. "This eight-page document makes me both sad and mad," he said.
"I feel almost the same way that Mr. Warner does," Councilman C. Don Crispin said. "I don't believe a lot of documents telling us how to conduct our business is going to improve our government at all."
He and Nick Glenn voted against adoption. Voting for it were J.R. Schrader Jr., James R. Neighbors, Andrew L. Graham, W.H. "Rocky" Schrader Jr. and Alma H. Holston. The remaining council member, Mary Lou Copenhaver, was out of town.
Mayor Gary C. Hancock said he had felt the need for a document to which people could refer when they wanted to address council for proper procedures. "We could go to one place and see what those rules and procedures were," he said. So he asked Town Manager Don Holycross to research how nearby communities handled it and draft a document.
Hancock said the measure was not aimed at the Concerned Citizens and that he had considered such a document for years before that group was organized. "These rules were not directed toward any group," he said.
The council members, along with the town manager, his assistant and the town attorney, attended the meeting wearing white sweat shirts with "Operation Desert Storm" and a Persian Gulf map printed on them.
"The purpose of that is to show our support of the troops in the Persian Gulf," Hancock said, especially the nearly 90 from Pulaski County.
In other business, council voted to close an undeveloped alley in the southeastern part of town near Calfee Park and held a public hearing on using a $400,000 Community Development Block Grant on sewer, drainage, street paving and lighting in the Cool Springs area. No one spoke about the plan.
Holycross reported that Wythe and Bland counties, which had been considering a site for a joint landfill on acreage where water might have drained into Peak Creek at Pulaski, now are considering another site that is farther away and should not affect the creek.
by CNB