Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 17, 1991 TAG: 9103170082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK LAYMAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The task force came to Roanoke Friday and Saturday for its third meeting. "It went very well," Vienna Mayor Charlie Robinson said afterward. "We're making progress."
Robinson and Roanoke County Supervisor Steve McGraw are co-chairmen of the task force. McGraw is president of the Virginia Association of Counties this year.
The task force is trying to come up with an alternative to legislation proposed by the General Assembly's Grayson Commission. Generally, counties and larger cities support the commission's legislation, but many towns and smaller cities oppose it.
The Grayson Commission's legislation would encourage - but not force - cities with populations of less than 125,000 to give up their independence and become part of their neighboring counties.
Cities that gave up their independence and towns would be allowed to expand their boundaries by ordinance, with minimum review by the state Commission on Local Government. But cities that remained independent would not be allowed to expand their boundaries.
The Grayson Commission's legislation also would make it harder for towns to become independent cities.
Because so many cities and towns oppose it, the General Assembly delayed action on the Grayson Commission's legislation this year and asked the Virginia Municipal League and the Virginia Association of Counties to come up with an alternative.
An earlier VML/VACo task force reached an agreement on city-county-town relations in summer 1988, but in the view of the VML, the Grayson Commission more or less ignored it.
That agreement was the starting point for the current task force.
Both Robinson and McGraw were on the original task force. But there are new members, including Waynesboro City Manager Jerry Gwaltney and Radford City Councilwoman Polly Corn. Both Waynesboro and Radford were in a coalition of small cities that opposed the Grayson Commission legislation.
And Jim Campbell, who was on the VML staff then, is executive director of VACo now.
The 1988 VML/VACo agreement "was very general and had never been checked against state law," McGraw said. "Nobody attempted to do that until now."
Lawyers studied that six-page agreement and came up with 32 pages of questions and comments, he said. Discussing those page-by-page has been tedious - and it has sparked a few disagreements.
Still, Robinson said, "Everybody has approached the task with a very upbeat attitude . . .. There were no vitriolic arguments."
The task force hopes a preliminary draft of its legislation will be ready for its next meeting, scheduled for May 9 in Charlottesville. "We're fairly certain that when we get back together we'll be 75 [percent] to 80 percent there," McGraw said.
The task force hopes to give its legislation to the Grayson Commission in mid-summer and to the General Assembly in January.
It is likely to differ from the Grayson Commission's legislation in at least one important way: It would allow annexation by independent cities, but only under certain conditions.
Cities usually annex county land to increase tax revenue. Under the VML/VACo legislation, a city first would have to reach an agreement to share tax revenues with its neighboring county for eight years. At the end of that time, if a city could show that the revenue-sharing agreement had not eased its financial problems, it could file an annexation suit.
The task force's legislation also is likely to make it easier for towns to annex but make it harder for towns to become independent cities.
But it probably will not include financial incentives for localities that cooperate or consolidate. "There's no need to go to the General Assembly and say, `We need more money.' They already know that," McGraw said. Besides, the state budget shortfall makes it unlikely the General Assembly would approve any incentives, he said. D3 D1 ANNEX Annex
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