Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 22, 1991 TAG: 9103220620
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
No controversy.
No crowd, either.
The last time Explore planners came to the W.E. Cundiff Elementary School to talk about their project was four years ago, and there was no mistaking then that folks were riled up. They packed the gym and badgered Explore planners with questions; the Rev. David Hayden led a delegation of homeless people and disrupted the meeting with a laughbox.
Thursday, about eight citizens trickled in during the four-hour open house. And most of them were Explore supporters.
"I'm all for it," said Frances Payne of Vinton. "It's progress."
About the worst thing anyone had to say came from Anne Turner of Vinton, who pronounced herself undecided. "Gosh, it's going to be expensive," she said. "To build a town and a stagecoach? It'll be just like Williamsburg, won't it?"
The open house was so slow that Explore planners spent part of the time shooting baskets with reporters at one end of the gym as they waited in vain for citizens to show up.
The absence of a turnout wasn't for lack of trying.
Roanoke County - which sponsored the open house to solicit citizen comment as it begins work on amending its comprehensive land-use plan and zoning ordinances to make them apply to Explore - had bought ads in the newspaper. It mailed out more than 500 fliers to people who had signed up at previous Explore meetings over the years.
And Thursday morning, a county official and the head of the county's citizens advisory board were guests on a WFIR radio call-in show. They didn't get any calls there, either.
Maybe it was the ZZ Top concert at the Roanoke Civic Center that kept people away, one county official mused.
Or maybe it was the war that has distracted folks from local issues, one citizen suggested.
More likely, county officials concluded, most folks don't have problems with Explore anymore.
"We've crossed all the hurdles, and there's no more controversy," said Trixie Averill, a self-proclaimed Explore skeptic who sits on the citizens advisory committee. "Most people have adjusted to the idea and see more benefits to it than don't. The fact that it's going to draw people into the area and then [they'll] leave, and not settle, is one plus. If there's one thing I hate, it's commercial buildup and congestion."
County planner Terry Harrington agreed. "I'd like to think everyone is fully knowledgeable of what Explore is and when Explore is," he said.
"If it is an indication that people in the community are satisfied with Explore, supportive of Explore, they may not have a lot of interest in the mechanics" of how the county's land-use review process works.
Another open house will be held next Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Mount Pleasant Elementary School.
by CNB