Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 9, 1991 TAG: 9104090446
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER MUNICIPAL WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Communication between tenants and the board also can be improved if the managers make regular reports to the board on tenants' concerns, Robert Glenn said.
The board will ask the managers of the projects to make reports at its meetings on a rotating basis.
Glenn also has asked Carolyn Johnson to use her experience in Lincoln Terrace to work with the authority's staff to try to strengthen tenant groups in all 10 housing projects. Johnson, president of the Lincoln Terrace tenants' council, recently was appointed to the board.
Herbert McBride, executive director of the authority, said he will ask the managers to try to develop stronger tenants groups.
Johnson supports both moves because she thinks the board and authority's top staff need to know more about conditions in the projects and to get to know the residents better.
She suggested that the board might want to hold a joint meeting with all of the projects' managers.
Johnson also said Lincoln Terrace residents are trying to develop a program to help inform young people about the dangers and responsibilities of possessing a gun.
The authority recently dropped the idea of a ban on guns in housing projects after the General Assembly approved a state law that prohibits housing authorities from enacting such a ban.
Even if the state legislature had not acted, McBride said, he would have dropped the idea.
Johnson said the talk of a gun ban upset some Lincoln Terrace residents because "they felt like with all of the violence and the outsiders coming in, they had a right to protect themselves."
Johnson said she thinks that gun shows at the Roanoke Civic Center and other places in the Roanoke Valley might be a source of firearms for some young people.
Glenn said the authority's staff should take the lead role in working with police and other agencies to develop a gun education program.
Also Monday, consulting engineers said plans are finished for the proposed five-story parking garage on Church Avenue next to Fire Station No. 1. It will have 400 parking spaces.
The project probably will be advertised for bids this weekend. Construction is expected to begin by June and be finished within 12 to 15 months.
The garage will replace the parking spaces that were lost by the construction of NS' new building at Franklin and Williamson roads. The building site formerly was a parking lot used by tenants in the Crestar building.
The authority is obligated to provide 266 parking spaces for the tenants under terms of the original sale of the land, which was part of the Downtown East urban renewal project.
by CNB