Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 22, 1992 TAG: 9201220363
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Medium
FRANKLIN SUPERVISORS OK BUILDING DEAL WITH STEP
Franklin County Supervisor Wayne Angell, who runs a used-car lot, showed Tuesday that he can drive a hard bargain when it comes to county business.Angell held firm when a local human-service agency presented the Board of Supervisors with a counterproposal for a dilapidated school building.
Officials with Support to Eliminate Poverty (STEP) asked the county to drop its asking price from $280,000 all the way to $170,000.
"No harm in asking," said Angell, who spoke on behalf of the board.
Realizing they were getting nowhere, STEP officials fell back to requesting a token reduction of $20,000 - making the sale price $260,000.
"Two-seventy," Angell replied. "Let's do business."
It looked like a done deal.
Joe Bland, executive director of STEP, said outside the meeting room that his board of directors likely would agree to buy the Continuing Education Center on Dent Street.
Under the proposal, STEP would pay the county $13,500 each year for the next 20 years. In addition, the county would make an immediate $90,000 donation to STEP to replace the roof and make other structural repairs.
STEP would use the school building to house a variety of human service programs, including job training and day care for low-income families, that it administers with federal funds.
The Board of Supervisors voted 5-1-1 in favor of the deal. Blue Ridge Supervisor Hubert Quinn abstained because of a potential financial interest in the transaction.
Quinn is half-owner of an office building leased by the county's Department of Social Services, which may consider moving into the STEP building when its lease with Quinn expires next year.
In other business, the board approved amendments to the county's erosion and sediment control ordinance that many Smith Mountain Lake residents and contractors say does not go far enough to ease siltation in the lake.
A spokesman for the Smith Mountain Lake Association, a homeowners group, said the revisions did nothing to address erosion upstream in the Blackwater River watershed.
"Silt, the lake's biggest pollutant, must be controlled," John Barr said.
Supervisors' Chairman Gus Forry said there was no point in enacting a tough ordinance if the county did not have the personnel to enforce it.
The board later moved a step in that direction when it agreed to advertise for a county planner, whose duties would include enforcement of the erosion ordinance.
In other action, the board voted to hold a public hearing on a proposed ordinance that would make it illegal to carry loaded rifles or shotguns in vehicles on public roads.