RESOLUTION SEEKS TO END PEMBROKE BRIDGE DISPUTE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 7, 1993                   TAG: 9301070148
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-4   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: STEVE KARK CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: PEARISBURG                                LENGTH: Medium
RESOLUTION SEEKS TO END PEMBROKE BRIDGE DISPUTE
The Giles County Board of Supervisors will send a resolution to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources in an effort to end the dispute over the old Pembroke bridge.
The supervisors are asking the agency to accept a joint agreement between the county and the Virginia Department of Transportation.
The board this week unanimously agreed on this latest effort to end the dispute after highway department engineer Jack Thompson told the supervisors that officials of the historic agency have not approved the agreement, a copy of which was sent to them more than three months ago.
In September, a highway department spokesman said representatives of each agency had unofficially accepted the terms of the agreement, which granted ownership of the old bridge to the historic resources agency for preservation. It also said a new bridge would be built 50 feet upstream from the old.
Work on the project originally had been scheduled to begin next month, Thompson said. Now there is no way of knowing when it will begin, he said.
"We need to do something about this bridge and we need to do it now," Supervisor Samuel "Ted" Timberlake said.
Supervisors Bobby Compton and George Hedrick said that the historic agency already knows about the county's displeasure over the delay, but they hoped that the resolution might help anyway.
Pembroke resident Amos Perkins told the supervisors that a petition signed by 400 people in favor of a new bridge has been sent to the historic agency.
The board also said it would send copies of the resolution to the appropriate elected officials and state representatives.
In other matters:

Ross Martin, a member of the Hoges Chapel Water Service Board, requested additional money from the county to complete work on a water line to extend service in the vicinity of Eastern Elementary School.
Martin told the board - which already has granted $20,000 for the project - that unanticipated expenses arose when engineers discovered that a 12-inch conduit the group had hoped to use to carry water under U.S. 460 went under only two of the four lanes. Extending the conduit has added $3,665 to the cost of the project, which is at a standstill till more funding is arranged, said Martin.
The board said it would delay its decision until it has had time to further examine the situation.

Matthew Morris of Appalachian OH-9 Ambulance Service, which serves West Virginia's Mercer and Summers counties, asked the supervisors' approval in its application for certification in Virginia.
The ambulance service is seeking certification because it routinely transports patients in the county but is unable under state policy to assist at an accident scene, said Morris.

The supervisors recognized the efforts of contractor Charles Henderson for his contributions of time and materials in the construction of a ball field at the Macy McClaugherty Elementary School.

Supervisor Herbert "Hub" Brown, a member of the Board of supervisors since 1981, was elected chairman and George Hedrick, in his first term, was elected vice chairman.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB