Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 17, 1993 TAG: 9310150205
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
But that hasn't stopped the 68-year-old District A Democrat from campaigning door-to-door for a second term on the Montgomery Board of Supervisors. "It's important to get a sense of what's going on in people's minds," he said.
While the pace may not be as hectic as a contested race, it has give the 20-year Blacksburg resident the luxury of being introspective about his first four years in public office.
"We engineers have a tendency to see things in black and white," said Moore, who taught industrial engineering at Tech. "You get into politics and you learn that's a pretty wide line. There's a lot of gray in there."
He counts as successes the new Blacksburg elementary school under construction, the two shell buildings the county built that private businesses now occupy, the Virginia 177 agreement with Radford, a preliminary design for a library renovation in Blacksburg and studies of well water and the uses and abuses of karst terrain.
Moore's remaining challenges include: working for more open government, including bringing the discussion of a possible new landfill out before the public; working to bring more jobs to the county;, ensuring the cost-effective use of tax money; and advocating quality education for all county students.
But it's in one of the disappointments of the last four years that the decorated World War II veteran shows his introspective side.
In December, a crowd of 300 people confronted the Board of Supervisors about the Montgomery School Board's use of secular names to refer to school holidays occurring around Christmas and Easter.
The supervisors unanimously passed a resolution recommending the School Board go back to the religious holiday names, prompting the resignation of School Board Chairman Daniel Schneck. The School Board later stood by its decision.
"If you were to ask me which of my votes I most regret, it would have to be that one," Moore said. In effect, he said, the supervisors buckled under.
"There wasn't a single voice in that [audience] in favor of tolerance," he recalled. "We lost a good School Board chairman, who happened to be of the Jewish faith."
That letdown aside, there are other issues he's talking about, including next month's bond referendums. As a person who receives a paycheck from the county, Moore said he cannot speak in favor of the two bond referendums to renovate the Blacksburg branch of the Montgomery-Floyd library and to build a new Health and Human Services building in Christiansburg.
But he did cast the deciding vote in August to put the library issue on the ballot. And he points out that interest rates are the lowest they've been since 1962 and it might be an optimal time to borrow money.
On the proposed county open-space plan, designed to preserve some of the area's rural character while protecting landowner rights, Moore sees a forward-looking document that will help both farmers and town residents. It could help protect farmers' interests when an adjacent landowner wants to construct an apartment building next door, for instance, he said.
Finally, on the proposed consolidation of the county and school division finance departments, Moore said he is not yet convinced that there will be any significant savings. He hopes a committee studying the matter will complete its work and resolve the issue before the next round of supervisors elections in 1995.
Moore, who retired in 1990, and his wife, Lenna, live in the Forest Hills neighborhood on the edge of southeastern Blacksburg. He has been a department head at Virginia Tech and Northeastern University in Boston and has taught at Cornell and Stanford universities and the Clarkson College of Technology in Potsdam, N.Y. Overseas he has taught in Finland, England and central China. He also has worked as a consultant to private businesses and ran his own software company.
When not politicking, soul-searching or opining, Moore might be found singing. He's the bass in "The Uncalled 4," a Blacksburg barbershop quartet.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB