Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 24, 1993 TAG: 9311250342
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Boy, what about that NAFTA thing? Kept me right on the edge of my chair. Didn't understand a thing about it, though. I don't think it affects Social Security. At least, Ross Perot didn't mention it. He mentioned everything else.
Local government, however, is dearest and closest to us, and the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors recently went boldly forward and set a new standard for such governance.
They held a meeting in the woods near the new landfill. Took a vote on electing school board members and everything.
It kind of puts a little extra spring in your step to realize that no other governing body in the history of free men and women ever had a meeting in the woods near a landfill until now.
It just moved me tremendously. I've been humming ``America, the Beautiful'' ever since I heard about it.
There is no doubt that this daring group of elected people has struck new ground and that local government throughout the nation will benefit from their courage.
Government will be less boring, and voters will take renewed interest in the board, perhaps making bets on where it will hold its next meeting. This is what a lot of people would call a seminal event - except that I've never been really sure about what that means or whether it ought to appear in a family newspaper.
Here is the chance to take government back to nature, and out of expensive indoor meeting rooms that have bad ventilation.
All of us can see the beauty of a budget session held on the banks of Bottom Creek on Bent Mountain. This would be government with a babbling brook for a neighbor.
They could have a meeting about increasing the water rates at wellhouse just down the hill on Happy Highfields Road. The well, which blows fuses or something a lot, is in a lovely sylvan setting, although there is no babbling brook.
Original choices of meeting places would allow newspaper reporters - many of whom think they are poets anyway - to do a bit of colorful writing:
``A bright autumn sun gave colorful life to leaves already dead Wednesday as the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors - meeting in a lovely, obscure glade on Buck Mountain - voted to sell the eastern part of the county to Vinton.
``Larks flew bravely in the azure skies, and squirrels paused in their preparations for winter to watch the historic meeting. County officials said they regretted they were unable to find a babbling brook.
``As a cool breeze, a sure herald of winter, sang softly among the gorgeous leaves, the supervisors voted to have a public hearing on Twelve O'Clock Knob before actually selling part of the county.''
I'll tell you one thing, boys. I sleep better at night knowing that my local government is inventive and not hidebound by the baggage of history.
Wake me up when the new water rates come out.
by CNB