Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 16, 1994 TAG: 9409160031
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Whoever said "time is money" might well have been talking about the stately timepiece at Salem Avenue and Market Street in downtown Roanoke.
The clock, a gift to the city in memory of a former councilman, ground to a halt about a month ago, and may turn out to be an attractive, 17-foot money pit for city funds.
It should be repaired soon, but at a cost of about 18 times what one city official first thought.
The clock has been a timeless headache for Nelson Jackson, Roanoke's manager of buildings and maintenance, who has been fielding the almost-daily phone calls the city has received about it.
"You'd think after seeing it say 1:15 for four straight days they'd figure out it was broken," Jackson said.
He said City Manager Bob Herbert has been the hardest on him, though. Herbert drives by the clock on the way to work each morning, and Jackson said Herbert has not neglected to remind him that it still isn't running. The clock is now sporting a pair of "out of order" signs on two of its four faces.
The clock's electric motor burned out about a month ago. Jackson says there's no clockmaker on the city's staff, so they had to find someone in town to work on it.
Salem Jewelry finally came forth with a repairman.
The company that manufactured the clock, I.T. Verdin Co. of Cincinnati, wouldn't sell the replacement motor to Salem Jewelry, so the city had to order it, according to Jackson.
That was two weeks ago, Jackson said Thursday afternoon.
"They're taking their own sweet time" delivering the motor, he said. "But they're not the ones sitting here answering the phone calls."
Jackson guessed that the electric motor to run the clock probably would cost around $25. He said that because the clock was electric and kept outside, moisture probably would ruin the motor every four or five years and that he probably would keep a spare in stock.
Jackson said all this before he found out that the motor had been delivered Thursday morning, at a total cost - for motor, shipping and handling - of $448.46.
In 1986, Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Pollard Jr. donated $10,000 of the original $16,450 cost of the clock in honor of the late City Councilman Roy R. Pollard Sr. and his wife.
Until 1990, it stood on a traffic island at the end of the dear-departed Hunter Viaduct. After being in storage awhile, it was put back up next to the First Union Tower just behind the Market Building.
Jackson said putting an electric motor in an outdoor clock is either a design flaw or possibly a case of planned obsolescence.
At $448.46 a pop, I.T. Verdin can expect to pocket a few thousand Roanoke tax dollars over the coming years, whether the company planned to or not.
Jackson said the clock should be working again by the weekend. And he was quick to point out that the clock is not the first ornamental gift given to the city.
"Somebody gave us a star once. Let it blink one time and see how many calls we get," he said.
Of course, that's significantly lower than the $883 the company originally tried to charge the city, until the company realized its mistake.
by CNB