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

DATE: THURSDAY, November 17, 1994                   TAG: 9411170131
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: HOT SPRINGS                                 LENGTH: Medium

INDEPENDENT-CITY LAWS CRITICIZED

The state's chief priority should be overhauling laws making cities independent from counties because the city form of government isn't working, a top county official says.

``I believe the fact that we have independent city status is very damaging,'' said Peggy Wiley, outgoing president of the Virginia Association of Counties. ``We are the only state in the nation with this arrangement, and it's obviously not working.''

The state's ``most pressing need is a whole revamping of the local government system in Virginia,'' she said.

Most of Virginia's 40 cities are under severe financial pressure because of rising costs and service needs, and weak or shrinking tax bases.

Wiley noted that nearly all of North Carolina's cities are financially healthy because they are part of counties. North Carolina cities also have the ability to annex adjacent lands almost at will and do so to recapture growth that occurs just past their boundaries.

In Virginia, all of the state's 40 cities are politically and financially independent from the counties that surround them. Virginia cities also are forbidden from annexing adjacent county lands.

Wiley, a 15-year veteran of the Greensville County Board of Supervisors and that board's chairwoman, made her comments in an interview Tuesday at the conclusion of association's annual conference. The association represents all of Virginia's 95 counties.

The group's new president, William Blevins, said he would like to see city and county leaders from across the state sit down together to work out their problems.

``If you don't try to work solutions out, they won't get worked out. Communication has been the problem,'' said Blevins, a member of the Smyth County Board of Supervisors.

Wiley also said it is vital that residents and state lawmakers become more involved in local government problems and issues.

``We have got to somehow educate the public. That's the answer to it all,'' she said. ``The general public needs to wake up and realize they're a part of this thing called governance.''

by CNB