Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 24, 1995 TAG: 9501240082
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By a vote of 5-0, with two members absent, council passed a resolution urging the governor to restore increasingly unpopular cuts that target many museums in Western Virginia.
But those agencies ought not to look to the city for relief.
Roanoke, which is facing potential state and federal revenue cuts of $3.2 million in the 1995-96 fiscal year, ultimately may be forced to reduce its own expenditures on cultural activities, City Manager Bob Herbert wrote in a Jan. 6 letter to Center in the Square and 14 other cultural, educational, social-service and economic-growth agencies.
Center in the Square and two of its prime attractions - the Art Museum of Western Virginia and the Science Museum of Western Virginia - would lose more than $338,000 in direct state grants under Allen's budget proposal for next year.
Located at the intersection of Campbell Avenue and Market Street downtown, the 12-year-old institution helped turn a blighted, crime-ridden downtown area into a thriving commercial center full of restaurants, retail businesses and a bustling farmers' market.
The governor's proposed cuts ``would be devastating to Center in the Square,'' Mayor David Bowers said. ``I think the people of Roanoke should repudiate the governor's proposed budget cuts.''
The vote came after George W. Logan, chairman of the board of Center in the Square, decried proportionately smaller cuts to major Richmond-area museums such as the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Virginia Science Museum.
The governor's budget amendments would cut funding for those institutions by 17.5 percent and 13.6 percent, respectively.
``There is this incredibly wild imbalance. I don't have a regional paranoia, but we are getting the short end of the stick up here in the mountains,'' Logan said.
For example, based on current attendance figures, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts would receive $25 from the state for each visitor under Allen's proposal. Center in the Square, on the the other hand, would receive a mere 75 cents from the state for each of the 500,000-plus people who visit it annually.
``That's the one that I find most offensive,'' Logan said.
Logan, chairman of Valley Financial Corp. and an investor in a variety of Roanoke area businesses in the last 20 years, also criticized Allen's proposal to eliminate local Business, Professional and Occupational License taxes.
Roanoke receives more than $8 million annually from the tax, which Allen said is ``despised'' by businesses and an impediment to economic growth.
Over the years, ``I have paid $774,000 in BPOL taxes. I'm supposed to be somebody wildly in favor of [repeal], but I am not,'' Logan told council.
``I never went broke paying BPOL taxes, and I don't suppose anybody ever has,'' he added.
The question of city cuts in funding for the arts rests largely on whether the General Assembly approves elimination of BPOL, Herbert wrote in the Jan. 6 letter.
``If the city does have to adjust its budget for the future loss of the BPOL tax, we will be forced to consider reducing expenditures in all budget categories, including organizations such as your own,'' Herbert wrote.
In other action, council:
Moved city council meetings from the morning to the afternoon.
Henceforth, city council meetings will be held at 3 p.m. on the second and fourth Mondays each month. Since last summer, council had begun its meetings at 10 a.m.
Public hearings will continue to be held at 7 p.m. on the second Monday each month.
Donated the city's interest in the old landfill in Southeast Roanoke County to the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority. The National Park Service will construct a spur road from the Blue Ridge Parkway to Explore Park across the land.
Approved a request by the city School Board for $64,721 to install computer networks in the city's six middle schools. The funding will come from the bond issue voters approved last fall.
Agreed to hold a special work session Feb. 18 to plan for next year's budget. The meeting will be at 8:30 a.m. in a conference room at the Roanoke Regional Airport.
Agreed to accept applications for upcoming vacancies on the city school board through March 10. Terms of board members Nelson Harris and Don Poff expire June 30.
by CNB