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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 1, 1995                   TAG: 9503010064
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-10   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: RICK LINDQUIST STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

CITY COUNCIL OKS PLAN FOR ELECTED SCHOOL BOARD

One School Board member gets a year lopped off his term while another gains a year under an elected School Board plan City Council unanimously approved Monday. The proposal now goes to the U.S. Justice Department for approval, as required by the Civil Rights Act.

If the Justice Department OKs the plan, School Board Chairman Guy Gentry's seat would be one of the first to be decided by voters.

The elected School Board proposal, drawn up by City Attorney John "Bunny" Spiers, stipulates that voters pick two board members in 1996 and three in 1998. The plan also sets the School Board's size at five at-large members and term lengths at four years, the same as City Council.

That schedule presents a predicament for board members Chris Strange and Guy Wohlford, whose appointed terms expire in 1997. Under the city's plan, an Electoral Board drawing determines whose term ends next year and whose continues until 1998.

Strange said Tuesday he definitely would run for election. Wohlford said he's leaning toward not running, but won't rule it out.

Gentry said Tuesday he won't decide until later this year whether he'll run in May 1996 for the seat he's held by appointment for eight years.

"I'm not a political person," he said, adding that he's put the decision on a back burner for now.

Gentry and Wohlford opposed the move to an elected School Board, which voters approved last November by a wide margin.

Later this year, City Council gets to make its last two School Board appointments when the terms of Chip Craig and Carter Effler expire June 30. Neither has said whether he'll seek reappointment. When those terms expire in 1998, the seats would be filled by election to four-year terms along with the seat extended by the drawing.

In other business Monday, council unanimously approved buying property across Second Street from the Municipal Building and Courthouse. Mayor Tom Starnes said Tuesday the city plans to raze a dwelling on the steep tract, grade the site and use it for additional parking. The city paid $23,000 for the land.

Parking at the present Municipal Building and Courthouse lot could get tight when the city expands court facilities, he said.

Council also OK'd a resolution as its part in authorizing the Roanoke Industrial Development Authority to hold a public hearing in connection with issuing up to $110 million in revenue bonds for seven Carilion Health System hospitals, including Radford Community Hospital.

Councilman David Worrell said he had planned to vote "no" on the resolution if the money was going to aid the hospital's move to a new site outside the city.

A hospital spokesman said the biggest chunk of Radford Community's share of the proceeds would refinance existing debt, while most of the rest would go for equipment and other capital needs this year and next. Chief Operating Officer Bill Merkt said "less than a million dollars" would go toward plans to move the hospital to Montgomery County, primarily for architectural studies.

by CNB