Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 8, 1995 TAG: 9505080123
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
When John Sublett was first elected to the Bedford County Board of Supervisors, Smith Mountain Lake was a sleepy fishing village barely a decade old.
The county population was about 30,000. The road to success was traveled with a tractor. And the county's Forest neighborhood was mostly just that - forest.
That was 1975. Sublett served as chairman and vice chairman of the board until he was defeated in 1983. In the years since, a lot has changed.
Bedford County is now the fastest-growing locality in Western Virginia. Residential growth is hitting it from all sides. Within a few years, its population is expected to come close to 60,000.
In the western part of the county, farms are being replaced by rural subdivisions and mobile homes. In the east, the Forest area's landscape is dotted by convenience stores, luxury homes and strip malls. Smith Mountain Lake is a densely populated resort area and one of the East Coast's premier retirement communities.
And Sublett is running for the Board of Supervisors again.
This year's supervisors' race is more about philosophy than politics or pet projects. It's about the changing countryside. It's about not knowing who your neighbors are. It's about a way of life that may be gone forever.
And it's about the realities of growth.
Five of the county's seven supervisor seats are open. Two of the races will probably be uncontested; but in the rest, there will be a fight between the forces of change and those who think the county government has gone too far.
"Our priorities are wrong," says Sublett, who's running in the Stewartsville area against the board's chairman, Dale Wheeler. "We're going in the wrong direction. When I was on the board, the Board of Supervisors was elected by the people of Bedford County and they ran Bedford County.
"Now the staff runs Bedford County. You ask them a question, they ignore you. You've got to go through a bunch of channels, through the bureaucracy, to get anything done."
Wheeler says of his opponent: "We're light-years apart. One's looking forward, and one's looking back." Wheeler, the only candidate so far to file all his paperwork, is eager to start the race.
"My job's not finished," he says. "I would hate to leave right now with all this brewing. We've got quite a lot of growth taking place."
During the last several years, the board has created and refined the county's first zoning system. It has updated the comprehensive plan to keep pace with residential growth. In response to a citizen-led petition drive, it brought forward a proposal to merge with Bedford city. It has changed tax rates and purchased an industrial building to encourage commercial growth. It has paved the way for a computerized 911 system.
And, Sublett would say, it has spent a lot of money.
Noting that the board recently donated $25,000 to Campbell County's rescue squad, which services part of Bedford County, Sublett says, "We're not trying to help the people of Bedford County. It looks we're trying to help everyone else."
He also criticizes the board's decision to turn the county nursing home over to a private company. "The people in that nursing home built Bedford County," he says. "We spent $250,000 for a new dog pound right across the road, but we want to sell the nursing home. It doesn't make sense to me.
"I just don't like the way they're taking Bedford County. They don't discuss anything. We argued on the price of a chicken once for an hour and 15 minutes. But they hide behind closed doors and hold executive sessions."
Roger Cheek, who's running in the Huddleston area, has a similar viewpoint. "I'd like to see things change up there," he says. "I don't like the way things are running. They're pushing all this growth and change, and it's so sudden, you don't have time to think about it. Most of the people here, we want the good things that come with growth, but we want time to think about it, too.
"Everything's going too fast. This is a bedroom county. You have a lot of farming here, but [the board] doesn't seem to acknowledge that."
He's worried because the consolidation proposal doesn't include a provision guaranteeing a land-use tax for farmers. Farm land is taxed less than residential land in Bedford County.
He also thinks the county has placed too much emphasis on growth areas, such as Forest, at the expense of rural areas, such as where he lives. "A few weeks ago, the Board of Supervisors talked about paving around the Dumpsters in Forest. Down here, you either ruin your shoes or you get mud in your car taking the trash to the Dumpster."
David Smeltz is also considering running for the board in Huddleston this fall. He's having trouble making his decision, he says, because if consolidation passes, he would have to run again in the spring.
"I think the whole Board of Supervisors needs to be re-elected," Smeltz says. "I think they get entrenched and they lose sight of reality." He says the current board finds it too easy to spend taxpayers' money.
Like Sublett, he criticizes the board for relying too much on its administrative staff to make decisions. He also thinks it's spending too much money on consultants to carry out studies when they could be done in-house for less.
Cheek and Smeltz will run against incumbent Earle Hobbs, who was appointed after the death of Supervisor James Teass last year.
"I really don't understand what they're talking about when they say they want to get the county back in shape," Hobbs says. "I think the board is in the best shape it's been in in a long time, and so is the county.
"We have a balanced budget, we have a good consolidation plan in the works, we're talking about comprehensive studies about public water and sewer. These are things the county hasn't talked about for years."
Gus Saarnijoki, the Montvale supervisor, says the yearning to take Bedford County back to simpler times is nice, but unrealistic. "Things have changed so much in the county, you can't go back to a rural state of affairs, being in a growth area like we are," he says.
At 75, Saarnijoki is the oldest board member. After two terms in office, he'll call it quits this year.
Running for his seat will be Bob Crouch, a Sublett ally; and Bobby Pollard, a former board member who defeated Sublett in 1983.
Crouch thinks Bedford County is going in the wrong direction. He disagrees with its Land Use Guidance System and thinks it puts a damper on businesses. He also thinks too many of the board's decisions are made in executive session. He has never been involved in government before, but he and Sublett are regular fixtures at the Board of Supervisors meetings. Crouch has been known to interrupt meetings to challenge something a supervisor says or to ask for clarification of an issue or decision.
"I've been a lifelong resident of this county for 60 years," Crouch says. "I would like to see the government be by the people and for the people. The people have been cut out."
If elected, Crouch says he would donate his salary as a supervisor to local rescue and fire squads, whom he says have been denied adequate funding by the board. He also says he will pay for his expenses as a board member from his own pocket.
Pollard is also a Bedford County native. He's running, he says, because his neighbors have asked him. He sees Bedford County in the future as an increasingly progressive and modern locality.
"Things progress because of the population growth of Bedford County," Pollard says. "I love Bedford County, and I want it to be the best Bedford County it can be. But you've got to grow with it, or you'll be left behind."
Keywords:
POLITICS
Memo: ***CORRECTION***