Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 23, 1995 TAG: 9505240024
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KIMBERLY N. MARTIN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
After voting to change the name of the city's old Municipal Field to Kiwanis Field, Council christened the city's new $10.1 million ballpark Salem Memorial Baseball Stadium.
The new ballpark's name, the brainchild of Mayor Jim Taliaferro, honors all of Salem's war veterans.
The American Legion donated $5,500 to pay for the monument, which will be erected inside the stadium's fence. Former Councilman Mac Green spearheaded the effort to raise those funds. Taliaferro appointed a committee to look for appropriate monuments.
Although Wallace Klein of the Salem Kiwanis Club had a name change in mind, he said the mayor was one step ahead of him. Klein showed up at the meeting to petition council to keep the old field available for youth baseball leagues.
"When the Avalanche starts its season and Salem High School closes for the summer, it takes away hardball from our youth," Klein said. "I keep telling them the next Mickey Mantle is going to come through here, and end up playing tennis" because the city doesn't have a baseball field for youth.
Twenty years ago, Klein made a similar argument to council and received a plot of land next to the Salem Civic Center for a ball field.
For years, that land served as Kiwanis Field - home to many a baseball game - until last year, when the land was taken over for the new stadium.
In other action, council:
Refused to back away from its July decision to deny a rezoning to Wendy's of Western Virginia, despite a Salem Circuit Court judge's ruling that the decision was "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable."
Council had denied the rezoning because the land Wendy's wished to purchase on Electric Road is in a residential area. In the city's comprehensive plan, the land is to be zoned industrial, not commercial, in the future.
"There's a reason that council and planning commissions were established . . . We have to protect our turf," Taliaferro said.
However, Judge Roy B. Willett has ruled that, because a Hardee's is across the street and the other businesses are in the neighborhood, council's decision was unjustified.
In executive session, council voted to appeal Willett's ruling to the state Supreme Court.
Awarded a contract for final closure of the city's landfill at Mowles Spring Park to M.C. Construction of South Boston. Bids on the project ranged from $497,000 to $768,000. M.C. Construction's bid was the lowest.
When the city first put the project out for bids last year, "the bids had been right at $1 million. So we changed some things and re-bid it, and it came in about half of that," City Manager Randy Smith said.
Changes in state regulations forced the city to close its landfill in 1993. Currently, the city trucks its garbage to Amelia County under a five-year contract with Chambers Development Corp.
Voted to cancel its 10-year contract with Appalachian Power Co., which expires in 1998, so it can negotiate a new coontract with the utility. The city, which runs its own electric company, buys electricity wholesale from Apco.
by CNB