Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 2, 1995 TAG: 9508020050
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG LENGTH: Medium
That, council members said, is why they unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday agreeing not to annex any part of Bedford County for 20 years.
Council also agreed not to revert to a town and seek inclusion in Bedford County if state laws change to allow such a move.
These may sound like gifts given in good faith, but some Bedford County officials call them a Trojan horse.
``They don't want Bedford County to be a city,'' said Bedford County Supervisor Gus Saarnijoki. If a referendum passes this fall that proposes consolidating Bedford and Bedford County, the resulting city would be permanently immune from annexation by Lynchburg.
And that, Saarnijoki said, is precisely what Lynchburg doesn't want. A consolidated Bedford would cut off any possibility of Lynchburg's expanding its borders into the tax-rich Bedford County suburbs that abut it.
Lynchburg City Council passed two resolutions Tuesday. The first amounted to a simple pledge not to seek land from Bedford County for 20 years.
The second said that Lynchburg would seek approval from the state Comission on Local Government to make the annexation ban legally binding.
However, the Commission on Local Government generally doesn't approve agreements between localities unless both give something up. And that would mean more negotiating between Lynchburg and Bedford County, according to Lynchburg Mayor James S. Whitaker.
Last week, Bedford County turned down a similar offer from Lynchburg because Lynchburg wanted millions of dollars of shared infrastructure in exchange for a pledge not to annex.
Bedford County Administrator Bill Rolfe said he sees Lynchburg's most recent offer as a step in the right direction, but he also said county voters probably won't go for the merger referendum if Lynchburg makes a no-annexation guarantee.
``If we eliminate the reason why consolidation [talks] got started, then common sense dictates it can't help the passage of the consolidation referendum,'' Rolfe said.
Saarnijoki warned, however, that if voters choose a 20-year agreement over permanent protection, it will be bad for Bedford County, because ``after we became a consolidated city, we'd be a more stable unit, which could easily enhance industrial development.''
Memo: NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.