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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 9, 1995                   TAG: 9508090051
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI                                LENGTH: Medium

SOME ON COUNCIL DON'T WANT TO BE CUT DOWN IN SIZE|

Pulaski Council Members are struggling to come up with the proper size for the town's governing body.

Some say council is fine as it is. Others say it should be reduced by one, two or three members.

But the question is having difficulty getting before council's eight members because the Ordinance Committee considering the issue has voted 2 to 1 not to make any recommendation at all.

Alma Holston and E.G. "Junior" Black, both of whom oppose any change, voted Tuesday morning to present no recommendation for council to consider at its 7 p.m. session Aug. 15. Committee Chairwoman Bettye Steger voted against Holston's motion, suggesting that consideration be delayed until the committee could hear from its remaining member, Roy D'Ardenne.

The ordinance meeting also was attended by Mayor Andy Graham, who favors reducing the number of seats to six and giving the mayor a vote on business matters. Now the mayor only votes in case of a tie. Three other council members attended the meeting but none of them was on the ordinance committee and they could not take part in the vote.

Some of them may still bring the matter before council on their own initiative.

Councilman Eddie Hale said he would like to see the number of council members reduced to seven. John Stone suggested five. John Johnston said he would like to hear more reasons as to why a change should be considered.

"If it's not broken, don't fix it," Holston said, as she has on previous occasions when the matter has come up. "I think, if you go smaller, you run the risk of some special interests taking over. I don't want to see that."

Stone said the current number does not guarantee a diversity of interests on council.

"One of the things that bothers me most about council is that four of us live on the same street," he said. "It looks like a private club here."

Stone suggested having citizens, rather than council members, serve on the Ordinance Committee and council's other committees. A council member could lead them, he said.

He also said council might get a lot of input on issues with a larger membership but would be more efficient with fewer members.

Holston said she conducts informal telephone surveys of town residents, and has called 431 of them in the past two months on issues like this one.

Regarding any change in the size of council, she said, 97 liked the idea but 309 opposed it and 35 others said they didn't care. Those giving their reasons for opposing it said it would put too much power in too few hands, she said.

Town Attorney Frank Terwilliger said changing council's size would require an amendment to the town charter.

The first step would be placing a referendum on the ballot to see if voters favor the change, or holding a public hearing on the issue. The next step would be for the change to go before the General Assembly for approval.

But before that, the issue has to reach council. And that remains to be seen.

The Ordinance Committee also decided to hold off making recommendations on strengthening ordinances governing junked vehicles and vicious dogs.

Police Chief Herb Cooley said progress is being made in cleaning up junked vehicles in town. About 113 junked cars have been removed from public view.

"You might want to wait and see what happens," he said. "These vehicles are going away daily. ... Where we were dealing with a hundred and some people, now we're only dealing with a dozen."

Regarding animal complaints, Cooley said, "Most of the time, it's barking dogs ... which we can handle by citation." He said the situation has proved to be "kind of like the junked cars. We have a high success rate with cooperation."

The town had sought help from Pulaski County in catching dogs running at large. County Administrator Joe Morgan replied that, with only two staff members trying to handle livestock protection over more than 300 square miles, "it is unrealistic to expect a rapid response to complaints about dogs running at large."