Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 2, 1995 TAG: 9509050041
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: TODD JACKSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Medium
The director, Hilde Hussa, said Friday morning that she knew nothing about the meeting - held at First Virginia Bank on Main Street - or why it was held.
"I'm rather upset at this point," she said, after being reached by telephone at the partnership's office, a short distance from where the meeting was taking place. "I'm going to have to get out of here and walk up the street and see what I can find out."
Reached a few hours later, Hussa confirmed that she did sit down and talk with several members of the partnership's executive committee, made up of the heads of several other board committees.
She had no other comment.
Dick Shoemaker, a member of the partnership's executive committee, said a formal statement from the board will be released when the situation is worked out.
Told that town officials had confirmed that Hussa has been asked to step down, Shoemaker, president of First Virginia Banks-Franklin County, said: "If that's what you were told, then that's the basis I'll have to work off of."
The partnership was formed last fall by the county and town governments and local business leaders. The Rocky Mount Town Council and the Franklin County Board of Supervisors appropriated $12,500 each for the program, and an additional $25,000 was raised privately.
The effort was boosted this year when the state named the town a Main Street Community - a designation that connects localities with state planning and marketing expertise.
The partnership's goal is to improve the downtown Main Street area as well as other important corridors into the town, such as U.S. 220 and Virginia 40.
Hussa - a Smith Mountain Lake resident who moved to Franklin County with her husband a couple of years ago - is the partnership's first director. She formerly was an insurance executive in the Chicago area.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.