Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 10, 1995 TAG: 9509110026
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Ralph Smith, the owner of the Rockledge mansion near the top of Mill Mountain, has a couple of problems.
The first is a deteriorating concrete bridge along Prospect Road, the old access road to Mill Mountain. For safety reasons, the city closed the bridge to traffic at least three years ago.
That limits parking for parties and civic events for which Smith is host, such as annual dinners for Miss Virginia contestants, garden club tours and $250-a-head fund-raisers for GOP candidates such as Oliver North and Gov. George Allen. On some occasions, Smith has had to bus guests in.
The second is people - the kind who drive up the road late at night and litter his property with beer cans. They're up to no good, and Smith doesn't want them there.
The factory owner also has a couple of solutions: Give him the road - or, at the least, let him erect gates that would close it to vehicular traffic.
In recent months, Smith has quietly brought the two proposals to the Mill Mountain Development Committee, on which he serves. The citizen panel, appointed by City Council, is charged with advising council members on developmental issues concerning the mountain, which was given to the city for a park by the Fishburn family in 1941.
"My interest and most people's interest in repairing the bridge is keeping it from falling in one day and being lost," Smith said last week.
As for people, "the idea is to keep people out who need not be on the road and who are usually up to no good. ... The walkers [and cyclists] are not the problem. It's the dope smokers and the hangers-out who are there after hours. Problems usually happen after 11 p.m.," he added.
In the first proposal, the city would give Smith the road. He would assume all responsibility for it. And he'd spend $50,000 of his own money to stabilize the unusual "under-and-over" bridge, which Smith considers a piece of local history.
Under that scenario, the road would be closed to the public, except during a handful of special events each year, like an annual bicycle race up Mill Mountain during Festival in the Park. Smith said he'd also grant the city an easement so emergency vehicles could use the old road to get to the park.
In Smith's second proposal, the city would retain ownership of the road and spend taxpayer money to fix the bridge. But the city would allow Smith to erect a security gate along the road where a stone archway now stands.
The gate would bar vehicles - except Smith's and his guests' - but have a gap wide enough to permit hikers and bikers through. They'd be allowed on the road between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., the same hours Mill Mountain Park is open.
Smith has been pushing the proposals without any result since early this year. In August, the committee deferred any action on it until at least late October.
The delay has caused him to wonder if politics might be interfering, given that Democrats have a 4-3 majority on City Council.
``There have been a lot of politicians using my house over the years, and yes, most of them are Republicans,'' Smith said. ``... No one's come out and said it, but I got this sense people were saying, `we can't let this Republican have anything. Things are too successful up there now.'''
Committee member Betty Winfree said she sympathizes with Smith's problem, especially the troubles with "the joy-riding punks who go up and pummel his property with beer cans."
But "I don't think we legally can give [the road and bridge] to him," because of conditions attached to the gift by the Fishburn family decades ago, she said.
For now, the committee has asked the Department of Parks and Recreation to study various options.
"We want to see something done," said Chairman Carl Kopitzke. "We're all in support of efforts to keep that bridge from collapsing. But as far as all of our alternatives, we're unsure. ... It's all kind of up in the air."
Parks and Recreation Manager John Coates is scheduled to brief the committee on Oct. 26. The chief factor he is considering is how much impact closing the road would have on the public.
Coates said he'd like to preserve pedestrian and bicycle access. He doubts closing the road would affect traffic, because it's been closed at the bridge for years. Anybody who drives up there now has to turn around anyway, he noted.
The road also has been mentioned as a potential linear park, or "greenway," by Mayor David Bowers. He said he'd like to find a way to link it to Wiley Drive along the Roanoke River, the city's only existing linear park.
by CNB