Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 25, 1995 TAG: 9510250038
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Long
Leave it to John Sublett to be a troublemaker.
When all the candidates for the Bedford County Board of Supervisors showed up at a forum last week wearing dark suits, he wore a light brown suit.
And when his opponent, current board Chairman Dale Wheeler, told voters that the county has one of the lowest debt services and tax rates in the region, Sublett said even that was too much.
"They just spend the taxpayers' money easy. Easy come, easy go," said Sublett, who's running for the seat that represents Stewartsville and Chamblissburg. "If I'm elected, what I plan to do is stop up some of the leaks."
The Sublett-Wheeler race shares a common thread with the county's other two contested supervisors races: It's a battle between the forces of change and those who think the county government's gone too far.
"What's at stake? It's the question of 'Should we go into the 21st century or backward?' It's about progress," said Wheeler, who has compared Sublett's mind-set to an eight-track tape player in a world of compact discs.
Wheeler, a 42-year-old appliance salesman, was elected to the board in 1990. Since then, the board created the county's first zoning system. It updated the comprehensive plan. It commissioned a long-range study for water and sewer needs. It brought forward a proposal to merge with Bedford.
It has lowered tax rates and purchased an industrial building to encourage commercial growth. It built a new animal control center. It has paved the way for a computerized E-911 system. It has improved roads and built schools.
But it also has borrowed and spent a lot of money doing many of those things. Too much, if you ask Sublett.
"We've got to address this debt we've got. We don't want to end up like the federal government," he said.
Sublett, a 61-year-old retired meatpacker, is a former chairman of the board of supervisors, of which he was a member from 1975 to 1983. He's also a longtime rescue squad volunteer and former captain and president of the Stewartsville and Chamblissburg Volunteer Rescue Squad.
A self-styled "tight-fisted conservative," Sublett said he believes the county should get a return for every dollar it spends, and that has not always happened under the most recent boards, he said.
As an example, he cites the board's much-publicized battle with Sheriff Carl Wells over $15,000 in interest it said Wells owed the board from his practice of depositing payroll funds into his personal checking account.
The county spent more than $25,000 in legal costs to get the money from Wells and settled for $2,000, which Wells paid to the county.
Sublett also cites other examples of what he calls excessive spending: $25,000 to Campbell County Rescue Squad, which answers calls in Bedford County, for a crash truck; $366,000 to cover a budget overrun by the county School Board.
He complains about $33,000 that was spent on a plastic cover that was used to divert runoff at the county's new landfill and which was later discarded. The cover saved the county money in sewage-treatment costs by diverting the water into a storm-water management system, according to County Administrator Bill Rolfe.
Sublett and Wheeler disagree on the amount of the county's debt. Sublett said it's about $50 million, based on the consolidation agreement between Bedford and Bedford County and figures provided by the school superintendent's office.
Wheeler and Rolfe said a recent state audit placed the county's debt at about $35 million. The consolidation agreement, which said the county's debt is $46.5 million, includes debts incurred by the county Public Service Authority - which are not included in the state's assessment of the county's debt - and interest on county debts, Rolfe said.
In addition, Sublett complains of high taxes - namely a $2.50 monthly surcharge on his electric bill and the $2 monthly surcharge for enhanced 911 service on his phone bill. He said the public hasn't been given a say on how long these surcharges are imposed or how the money's being spent.
"I think the time has come when we have to return local government back to the people of Bedford County," he said.
Bob Crouch agrees with Sublett. He's running for the seat that represents Montvale, and he said he believes voters have been left out of the board's decisions for change.
Crouch, a 60-year-old machinist, spouts county revenues and expenditures like curse words.
"Are you ready for a change in the way our county government operates?" his campaign signs ask. "My desire is to see the county government given back to the people."
Crouch has pledged to donate his salary as a supervisor to the Montvale volunteer fire and rescue squads.
But he raised some eyebrows after he suggested that, until county taxpayers get answers about the progress of the E-911 system, they should refuse to pay the $2 monthly surcharge on their phone bills.
Not paying the surcharge is a misdemeanor punishable by a $100 fine.
Crouch's opponent, Bobby Pollard, 59, rests on his record. He served on the Board of Supervisors from 1984 to 1989 and spent two years as its chairman. He's retired from Norfolk Southern, where he worked for 38 years.
As for the other contested race, Roger Cheek, the 48-year-old owner of an auto-body shop, sounds a lot like Crouch and Sublett. He's running against incumbent Earle Hobbs for the seat that represents the Huddleston area.
"As a business owner, I know how to operate on a budget," Cheek told voters recently. "I know how to be sure when you spend a dollar, that you get your money's worth of services."
Cheek's agenda isn't that different from Hobbs', but Cheek asks voters why the $6 million library bond referendum on this fall's ballot includes new library space in every district but Huddleston.
"The people of Bedford County need to be heard," Cheek said. "If elected, I will be your messenger."
Hobbs, 69, retired from Flowers Baking Co. in Lynchburg in 1980 and moved to Smith Mountain Lake. A longtime member of the county's Public Service Authority, he was appointed to the board last year after the death of Supervisor Jim Teass.
Like Wheeler and Pollard, he said he'll let his political experience - and the county's progress - speak for him.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB