ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 13, 1996 TAG: 9603130042
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
Montgomery County has authorized borrowing $3.8 million this spring to start designing and building the new Riner elementary school.
Where the rest of the money to build the school, up to $5.8 million, will come from won't be clear until the county Board of Supervisors learns more next week about a financing scenario involving the New River Valley Community Services Board's hopes to renovate a Blacksburg office building.
The supervisors approved the $3.8 million in borrowing, through a bond sale of the Virginia Public School Authority, in a 6-1 vote late Monday, with Supervisor Nick Rush the lone dissenter.
The vote, which means the county should have the money this spring to begin the project, came after the board reaffirmed its intent to buy 30 acres for the school behind the existing Auburn High School, on land held in trust for a young Riner farmer, Ronald Salmons.
Board Chairman Henry Jablonski said the county staff and board members will negotiate with the Salmonses and "we'll see where things will go from there."
But Supervisor Joe Gorman asked if the county could still pursue the $3.8 million in bonds without a site.
"I think we have a site," Jablonski answered.
"Your crystal ball must be better than mine," Gorman said.
Also Monday, the supervisors directed the School Board to provide a detailed list of site requirements for future school building projects, including a new Shawsville high school. With information compiled - on acreage needed, road access, utilities, slope and so forth - the county can solicit land proposals from the public.
But School Board members are concerned that the ultimate intent of the supervisors' action will be to shut the School Board out of the site-selection process. Last week, the School Board voted against the same idea.
Gorman, though, suggested it might help avoid the controversy that has surrounded the Riner school site acquisition. "We've just gone through the greatest fiasco that I've ever participated in," said Gorman, a veteran of 30 years of local government.
If the politics surrounding the new Riner school have been in turmoil, its financing got a little more complicated Monday when a lawyer presented a plan to get around a $10 million annual cap on county-endorsed borrowing. That cap, part of federal tax regulations, doesn't affect the school financing one way or another, but is crucial to the New River Valley Community Services Board's hopes to obtain low-interest financing to renovate a Blacksburg office building this year.
Before it can borrow $1.6 million for the project on University City Boulevard, the Community Services Board needs the county's endorsement.
Dan Siegel, a lawyer for the Community Services Board, suggested that rather than apply for a second Virginia Public School Authority loan this fall, Montgomery County could wait until January 1997 and apply for a state Literary Loan instead.
That would keep the county under the $10 million borrowing cap for this year and would save money - the Literary Fund's interest rate is lower than the school authority's.
Dan Morris, director of finance for the schools, said Tuesday that he sent a proposal to the county that used both funding sources.
Morris said the county could wait to apply for the second school authority loan until spring 1997, thereby allowing the county to assist the Community Services Board.
Staff writer Lisa Applegate contributed to this report.
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