ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 25, 1996 TAG: 9603250093
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: S.D. HARRINGTON STAFF WRITER
THE SALEM TAXPAYERS ASSOCIATION is putting together information about the fiscal views of the five candidates running for City Council.
During a Salem City Council meeting last spring, about 20 people showed up to protest a 37.5 percent sewer rate increase that would fund Salem's share of a regional sewage-treatment plant.
All of them wore bright yellow "No Sewer Rate Increase" badges. Several spoke against the tax increase.
Council decided that night to phase in the increase over two years instead of imposing it all at once. Council members said the protesters didn't affect their decision.
Aaron Smith, the man who provided the buttons and rallied much of the opposition, begs to differ.
Aside from issues such as someone trying to open bingo games next to a residential area, Smith says, large turnouts of protesters at City Council meetings are rare in quiet Salem - where he says city officials like to think the majority of the residents trust them.
Now, Smith and three other Salem residents are hoping to influence voters' decisions in the May 7 City Council elections.
They're putting together an informational campaign to air the fiscal views of the five candidates.
And they want to bring more resident participation into Salem's government.
"In Salem, there's not an open democracy," said Smith, the unofficial ringleader of the Salem Taxpayers Association.
The objects of Smith's attention seem to regard him more as a nuisance than a credible critic. A city official said his solutions are "simplistic," and a council member said they don't make sense.
"We want to elect people to City Council that will concentrate on needs rather than wants," said Mary Burton, who joined forces with Smith after reading his newsletter, The Beacon. "If bigger was better, we wouldn't be such a small city."
The other two group members, M.D. "Doc" Long and Warren Robertson, said they met Smith at the public hearing where they helped protest the sewer rate increase.
They say their goal is simple: to keep the city's spending from increasing more than the cost of living.
Smith has attended City Council meetings faithfully for the past five years.
When he first started, he helped form the Virginia Referendum Advocates, a group that lobbied for resident-advisory referendums on projects that involve major spending.
That group disbanded about two years ago, and Smith began a similar group, the Salem Taxpayers Association.
In the name of the new group, Smith has fought everything from tax increases to what he calls unnecessary bond issues by City Council.
He says that he and those who help him are just trying to inform taxpayers about waste in their government.
He opposed paying $10.1 million to build a new baseball stadium after an advisory referendum said the facility would cost only $5 million.
And in the past 15 months, he has opposed three bond issues - totaling more than $29 million.
When he disagrees with City Council, he usually responds with his own solution to the problem. He may, for example, suggest that monies for a project be taken out of an unappropriated fund instead of raised by selling bonds or increasing taxes.
"There's something in my makeup to where I don't feel I have a right to criticize something if I don't have an idea to make it better," Smith said.
But Finance Director Frank Turk says Smith's ideas are simply too good to be true.
"His version is a very simplistic, cash version," Turk said.
"I just don't think you can come along and say cost-of-living increases are what you can measure spending by."
Often the Consumer Price Index doesn't include commercial and industrial growth from which a government reaps taxes, Turk says.
And he says federal regulations would prohibit Salem from carrying out other ideas Smith has suggested.
"We have had several long discussions about the way he presents things," Turk said.
Despite the city's rejection of his ideas, Smith has developed something of a following.
He says that about 32 Salem residents contribute to the Salem Taxpayers Association, sometimes as little as $5 for Smith's bimonthly newsletter.
The Beacon has run headlines such as "City of Salem drowns in sea of debt" and "City of Salem cash revenue increases exceed inflation."
It's not that Smith and his group believe other area governments are better managers of taxpayers' money.
He laughs at the money Roanoke spent on the pedestrian bridge linking Hotel Roanoke and City Market.
And he says Roanoke County wasted its money when it moved county offices from Brambleton Avenue to a four-story building off Electric Road.
But Smith says Roanoke and Roanoke County do a better job of listening to their residents.
He says he doesn't buy the claim that Salem City Council is better off without partisan politics in its elections.
"It's the GOB party - the good ol' boy party," Smith said.
"Salem City Council has passed off its unanimity as its specialness," he said. "That kind of lock-step mentality restricts public debate."
Mayor Jim Taliaferro, who has listened to Smith for the past five years, says City Council listens to Smith just as it does every resident.
Taliaferro said that most of the time he doesn't understand Smith's ideas.
"If any of it made sense, maybe it would have an impact," he said.
Do you have a concern you would like to see addressed in the Salem City Council races? Let us know so we can follow up. Write S.D. Harrington, The Roanoke Times, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke 24010.
LENGTH: Long : 113 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/Staff Members of Salem Taxpayersby CNBAssociation want to get more residents involved in the budget
process. From left are Aaron Smith, M.D. "Doc" Long, Warren
Robertson and Mary Burton. KEYWORDS: POLITICS CITY COUNCIL