ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, March 30, 1996 TAG: 9604010024
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
HE'S BEEN LOW-KEY during his 30 years with the city. Gordon Peters carried that persona a step further Friday, quietly announcing he's ready to step down.
More than $1 billion in real estate taxes and other revenues has passed through the hands of Gordon Peters during his 18 years as Roanoke treasurer.
Now, after just over 30 years with the city, Peters is laying down his pencil. On Friday, he quietly announced that he will retire May 31.
"I've just been planning on retiring, and I got my required time to do it," said Peters, who is 56. "I just want to do something else rather than come to the treasurer's office every day. I'll probably do some traveling; I'll have more time to spend with my family."
Peters' retirement means that City Council will have one more major appointment to make before the terms of five council members come to an end June 30.
One city government source said "an understanding" has been worked out to appoint longtime Assistant Treasurer David Anderson to the remaining 18 months of Peters' term. Council won't make the appointment until June.
The job pays Peters $67,000 a year. But his successor will earn slightly more than $50,000 annually because Roanoke's population dipped below 100,000 in the 1990 census. State law pegs constitutional officers' salaries to population levels.
Sincere but rather shy - at least when it comes to the media - Peters perhaps is the most out-of-the-limelight elected official in the city of Roanoke.
He says that's just his style.
"I've tried to keep it low-profile ... Some of us like to keep a low profile, and others of us like a high profile, and that's what makes the world go round, I guess," Peters said.
In fact, "If it could be my wish, there would be no article or story about my retirement," he said.
Peters entered city government in 1965, left it briefly to work for a furniture company, then returned as a top assistant to his mentor, former Treasurer Johnny Johnson.
When Johnson didn't seek re-election in 1977, Peters ran and won. It was his first of five elections. No one has ever run against him.
The treasurer's duty is to handle all money received by the city: personal property taxes on cars, trucks, boats and motorcycles; real estate taxes; utility taxes; parking fines; meal taxes; gross-receipts taxes; and transfers from the state and federal governments. This year, that income totals about $175 million.
The treasurer also oversees the investment of all city cash except for pension funds.
Peters says he has enjoyed the contact he has had with taxpayers over the years - even if they didn't necessarily enjoy forking over their money.
Most of the contact "has been favorable," he said. The part of the job he didn't like was "sometimes the miscommunications we have with taxpayers, and when [late] penalties are assessed."
When he first took office, tax payments were recorded by hand, although City Council and other officials had been clamoring for computerization in the office for the previous five years.
"We had thousands and thousands of tax tickets. And each time a person came in to make a payment, we pulled that tax ticket and posted it," Peters recalled.
Within a year, Peters began backing computers. The electronic age dawned in the treasurer's office in 1984,just when city began computerizing its real estate records.
About the only time Peters created any sort of buzz came in 1983, when he accepted the winnings of a Super Bowl bet between then-Gov. Charles Robb and then-Gov. Bob Graham of Florida.
The payoff: 9,000 bees, thanks to the Washington Redskins' 27-17 victory over the Miami Dolphins. A longtime beekeeper, Peters took the bees off Robb's hands and put them to work in hives in the back yard of his Oakland Boulevard home in Northwest Roanoke.
"They died out on me a couple of years ago," he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Peters. color.by CNB