ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, May 2, 1996 TAG: 9605020017
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER CURRENT
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
Pulaski County's three governing bodies have agreed to investigate joint Internet possibilities and to join in a cleanup campaign next year.
The county Board of Supervisors and town councils of Dublin and Pulaski held their joint quarterly meeting Tuesday night. Some of their members were among the 350 people attending a meeting Monday in Wytheville arranged by Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, on communities becoming electronic villages in the mold of Blacksburg's 21/2-year-old pioneering effort and Radford's newly launched one.
"My eyes were opened. They really were," said Pulaski Town Councilman Roy D'Ardenne. "The Internet is no longer a matter of technology. It's here. It's a matter of education."
Although Pulaski County was early in getting computers into its schools, he said, it has been passed by places like Blacksburg and Abingdon that have connected their towns to the Internet. They can access all kinds of information, he said, and it works both ways. Industries interested in plant locations also can access information about those communities.
"So this thing is here," D'Ardenne said. "The only reason for not doing it is if we don't want to do it. And if we don't want to do it, we're going to be losers," he said. "Getting on the Internet is really going to be a matter of survival."
He proposed, and the joint governing bodies approved, a steering committee to report back at the next joint meeting Sept. 24 on how Pulaski County can get onto the information superhighway.
Pulaski Town Councilwoman Bettye Steger proposed all three governments joining in a cleanup campaign at this time next year, and establishing places in the towns and county where citizens can dispose of used appliances and other large objects.
"Saturday was my birthday," she said. "I spent Saturday morning picking up trash." Steger was among the volunteers in Pulaski's town cleanup effort, and worked later that day on Draper Mountain and around Claytor Lake. She saw loads of old refrigerators, washing machines, couches and mattresses hauled away instead of being dumped along roadsides and into ravines.
"For next year, think about the fact that maybe we could all go together," she said. "I think we just have to create a wonderful atmosphere of cleaning up everything."
"Amen," said Supervisor Charles Cook, who had expressed similar ideas to members of his board. Supervisor Jerry White, who was chairman for the joint meeting, called for and got a motion to approve Steger's initiative for next year and name her to coordinate it.
"Thanks," Steger said. "I think."
Some of the officials at the last joint meeting had wanted the law enforcement leaders for the three jurisdictions to look at ways in which their departments could cooperate. County Sheriff Ralph Dobbins, Pulaski police Chief Herb Cooley and Dublin police Chief Russ Gwaltney came back Tuesday with five pages of ways in which they are already cooperating, including purchases, investigations, administration, recruitment, a drug task force, mutual aid, training, police liability insurance, patrols, dispatch, vehicle decal enforcement, a tactical team, animal control and more.
The joint governments decided that this was an item that could be dropped from their agenda.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB