ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, June 4, 1996 TAG: 9606040074
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTINA NUCKOLS STAFF WRITER
A meeting for West Roanoke County residents interested in annexation into the city of Salem has been canceled. Those involved in setting up the meeting say annexation in West County is a dead issue.
The meeting was scheduled for 7 tonight at Glenvar High School, but Salem officials who were invited to attend backed out last week.
Bob Crouse, president of the Catawba Coalition of Civic Leagues, announced the cancellation Monday, although he continued to maintain that his organization never called the meeting in the first place. The coalition did invite Salem officials to the event, but Crouse said annexation proponents Charles Landis and David Shelor were responsible for organizing the meeting.
Shelor and Landis have denied calling the meeting. Crouse said he asked Landis to cancel the meeting last week, but he said Landis told him, "I wash my hands of the whole thing."
However, Crouse blamed Salem officials for the confusion that has resulted from their decision not to attend.
"The 11th-hour pullout does not bode well for the city of Salem," he said. "The credibility of the city government of the city of Salem has been clouded."
Shelor said last week that Salem officials decided not to participate based on legal advice that their presence would "poison" the annexation movement and cause it to be thrown out of court.
"My gosh, what do they think they have done?'' Crouse asked Monday.
Crouse said Salem Attorney Stephen Yost should have pointed out any potential problems before the city agreed to attend the meeting. The coalition leader speculated that the motivation behind the change in plans was a desire "to appease the Salemites" concerned about the cost of an annexation.
Crouse predicted that Salem would meet with "resistance" if the city ever attempted to annex part of West County on its own in the future.
He said the coalition would not endorse a proposal to organize a resident-initiated annexation petition drive, but he did say the group might continue to gather information on the issue for its eight member civic leagues.
Landis defended Salem officials, saying they acted in good faith, but he agreed that the collapse of the meeting has likely killed any prospects for a future annexation of Glenvar.
"I think this will put an end to this matter for good," he said.
The reason, he said, is that Salem officials and county residents find themselves in a "Catch-22'' situation. County residents want to know if Salem officials are really interested in and willing to assume financial and legal responsibility before they begin collecting petitions. However, Salem officials can't answer those questions without tainting a resident-initiated action.
It's unclear how many county residents would have attended tonight's meeting, but there has long been dissatisfaction in the Glenvar area over taxes and the level of services residents receive from the county.
"I think there would have been a lot of people at the meeting," said Mark Goodes, branch manager of Brad Ragan Commercial Tire Center, who had posted one of the 4,000 fliers that were distributed to publicize the event. "There was a lot of interest in getting information."
Landis said he is content to continue living in Roanoke County and that he never intended to advocate annexation. However, Landis has been involved in past attempts to make Glenvar part of Salem. In the late 1980s, he made personal visits to Salem Mayor James Taliaferro to discuss the issue when Roanoke city began discussing a merger with the county.
Supervisors' Chairman Bob Johnson publicly criticized Landis for interfering in talks between the county and Salem over a "boundary adjustment" to place Glenvar in the city limits. Landis had announced during a community meeting that Taliaferro had told him that Salem City Council had already drafted ordinances to that effect. Landis also said Taliaferro told him that the Red Lane agreement, which prohibited Salem from initiating an annexation until 1993, was void.
LENGTH: Medium: 74 linesby CNB