ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, June 7, 1996 TAG: 9606070023
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
MONTGOMERY County Supervisor Joe Stewart is a public servant with the word "no" often on his lips.
In recent years, he has voted no on bond issues for capital improvements, no on county school budgets, no on an open-space plan to help protect farmland.
Yet, in April 1989, when the Board of Supervisors first considered the so-called smart road, Stewart voted "yes," joining a unanimous endorsement of the project.
That was before a specific route for the link between Blacksburg and the Roanoke Valley was identified. Since then, the Virginia Department of Transportation has proposed a route - and it happens to run right through land owned by Stewart.
Now he opposes the project.
Stewart doesn't make any bones about why. He doesn't oppose the road because he questions its value in easing traffic congestion, linking more closely the New River and Roanoke valleys, providing a test bed for high-tech transportation research, or spawning new jobs for the region.
Stewart opposes the highway because of where it would go - through his property.
It would encroach, he says, on the site of the former Montgomery White Sulphur Springs resort, a 19th-century spa. Stewart, a farmer, owns 424 acres off Virginia 641, a stretch of land that includes the resort site. The road would bisect his land.
As it happens, planners chose the current alignment in the Ellett Valley in part to avoid the resort site. According to planning maps, the road itself would pass more than 400 feet away from a Confederate cemetery on the former resort grounds. It would do so without any nearby access or interchanges.
Nevertheless, Stewart is of the opinion that the highway would detract from the setting, which is situated on his land, and his opinion is relevant. As an affected landowner, his discomfort is understandable.
What is less understandable is his stated intention to vote Monday - despite his special interest - on whether the road's development should proceed.
The vote will decide whether to allow, deny or delay VDOT's request to take a small portion of a conservation district, including Stewart's land, needed to build the road.
We won't deny that our concern regarding Stewart's involvement is heightened by our support for the smart highway. But the board's vote might be close, and his vote decisive. And the outcome could decide the fate of the entire project. Surely that heightens the public's interest in propriety.
Stewart shares his special interest, of course, with other property owners whose land lies in the route of the road. The other property owners, however, aren't members of the Board of Supervisors.
The county attorney has interpreted Virginia's conflict-of-interest law as allowing Stewart to vote as long as he discloses his interest and declares he is voting in the public interest.
Questions might be raised about the validity of this interpretation or the efficacy of Virginia's law. But no conflict-of-interest statute can be crafted to exclude the need for good judgment.
When asked Monday whether he'll vote on the taking of his own land, Stewart should just say "no."
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