ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 4, 1996 TAG: 9609040040
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DALE WILKINSON
I TOOK my four young children recently to see democracy in action at the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors monthly meeting in Fincastle. What they ended up seeing was something much more significant. It's called taxation without representation. It left an impression on us that we won't soon forget.
We live on property adjacent to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Our insightful county administrator and the Board of Supervisors have decided to shine 40,000 watts of lights nightly on a soccer field adjacent to our property and the parkway. They made that decision without prior notification to bordering neighbors, either my family or the Department of the Interior. They simply did what they wanted without input from neighboring parties.
Don't get me wrong. I think county parks are great. With four children, we have taken advantage of baseball and soccer fields throughout the Blue Ridge area. But of the hundreds of fine families I've spoken with who use Blue Ridge Park, only a few believe night games are needed, or are good. They think the way we think: that our area's national park, the Blue Ridge Parkway, is pretty important, too. And that we shouldn't do unneeded things to disturb its quiet beauty.
It seems Botetourt County government hasn't quite recognized this yet. Other local governments are protecting viewsheds. Developers are required to go to great pains to consider the impact on the parkway. Not so with Botetourt County government, specifically its administration. In fact, the county administrator failed to inform the Board of Supervisors of parkway officials' concern about the lights, which they addressed in two separate telephone calls to the county. Their concern was irrelevant because the issue already had been decided.
I had written the county administrator two years ago and asked to be placed on an interested-party list for any issue that was planned to go before the board relative to the Blue Ridge Parkway, so that we could at least be aware of action that the county was considering. I've come to find out that the county does not have an interested-party process. I guess a database of names, addresses and issues is a little too complicated for the administration to handle.
So, we are getting lights without having an opportunity to contribute to any discussion of need, design or effect on homes or parkway viewsheds. That got me thinking about other recent actions by the county administrator and the Board of Supervisors. A good idea for a new business park (Greenfield) became very controversial because the administration insisted on acting without listening to tax-paying citizens. "It's for our own good" they told us. A golf course and hundreds of new homes were approved at Braemar without listening to neighbors' legitimate traffic concerns. A school site (Read Mountain) was located in a residential setting without the input of the surrounding families.
New jobs, new homes, new schools and new parks are all great things. Most of us support, and in fact promote, growth in our area. But the end does not justify the means. The way we go about arriving at consensus does matter. Even this backward Botetourt farmer has learned that lesson.
We simply need processes in place in the day-to-day business of governing that allow tax-paying citizens the input they deserve. We don't have that in Botetourt County. More important, we don't have the desire or the ability on the part of the administration or Board of Supervisors to create those processes.
Today, it was my family and the large family of people who enjoy the serenity of the Blue Ridge Parkway who were affected by these self-serving, career-building bureaucrats. Tomorrow, it could be you and your family. When they knock at your door, if they care enough to knock, you'd better watch out.
Dale Wilkinson of Botetourt County is president of The Wilkinson Group Inc., which markets retirement communities.
LENGTH: Medium: 73 linesby CNB