ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 9, 1996 TAG: 9611110096
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: RADFORD
SOURCE: LESLIE HAGER-SMITH STAFF WRITER
City Council will meet in closed session again Tuesday to discuss plans for a new courthouse.
Mayor Tom Starnes confirmed that council has reduced the site options to two, at least one of which would involve acquiring property.
City Manager Bob Asbury said one prospective site is near the Municipal Building on Second Street. The second site still under consideration is in the East End downtown area, a location favored by the Main Street Radford organization.
In the seven years since council decided the Municipal and Public Safety buildings needed replacement or remodeling, cost projections for work on the current municipal building grew from $1 million to more than $4 million.
Renovating an off-site facility, suggested by Vice Mayor Dave Worrell, would cost $2.3 million, according to consulting engineers Hansen Lind Meyer Inc.
General obligation bonds will be needed to fund the project, meaning that either taxes must increase or services decrease to pay the debt on the bonds.
Council has considered the present Carilion Radford Community Hospital building in its search space. Carilion Health Systems, which will start building a replacement hospital in February nearby in Montgomery County, offered to give the older building to the city.
"It was offered to us and we did look at it and it really did not fit into the city's plans," Starnes said. The building's type and location eliminated it from consideration, he said. "It is not one of the options we're currently pursuing."
Council will discuss the issue in private under the real estate exception to the state Freedom of Information Act, which allows for secrecy when a government body would be put at a financial disadvantage in acquiring property. The possibility that public discussion would cause controversy is not sufficient grounds to justify invoking the exception.
Also Tuesday, council will re-examine parking regulations in the downtown area. Merchants have complained of being ticketed while parked near their places of business in the early morning hours.
Parking in the wee hours on certain days is prohibited on some streets because of street cleaning and snow removal.
At the Oct. 14 meeting, Councilwoman Polly Corn railed against easing parking restrictions by making them less uniform, saying she was "shocked at the proposal."
"As council members, we fought this battle 10 years ago!" City Engineer Jim Hurt was asked to submit a less complex, more enforceable rewrite of the city code. It will come before council on Tuesday.
Also on the agenda for Tuesday's council meeting is:
* Approval of the final plat for Phase II of the Cedar Ridge Town Homes. Five town homes are in phase II. No site development or utility extensions will be required.
* Consideration of three new county memberships in the New River Valley Regional Jail Authority: Floyd, Carroll and Wythe.
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