ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, February 15, 1997 TAG: 9702170016
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: PEMBROKE
SOURCE: TOM ANGLEBERGER STAFF WRITER
Pembroke Town Manager Randi Lemmon has announced his intention to resign on June 1, but he says he still wants to be play a role in shaping this small Giles County town's future.
Town Council will begin interviewing possible replacements soon. The council will also have to consider Lemmon's request to continue working for the town as a consultant.
"I think I can be of greater service to the town," says Lemmon. "I would like to shift ...to other activities and leave the day-to-day running of the town to a resident town manager."
Lemmon, a Montgomery County resident, says the town would be best served if a Pembroke resident took the reins. This would leave him more time to work for the town as a planning consultant, the job that brought him to Pembroke in the first place.
Pembroke, with slightly more than 1,000 residents, is the third-largest of the five incorporated towns in Giles County, and the closest to the growing Blacksburg area.
Lemmon began his association with Pembroke in the early 1990s, helping to find financing for the town's $6.3 million sewer collection and treatment system. After securing the funding for the project, he also helped acquire land for the treatment plant, obtained property easements for the sewage system and administered the construction.
About three years ago, Pembroke officials decided to create the position of town manager to reduce the mayor's workload. Lemmon accepted it on an interim basis. On July 30, 1994, he became the town's first town manager.
With the job, he says, came a large workload of personnel, budgeting, zoning and administrative matters. These duties, he says, made it difficult for him to continue planning for and fostering the town's economic development.
Economic development and town planning are his greatest strengths, he says, and they are too important to take a back seat to the daily operations of the town.
Lemmon hopes that soon after Town Council accepts his resignation, it will hire him again to tackle a number of large projects on the horizon.
In a letter to the mayor and council members, Lemmon outlined his accomplishments and listed the goals he hopes Pembroke can achieve. These accomplishments range from obtaining $5.4 million in grants and donations, to organizing efforts to improve and expand Pembroke's parks, playground and ballfield. Now he hopes to turn his full attention to similar projects. An important goal, he says, is the completion of a commercial center, a project he initiated.
By developing a 6-acre site at U.S. 460 and Cascade Drive, the town can attract some much-needed services, he says. The commercial center could include a grocery store, restaurant, community center, pharmacy and medical clinic.
The medical clinic is an especially important goal, he says. "We have no doctor, we have no dentist, we have no pharmacy." It is possible for Pembroke to reach these and other goals, Lemmon says, if someone can develop the plans and find the money to make them happen. He believes that is the task he's best suited for.
"That's what I want to continue doing," he says. "That's the role I want to go back to." Lemmon's plans actually extend beyond Pembroke; he is also consulting with Narrows on the revitalization of its downtown district and hopes to work on projects in other Giles County communities as a consultant.
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