ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 17, 1997 TAG: 9703170006
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY THE ROANOKE TIMES
There is a huge gap between what the city wants or needs and what it can afford.
Your house needs major repairs, and you'd also like to make a number of improvements. All together, it will cost $40,000 - but the bank will lend you only $10,000, based on your income.
That's the situation City Council finds itself in - though on a much larger scale - as it contemplates $159 million worth of "priority" capital projects in Roanoke over the next decade. The problem will likely be put before city voters in November in the largest bond referendum in Roanoke history.
Here are the boiled-down numbers from a fiscal briefing council heard March 8:
City agencies, residents and various interest groups have requested 58 capital improvement projects totalling $256 million. The list ranges from bridge maintenance, new parks and school construction to roadway improvements, storm drains and infrastructure for a new Henry Street.
A work group of city staff and residents has pared that list to 29 projects that would cost $159 million. These include the Henry Street improvements, elementary school classrooms, a new police headquarters, two new fire stations, air conditioning in schools, and money for curbs, gutters and sidewalks.
Without a tax increase, Roanoke will be able to borrow at most only $37 million to finance those projects. That's the likely amount voters could be asked to approve in November, Finance Director Jim Grisso said. It's $14 million more than the largest bond referendum to date, which was approved in 1994.
In essence, it means that for every $4 worth of "priority" public improvements, there is less than $1 to pay for them over the next 10 years.
Between now and August, it will be up to City Council to sort out which will get funded and which won't.
The situation isn't unique in the city's recent history, and city officials caution against characterizing it as an emergency. Still, council members expect to find themselves in a squeeze between needs and desires - and in debate with each other over which projects to fund.
"It is a difficult position," Mayor David Bowers said Wednesday. "Everybody, including me, would want us to do everything on that list, but it's just not financially practical, unless our citizens want us to raise taxes to expand the bond issue somewhat."
"It puts us in a position of having to make some tough choices," Councilman Jack Parrott said. "I think the staff has done a good job of telling us what we need. It's going to be up to us to make the choices. I guess that's what they pay us for."
The question of what to fund probably will narrow after council checks off items the city absolutely needs, City Manager Bob Herbert said.
Those include "musts" such as $3.8 million for replacing three bridges and maintenance of four others, millions more for the modernization of middle schools, and the city's share of state highway projects in the area.
The amount of money available is also largely dependent on the fiscal 1998 city budget, which council will adopt late in the spring. If council cuts the real estate tax without raising other taxes or enacting new ones, there will be less money for new projects.
Each penny cut from the real estate tax rate of $1.23 per $100 of assessed value would result in $3.5 million less that the city could borrow in the next bond issue.
"That's one reason I'm real concerned about cutting taxes," Vice Mayor Linda Wyatt said.
A steep rise in interest rates would also affect the city's borrowing ability.
The projects that get funded won't necessarily be on the pared-down list, a couple of council members said.
"There are other priorities our citizens have said are important to them that are not on there," Wyatt said.
For instance, a $5 million proposal for two new parks - one each in the Northwest and Northeast quadrants - didn't make the final cut in the $159 million package of projects. But residents and staff members on the panel did recommend $4 million for maintenance and improvements at existing parks.
"I think that, if not in this bond issue then in the next one, increased attention is going to be given to maintenance and increasing the acreage in city parks," Councilman Jim Trout said.
In the category of public safety, the administration is recommending a new police headquarters to replace the existing police station at the intersection of Campbell Avenue and Third Street Southwest. A consultant hired by the city labeled the existing building "grossly inadequate."
The project would cost at least $11 million and perhaps as much as $16 million, and the consultant said it would require five acres. Bowers, meanwhile, wants the headquarters kept downtown. That raises the question of where it would go.
The panel rated highly two other public safety projects: two new fire stations. The city has already appropriated money for a new fire station off Peters Creek Road extension. Spending $2.4 million for two more would give Chief Jim Grigsby the ability to further consolidate stations - an idea Bowers and at least three other council members have indicated they are against.
And then there are potential projects such as a $15 million renovation of Victory Stadium. City Council has kept that item on the front burner in the past 18 months. It made the panel's cut.
But the stadium wasn't rated highly by participants in a recent series of meetings. And it got only one mention from residents when more than 70 of them gathered to set priorities for capital projects at a January workshop. That mention was as a "lowest priority."
"When I was on the School Board, we went through those same deliberations," Councilman Nelson Harris said. "Any of these discussions have been very difficult, and these will be very difficult, in view of the fact that there are a large number of needs and only a certain amount of debt that we can service. ... It always makes it difficult insofar as what does get programmed into the bond formula and what has to wait."
LENGTH: Long : 116 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: JANEL RHODA THE ROANOKE TIMES. 1. A $15 millionby CNBrenovation of Victory Stadium wasn't rated highly by participants in
a recent series of city planning sessions. color. 2. A consultant
has labeled the existing Police Department building "grossly
inadequate''; replacing it would cost at least $11 million. Graphic:
Chart by staff: Capital improvement projects. KEYWORDS: MGR