ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 30, 1997 TAG: 9703310007
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
We ask a lot for what we pay our officers
Irony is wonderful. The real story about the "problem" with turnover, morale and low pay, which was the focus of three articles on the cover of the Current on March 19 ("For county deputies, it's all work and low pay"), was buried on page 11. The brief news clip was about a Tech police officer who was injured by a subject who had just received a ticket. Thankfully, the injury was not severe, but it very well could have been fatal.
We as a society ask police and deputies to put their lives on the line, be all things to all people, catch the "bad" guys, leave the "good" guys alone, and always to be nearby, but only when we want them. We then expect them to work at low wages, accept meager benefits and not to complain. Oh yes, we also expect that them to put up with a lack of respect, to understand that being spit on by some drunk is a part of their job and to know that they are to blame whenever crime gets out of hand.
When I became a special justice for the 27th Judicial Circuit in 1989, I was highly privileged to be allowed to ride with the Montgomery County sheriff's deputies over a six-month period. I observed first-hand what our deputies have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. In Montgomery County, the deputies one moment have to deal with some highly educated individual and the next with someone who never went to school. They might have to deal with a domestic dispute one minute and then turn around to deal with a cow that has wandered into the road. A fugitive might be next up, and then next a citizen who has a question. A traffic stop might be for a speed violation, or it might be some jerk with a Ph.D. stopped for DUI who loudly berates the deputy with the question as to why he was not catching the real criminals. Well guess what, mister, he just caught one.
Upon reading the pay scales for Montgomery County, as well as for other law enforcement officers in the area, there is but one question - how is any citizen in the New River Valley able to look any officer or deputy in the eye given the salaries they receive? Can the issue of morale be solved by money alone? Of course not. However, we are only kidding ourselves if we continue to demand adequate law enforcement but are not willing to pay for it. In the articles, Nick Rush appears to be the only supervisor who realizes that either we bite the bullet as to funding or otherwise be prepared to dodge them.
Joe Painter
Blacksburg
Applause for girls who stopped 'Miss AHS'
This is a letter commending the women's studies group at Auburn High School. This group of young women recently spoke out against and successfully blocked the "Miss AHS" pageant at their school, which was to be a fund-raiser. The girls argued that a contest in which women are judged mostly on looks would be inappropriate and degrading. I agree. As a young woman, graduate student and feminist, it is a personal struggle of mine to have the strength to articulate what I believe in and speak out against oppressive practices, especially those surrounding the popular belief that a woman's worth is primarily contained in her looks.
These girls weathered criticisms from the would-be beauty queens and other members of the community. Bravo, girls, for your strength and courage. Or, should I say, beautiful.
Maggie Burton
Blacksburg
We need a way out of jammed intersection
When I first moved to Montgomery County almost 10 years ago, I could not accept the fact that there was no way to get from Virginia 114, near the Department of Motor Vehicles, to Christiansburg without going through the light at the U.S. 460/Virginia 114 intersection. I took every little road off to the right sure I would come out at the Farmhouse behind what was then Lowe's. I couldn't imagine that Christiansburg planners would contribute to the congestion at the U.S. 460/Virginia 114 exchange by diverting eastbound traffic to the intersection when logic dictated otherwise.
A few years later, when the Wal-Mart Supercenter was announced, I thought that at last we would have a cutoff to avoid routing all the traffic needlessly through that one intersection. I wanted to make sure that logic would prevail this time, so I went to the VDOT office to talk with someone about plans for the developing supercenter. I was never able to speak with anyone who knew anything about the project, nor did my follow-up phone calls reach anyone who had any answers.
Now we have a worsening situation. Wal-Mart constructed a maze through its parking lot, from Virginia 114 to the new light at U.S. 460. I suppose this is to discourage drivers from using its lot to avoid the long wait at the main interchange. Meanwhile, groups of pedestrians are crossing Virginia 114, presumably from the bus stop to Wal-Mart, running to avoid traffic in (too much of) a hurry to sit at the interchange. The two left-hand lanes of Virginia 114 are marked so that one has the option of turning left from either lane. This overloads the right lane so that traffic headed toward Christiansburg - traffic that could get out of the way - can't get into the right-hand lane.
As one who drives these routes frequently, I have plenty of time to sit at these long lights, thinking about the traffic situation. Why hasn't VDOT made any study or plans to move traffic from Virginia 114 to Christiansburg without going through the U.S. 460/Virginia 114 interchange? This would immediately funnel off one quarter of the traffic. Why doesn't VDOT make the left lane of Virginia 114 a turn-only lane and the middle lane straight ahead, thus eliminating the danger of lane switching and getting more of the traffic out of the way of the right lane?
There are many solutions that would be less expensive and have a more immediate effect on the traffic than the ones we keep reading about in the paper. Voices like those of Michael Abraham ('Real journalism and the smart road") are too often ignored in favor of "official" information. Your recent series of articles reads like an infomercial, flooding your pages with weak arguments in favor of the dead-end test bed. Is VDOT trying to overload the U.S. 460/Virginia 114 intersection to add credence to the need for the biggest boondoggle in the history of the New River Valley, the so-called "smart road"? If not, and VDOT is indeed doing its very best, then we are still left with a nagging question ... is VDOT capable of planning the smart road?
Anna Fariello
Christiansburg
Valley can take pride in hospital
Last night as I watched the segment air nationally highlighting the expertise of the medical profession in Blacksburg at Columbia Montgomery Regional Hospital, I was once again very humbled and very proud to have had the opportunity to work with the professionals in that organization. This national honor on top of the recent Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals awarding Montgomery Regional accreditation with commendation makes the employees, medical staff and volunteers of that organization one of Montgomery County's most valuable assets.
Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in a discussion sponsored through Leadership Charleston and the College of Charleston regarding quality of life and "healthy communities." The moderator opened the meeting by describing a healthy community as a community having four components: First, an environment conducive to family life; second, an infrastructure of employment at or above state and regional employment rates and comparative wages; three, an education system that prepares graduates for employment both within and outside the region; and four, a health care delivery system that is integrated into the community in both wellness and acute care.
The accomplishments of the physicians, employees and volunteers at Montgomery Regional Hospital should be recognized by New River Valley residents and the political structure for the value they add to the community and the invaluable contributions they make to maintaining the quality of life that is possible in the New River Valley.
Congratulations, Columbia Montgomery Regional Hospital.
Gene B. Wright
President and CEO, Columbia Trident Health System, Charleston, S.C.
Virginia 100 can't bear any more
Beginning with the year 2000, no through traffic should be allowed on the 3.2-mile section of two-lane Virginia 100 in the south end of Giles County. If should be restricted to local use only.
The last section of Virginia 100 in Pulaski County across Cloyds Mountain to the Giles line is scheduled for completion by 2000. This will leave a 3.2-mile section of two lane in Giles that was constructed 65 years ago and has had nothing other than a new bridge in the way of improvements. It will be the worst section of primary road in the state and the most dangerous. All hazardous materials traveling north or south on Interstate 77 must use Virginia 100 because of the restrictions on the tunnels in Bland County. Many other truckers use it to avoid the scales and DOT checkpoint at Bland. Once Cloyds Mountain is completed there will be four-lane highways north and southbound funneling traffic into this uncompleted, crooked section of two-lane. There is little or no shoulder and in some places you can't get a bicycle off the road far enough to keep from being hit.
In 1969 construction started at Pearisburg on Virginia 100 heading south. Former Gov. Linwood Holton, in a campaign appearance at Pearisburg, promised that if elected governor he would see to it that Virginia 100 was four-laned during his administration. Here we are, 28 years and seven governors later, and we have now been informed by VDOT that this section of Giles has been removed from the six-year plan. Obviously, it is because of behind-the-scenes political arm twisting that this has happened. No doubt, Montgomery County will reap the benefits because it so desperately need more roads over there.
Perhaps when Montgomery County is finally paved over we can get back on the six-year plan. But no, wait. Pulaski County has more than twice the population that Giles has so I think we will close the road after all.
Ernie Miller
Pearisburg
Rowland fits Jefferson's model
A school board superintendent should share the qualities of a laborer as written by Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in his Notes on the State of Virginia in 1787:
"Those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth. Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age or nation has furnished an example."
Our children are that sacred fire. The children of Montgomery County require input from all our School Board and community, not just the efforts of one. I think an example of the laborer who most meets the needs of a multicultural county is Keith Rowland [principal at Riner Elementary School]. This is evidenced by improved test scores and as importantly the increased integrity and self-assurance exhibited by all of the people associated with the Riner schools.
Beth Turner
Christiansburg
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