Council voted unanimously 4-0, with Vice Chairman John Givens absent, to rezone five parcels of property on the odd-numbered side of the 500 block of the street to Residential Business.

Previously the lots were zoned Single Family Residential. The catalyst for the rezoning came from a request by attorney Richard Padgett, who wants to move his law office back into the house where he and his wife formerly lived on the upper floor with the office downstairs.

The idea of rezoning the entire block to make it uniform came about after Salem City staff realized the dental office of Dr. G. Sprinkle was erroneously zoned residential, even though the building has been used as a medical office years ago and and Sprinkle’s dental office with rented-out professional spaces for more than 30 years.

Boulevard residents Frank and Cynthia Munley, who live across Walnut Street from the 500 block, and three people who live in nearby areas objected to rezoning the entire block, though, on the basis that it could open Boulevard for more business uses.

They, High Street resident David Foster and North Broad Street resident Stella Reinhart also raised concerns that the Boulevard, which they pointed out is the only Salem street with trees in the middle, is the prettiest entrance into Salem and should be protected.

Of the dozen people who spoke on the rezoning proposal, Boulevard property owners Judy Lawrence and Cynthia Jennings said it made sense to have the block changed to conforming zoning.

In answer to citizen questions about what types of uses are allowed in the RB zone, city officials said professional offices such as medical, dental and attorneys, as well as single family and multifamily residences.

Mayor Randy Foley responded to the Munleys and David Foster’s remarks regarding potential spot zoning by saying, “I’m trying in mind to undo some of the spot zoning in the past.”

Alleghany, the low bidder, is expected to begin work on the 1/3-mile path by mid-August and could complete the project within a month, Van Allman said, “if the weather cooperates.”

The paved path would provide access for people walking and biking along that busy stretch of Riverside Drive. Although it is not part of the Greenway pathways, that path will make it easier to people to get to the Greenway already completed and sections planned.

“It comes out of a different pot of money than the transportation funds for the Greenway,” Van Allman pointed out. Salem City Councilman Lisa Garst, one of the members representing Salem on the Greenway Commission, thanked Van Allman and others concerned with “continuing to find ways to take care of our citizens and to find ways to pay for it.”

Council had a small agenda Monday night, with only four items listed.

In addition to the pedestrian walkway, council:

• postponed until the Aug. 9 Council meeting on making a decision on adopting a resolution supporting and authorizing the city’s participation in a regional consortium to apply for and implement a Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grant. Council wanted more time to find out “a little more what that grant is,” said Councilman Bill Jones, in making the motion to continue the item.

• appointed Samuel “Sam” Reed Carter III to the Salem Planning Commission, to fill the seat being vacated by 17-year veteran Gardner Smith. “We are thankful for Mr. Smith’s service on the planning commission and took him at his word that he did not want to be reappointed,” Vice Chairman John Givens said. “Sam Carter will be a very good plus for the city.” His appointment came after a 30-minute closed session to discuss appointments to boards and commissions.

• took no action on the first item on a supplemental agenda that was to be discussed in the closed session, properties the city might wish to sell.

Nothing is written in stone – yet – as far as human service and community service agency requests are concerned. Council will not take an official vote on next year’s budget until after the scheduled public hearing on May 25.

At the end of Monday night’s regular meeting before the budget workshop, Council approved the $42-million Salem School Board budget for the 2010-2011 school year. School Board Chairman Sally Southard presented the schools’ request at the April 26 council meeting. Like other Salem City employees, teachers and other school employees will not get a raise for the second year in a row. Under Virginia law, school budgets must be approved by mid-May, before council’s next regular meeting.

The budget workshop lasted more than three hours, ending at 11 p.m. Council members started off with requests from 52 charities and community service agencies that had received some City of Salem funding last year or previous years.

Council members’ stated goal was to cut at least 5 percent out of the current year’s appropriations to human and community service agencies.

That was in line with the directive by City Manager Kevin Boggess to all City of Salem departments, to prepare budget requests for next fiscal year that are 5 percent less than the current year.

According to their remarks about individual items, council members were swayed in making their decisions by whether or not an agency’s programs directly benefit Salem children and/or families, if the program seems to be a duplication of what another agency provides and how much direct benefit the City of Salem derives.

The largest disparity between what a non-profit organization asked for and what it probably will get from the City of Salem was Center in the Square’s annual campaign: the request was for $173,780; council penciled in $17,500, $2,500 below last year’s appropriation.

Agencies council members agreed to cut out entirely were Blue Ridge Legal Services, Camp Virginia Jaycees, Opera Roanoke, Southwest Virginia Ballet and the Tri-Co Lake Administrative Committee.

Another large cut was to Goodwill Industries. Council members also agreed to reduce the allocation by $5,000; last year Goodwill received $15,000 and requested $26,000 for next year.

Council Member Lisa Garst said, “Goodwill Industries know how to operate as a business, and are very successful.” Mayor Randy Foley agreed, saying, “I’m with you on that.”

A few agencies received more money, saved from other cuts. Council members agreed to give $21,000 instead of last year’s $20,412 to the Headstart preschool program for underprivileged kids that is operated by Total Action against Poverty in the old Salem train station off Colorado Street.

In other words, they could take off that day or another time during the year, and city offices remained open.

A contingent of about 35 black Salem residents applauded Monday night after Council unanimously approved King’s birthday and Veterans Day as city holidays and closures.

“I’m happy because Martin Luther King Jr. fought very hard for civil rights for our country,” said Marzetta F. Sinkler, one of the citizens at the meeting. “His birthday is a national holiday anyway so why shouldn’t Salem City honor him?”

Nancy Wilson agreed. “We had a meeting with the mayor and city manager this past Friday, indicating what we wanted,” she explained.

The citizens’ spokesman at that meeting was the Rev. Melton W. Johnson, pastor of First Baptist Church in Salem. “I’m elated,” the pastor said after the meeting. “I feel like we’re coming full circle, a black town manager to a black holiday.”

He referred to Forest Jones, Salem’s first black city manager, who retired in 2008 and turned over the reins to current Salem City Manager Kevin Boggess who met with the group, along with Mayor Randy Foley.

Usually Salem students have a school holiday on Martin Luther King Day in January, but this year attended school in order to make up one of the days they missed due to snow.

For more details from the April 26 Salem City Council meeting, see the April 29 issue of the Salem Times-Register.

One lane of the street next to Brooks-Byrd Pharmacy between Main and Calhoun streets – and the sidewalk on the east side of the street – has been closed since August 2009 because a creek that runs underneath the street undermined a retaining wall.

Salem City Council approved a contract to fix the retaining wall containing an underground creek that has closed one lane of South Broad Street for a year. Photo by Meg Hibbert

At its April 12 meeting, Salem City Council approved a $126,000 contract with Alleghany Construction to fix the problem. There is money in the 2009-2010 City of Salem Budget for those repairs, Salem Assistant City Manager Jay Taliaferro pointed out.

That’s the city’s share. You see, part of the crumbling underground wall is on the city right of way, and part of the affected area belongs to the building that houses Brooks-Byrd. The pharmacy building is owned by the Snyder Foundation that owns Snyder Nursing Home.

The two-party responsibility and need to work out arrangements is what took so long to get the work ready to be bid, City Manager Kevin Boggess explained.

City Engineer Chuck Van Allman said he planned to put out the notices this week that are necessary to start work.

“Part of the building will be jacked up, and people will have to use the back door while that’s going on,” Taliaferro explained, adding that the front of Brooks-Byrd shouldn’t have to be closed off more than seven days, once construction gets to that point. “I don’t believe the store will have to be closed.”

“They’ll have to take the glass out of the windows and cover it with plywood,” added Boggess.

Until the hole was opened up, many people didn’t realize the creek that also runs behind Salem City Hall runs underneath South Broad.

Some Salem people at first believed roots of the trees planted against the pharmacy had undermined the foundation. Others said there was an underground creek. It turns out the second theory was the right one. The trees, which were up against the exterior wall, were cut down.

Earlier this year, representatives of Mattern & Craig, the Roanoke engineering firm the City of Salem hired to look into the problem, said culvert had been built over the creek and street about 40 years ago or so, and the masonry began to settle.

Meanwhile, the retaining wall is being shored up with struts, a city truck has been parked to block off the northbound lane, and the excavation has been closed off with heavy chain-link fencing and warning signs for months. Cars – and people – used the southbound lane and sidewalk. Anybody who wanted to drive north to Main Street had to detour a block or so to the east or west.

One lane of South Broad will be kept open at all times during the construction, Boggess said.

Seibert gave out the state figures to Salem City Council and the Salem School Board when they met March 3 to discuss upcoming finances and programs. The following day he issued a press release reacting to the proposed state budget cuts. He said the cuts are threatening to set back K-12 public education four years, to levels not seen since 2006. Salem Schools would likely need to make “especially painful cuts,” Seibert said.

The superintendent pledged every effort would be made not to lay off teachers and other personnel, and instead, to close the anticipated budget gap through natural attrition – people retiring or leaving the school system for other reasons, and their positions not being filled.

About 80 percent of Salem School’s annual budget is made up of salaries and benefits for its employees, like other school divisions in Virginia. Much of the remaining 20 percent is for fixed costs such as utilities, maintenance and debt service.

“A reduction of this magnitude cannot be achieved without a negative impact on children,” said Seibert. “My only solace is that we have terrific people who will do everything they possibly can to help minimize the impact.”

The General Assembly’s Conference Committee dealing with the separate House of Delegates and Senate versions of the state budget are working to reconcile differences between the respective proposals.

Under what the Senate is proposing, Salem’s state aid would be reduced by 8.7 percent, which would require cuts of $1.7 million. The House’s version proposes cuts of more than 11 percent, reducing state money coming to Salem Schools by $2.2 million.

Seibert explained Salem school officials had been planning for a range of possibilities, once the amount of state aid was known, “And we will now meet the challenge.”

Salem already runs a bare-bones system, Seibert said, by providing a high-qulity education for almost $1,100 less per pupil than the average for the state’s school systems.

Salem Schools Central Office administrative costs account for less than 3.5 percent of the total school division budget, “So when you already are lean, the cuts start with meat and bone,” added Seibert.

He and other school superintendents are particularly opposed to the House Budget Bill that makes proposed cuts permanent by changing the funding formula for state basic aid to education. The Senate Bill recommends a two-year reduction to give the state’s economy a chance to recover.

“This is a problem at the state level and children should not be expected to bear the burden,” Seibert said the press release.

Starting in the fall, Seibert met with teachers and staff at each of Salem’s six schools, answering questions and asking for ideas from employees about their priorities on reductions in salaries and benefits.

According to those results, 95 percent of the 362 school employees who completed the survey said they would rather see their own pay cut in order to help keep fellow school employees from being laid off.

School personnel who responded also said they would be willing to pay part of their health insurance, instead of Salem Schools paying it.

Council voted 5-0 to deny a request by Valley Properties and L&M Properties to rezone four lots on Braxton and Harrison to make more employee parking and truck-loading docks in what used to be the Home Shopping Network building. The building has been vacant since 2005 when HSN moved that segment to Tennessee.

Braxton Heights neighborhood leader Gertrude Harris leans on her son, Dr. Wayne Harris, as she makes her case Monday night for Salem City Council to deny a zoning request that would have turned wooded lots, shown on the drawing behind them, into parking spaces for future tenants in the former Home Shopping Network building adjacent to their neighborhood. Photo by Meg Hibbert

Owners say they have three smaller firms that employ about 30 people now in the 540,000-square-foot building, and to be able to get other tenants, need to create parking next to another side of the building, along with truck loading docks.

Neighbors were concerned that if a lot that is now wooded is rezoned from residential to light manufacturing, the change would ruin their quiet neighborhood of Braxton Heights with noise from tractor trailers, light pollution and increased traffic.

The leader of the opposition was 86-year-old Gertrude Harris who spoke eloquently about how the character of the neighborhood could be lost. More than 35 other residents attended Monday night’s public hearing, with half a dozen of them speaking out against the rezoning proposal.

“We don’t want to lose our area,” she told council. “I love to sit on the front porch early in the morning with a newspaper or a magazine. My neighbor and I are able to talk from our porches.”

More cars and trucks would disturb the feeling of safety and security, Harris said. “This request would change everything.”

Others who spoke were householders Edward Hrinya and Dustin Cupp, Shermaine Greenhowe, Joanne Hale, Maxine Joiner Wright on behalf of her mother, Emily Whiteside, and Lewis Barker.

Barker and his father, George, own a rental house on Braxton that is not rented to college students, he pointed out, “And the reason we have been able to keep it filled is the advantage of a quiet neighborhood.” Barker added, “I feel like what’s in place is what’s best for the neighborhood.”

Council members asked if there were any plans for security for the complex, in response to neighbors’ concerns about more strangers coming into their area. John Lipscomb of L&M said Novozymes, which leases a portion of the building, has security, and when Hanover Direct was there, it had security, also.

Maryellen Goodlatte, the attorney for the developers, closed her appeal to council before the vote by saying,

“We recognize the neighbors are concerned. We tried to impose proffers to put limits on this development…so that the neighbors can co-exist.”

After the vote, Lipscomb approached Gertrude Harris to shake her hand.

Her son, who grew up on Braxton but moved to Roanoke when he was superintendent of Roanoke City Schools from 1993 to 2004, said, “This vote demonstrate again that Salem considers kids and citizens first. That’s why Salem is such a great place now.”

Council voted 5-0 to deny a request by Valley Properties and L&M Properties to rezone four lots on Braxton and Harrison to make more employee parking and truck-loading docks in what used to be the Home Shopping Network building. The building has been vacant since 2005 when HSN moved that segment to Tennessee.

Owners say they have three smaller firms that employ about 30 people now in the 540,000-square-foot building, and to be able to get other tenants, need to create parking next to another side of the building, along with truck loading docks.

Neighbors were concerned that if a lot that is now wooded is rezoned from residential to light manufacturing, the change would ruin their quiet neighborhood of Braxton Heights with noise from tractor trailers, light pollution and increased traffic.

The leader of the opposition was 86-year-old Gertrude Harris who spoke eloquently about how the character of the neighborhood could be lost. More than 35 other residents attended Monday night’s public hearing, with half a dozen of them speaking out against the rezoning proposal.

For complete coverage of Monday night’s meeting, see the full story in the Feb. 25 issue of the Salem Times-Register and here on our website at OurValley.org.

CommUNITY Church will be allowed to locate in the commercial zone on Russell Drive, without rezoning, council members agreed, after getting legal advice from their attorney last week.

There were only four members of the public present for the council meeting Monday night when the advertised public hearing was to have been held, in addition to the five council members plus staff. The number was in sharp contrast to the more-than-100 church members expected before the city’s attorney and the church’s attorney came to an agreement last week.

After the meeting, Salem City Manager Kevin Boggess explained the city will allow the church to locate in the building formerly used by Designed Telecommunications – once necessary renovations have been made and approved by the building inspector and fire marshal to turn the manufacturing space into an assembly area.

A prepared statement released Feb. 4 explained why Salem City Council members decided not to fight the church’s request: “After a great deal of consultation and research, the City of Salem has determined that it is not in the city’s best interest to challenge a federal statute in an effort to keep CommUNITY Church from locating on Russell Drive and occupying a building situated in an area that is currently zoned business-commerce. …Although the City will not be rezoning the property as requested, it recognizes, in these unique circumstances, that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 takes priority.”

City leaders said part of their decision was the potential for a legal battle to be both lengthy and costly.

The decision was announced the afternoon of Feb. 4, after Salem City Council members met the day before with City Attorney Steve Yost in a closed session to be briefed on legal precedents.

Council was scheduled to hold a public hearing on the matter on Feb. 8, which will probably be postponed.

After the Salem Planning Commission recommended denial of CommUNITY Church’s zoning application for a building on Russell Drive, the church retained an attorney who notified the city federal law gives the church the right to use the property.

In a statement released Feb. 4, Council released a prepared statement that said “After a great deal of consultation and research, the City of Salem has determined that it is not in the city’s best interest to challenge a federal statute in an effort to keep CommUNITY Church from locating on Russell Drive and occupying a building situated in an area that is currently zoned business-commerce.

“…Although the City will not be rezoning the property as requested, it recognizes, in these unique circumstances, that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 takes priority.”

City leaders said part of their decision was the potential for a legal battle to be both lengthly and costly.