Stand fast by Mill Mountain
Update: Councilman Ray Ferris has withdrawn his motion to disband the Mill Mountain Committee. Ferris admits he was drawn too deeply into the weeds, commended the committee for its good works and said it is council’s, not the committee’s fault, that it lacks a stated mission.
Roanoke Councilman Ray Ferris plans to do a strange thing: abolish an engaged, respected committee. His colleagues need to stop him.
Roanoke Councilman Ray Ferris seeks today to kill the Mill Mountain Advisory Committee. If he succeeds, the star should be switched off tonight as a signal to all of Roanoke and beyond that the city’s celebrated mountain stands vulnerable to the whims of an elected body.
To Ferris’s mind the committee ceased to exist the moment it no longer had a development proposal to consider. Today’s council vote, then, would be merely a formality. He’s wrong, not in laying out the facts he’s discovered, but in the conclusion he draws: Because the committee once was named “ad hoc,” after it met its single-focus mission – advise council on the development of Mill Mountain – it no longer existed. The committee, though, by nature has acted throughout its 47-year history as a lasting, standing committee with many purposes.
December 17, 2012 - 2:48 PM
At a time when the City of Roanoke needs more citizen participation and interaction, this should be heresy!
Sooner or later there will be some development on Mill Mountain. And why shouldn’t there be? Mill Mountain could be a boon to the city. Somewhere to take visitors, to show off the city from a first class vantage point. The “Keep it pristine” crowd has little to stand on. Mill Mountain is surrounded by pristine mountain country. Its known as the Blue Ridge Parkway. A scenic mountain view, try Roanoke Mountain. Its more pristine (no neon star), and quite a bit higher. I suspect some of the motivation behind the opposition to development of the mountain comes from property owners at the base. The original scenic road has been turned into a private driveway for the manses at the base of the mountain, no longer available to motorists who’s fuel taxes paid for the upkeep of the road (and probably still do). Keep calm, eventually the control of this piece of potentially extreme value to our city will be put to proper use.