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When he took office, Blacksburg Mayor Ron Rordam told his fellow town council members and the town manager he wanted to "cut more ribbons," meaning he wanted the town to complete projects and celebrate the opening of new businesses.

On Tuesday (Jan. 27, 2009), Rordam will get out his ceremonial scissors to celebrate the opening of Panera Bread at 9 a.m. at University Mall on University City Boulevard. Virginia Tech's Marching Virginians are scheduled to perform.

According to a news release, the restaurant officially opens for business at 6:30 a.m. that morning, and donations collected from customers that day will be given to Habitat for Humanity for Blacksburg projects.

-- Tonia Moxley

The Aquatic Center committee was scheduled to discuss terms of the contract with Virginia Tech at a meeting this morning. Town Manager Lance Terpenny announced earlier that it had been cancelled.

Later in the afternoon, Terpenny said that a possible Freedom of Information Act violation prompted him to cancel the meeting.

"Our attorneys advised that it could be argued that it did not qualify as an exemption under FOIA and since it was advertised as a closed meeting we should cancel it," Terpenny said.

The meeting most likely will not be rescheduled and Terpenny will discuss the issues with Tech to try to resolve any concerns council might have with the contract, he said.

--Lerone Graham

Two finalists in the search for a vice provost for enrollment planning and management will be visiting Radford University next week. Andre Bell, who worked for the College Board, will be on campus Tuesday, Jan. 20, in Hurlburt 248. Marianne Budziszewski, who works in admissions at Robert Morris University, will be on campus Thursday, Jan. 22, in Hurlburt 249/250. A third candidate is scheduled to visit Thursday, Jan. 29, in Hurlburt 249/250. All three will be at 2 p.m.
This is a new position at the university — the third vice provost’s spot — and according to the job posting, this vice provost will be the chief strategist shaping the university’s enrollment management plan. The position will oversee the admissions and financial aid offices and the registrar.
During these open forums, the finalists are expected to lay out their visions for the position and to take questions.

— Tim Thornton

Another environmental group is trying to reverse the Bush administration’s reversal of the stream buffer rule. That may sound tame, even boring, but the argument is about when coal mining companies can bury streams under rocks and soil that have been blasted off mountaintops to get at coal seams.

The old rule said that surface mining couldn’t disturb land within 100 feet of a stream. The new rule does away with that restriction.

Even with the old rule – and the exceptions granted to the old rule – more than 1,200 miles of stream in Appalachian coalfields have been affected by surface mining; more than 700 miles of stream headwaters have been buried. Those numbers come from an Environmental Protection Agency study that’s about five years old.

The National Parks Conservation Association is filing a lawsuit – it was in the mail when this was written, but it may be officially filed by now – that asks the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to vacate the rule change and a Fish and Wildlife Service biological opinion that the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement used on the way to the change.

There are more than 30 pages of legal language explaining the argument, but it seems to boil down to this: The Office of Surface Mining didn’t follow the law or its own rules when it made this change, the old Fish and Wildlife opinion it relied on to make that change is “wholly inadequate,” and, since that opinion relied on the old stream buffer rule, the underlying assumptions have changed, so everything should have been done over anyway.

The NPCA asks that the stream buffer rule change be reversed and that the old Fish and Wildlife Service biological opinion be declared invalid and vacated.

A collection of environmental groups – Coal River Mountain Watch, the Sierra Club, the Kentucky Waterways Alliance, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Save Our Cumberland Mountains, the Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, the Waterkeeper Alliance and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy – filed suit against the stream buffer change last month. They attacked from a slightly different angle, arguing, among other things, that the new rule offers stream protections the Office of Surface Mining, the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers have all previously described as inadequate – and none of them explained why they changed their minds.

The copy of the NPCA suit I have is a draft, so I won’t post that now, but you can find the suit that was filed in December here.

UPDATE: The SELC has put out a press release about the suit.

-- Tim Thornton

A dozen Rwandan children, many of them orphans, have been touring the east coast since performing for the United Nations last month. They're wrapping up their Forgiveness Tour in the New River Valley. Coming from a country devastated by genocide, they're called the MIZERO Children of Rwanda. In the Kinyarwanda language, "mizero" means "hope." Part of their mission is to demonstrate the healing that is coming to Rwanda. Part of ther mission is to call attention to the 613,00 orphans in their country

The MIZERO Children will be performing during the worship service of the Church of the Holy Spirit - The River, this Sunday. (Jan. 18). That church, part of a mission from Rwanda to the United States, is helping to sponsor this leg of the tour. The congregation meets at Kipps Elementary School at 10 a.m. The group will also be performing 5 p.m. that afternoon at Crockett Springs United Methodist Church in Shawsville, at the edge of Camp Alta Mons, 2780 Crockett Springs Rd. Camp Alta Mons is putting the group up while they're in the area.

The MIZERO Children will also be performing at The Lyric Theatre in downtown Blacksburg Monday, Jan. 19, at 4 p.m., and at Dayspring Christian Academy, 505 Clay St. in Blacksburg, at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Find out more about them at their Web site, visit them on Facebook, or see a video about them and the organization's founder on YouTube.

-- Tim Thornton

The big coal ash news might be that West Virginia Congressman Nick Rahall introduced legislation to regulate it.

The Southern Environmental Law Center -- an environmental group, obviously -- came up with its list of regulations.

Tennessee is asking more questions of the TVA.

Newspapers continue to discover that there are coal ash ponds in and near their coverage area.

President-elect Obama's pick to head the EPA has promised to investigate coal ash ponds. At least some states are getting a head start.

Our previous blogging is here.

Our stories about the pile of coal ash in Giles County can be found here.

By the way, here's a link to the company overseeing the Giles County site.

Dave Cooper has posted on Huntington Post again. And so has Erin Brokovich.

-- Tim Thornton

BLACKSBURG — A group of residents will board a plane in Washington, D.C., tomorrow morning (Jan. 6, 2009) for a 4,000-mile round trip to Nicaragua, carrying with them hopes of resurrecting the town’s sister city relationship with flood-ravaged San Jose de Bocay.

The trip is “completely a people-to-people connection with some of the poorest and most disadvantaged people in the Western Hemisphere,” said Clark Webb, a Blacksburg businessman and trip organizer.

Webb has been involved with the Blacksburg-Bocay Sister City program since its early years and has worked for months to raise funds and recruit members for this delegation — the first to visit Bocay since 2002.

The trip is sponsored by the Blacksburg-based Coalition for Justice and Green Empowerment, a nonprofit headquartered in Portland, Ore.

Green Empowerment “partners with rural communities in the developing world to implement renewable energy and water systems that alleviate poverty and preserve the environment,” according to the group’s Web site.

One of those partners is the Association of Rural Development Workers -- Ben Linder, based in and around Bocay. The group -- also known as ATDER-BL -- is made up of mostly local people and is responsible for building drinking water systems, small-scale hydroelectric plants and transmissions lines for rural electrification, according to the group's Web site.

Ben Linder, referenced in the group's name, was an engineer from Portland, Ore., who worked with residents of northern Nicaragua to design and build the hydro-electrical systems there. Linder, who was shot to death on April 28, 1987 in San Jose de Bocay, was the first U.S. Citizen killed by U.S.-backed Contra forces during the Nicaraguan Civil War. His death helped galvanize U.S. opposition to that war, which raged from 1981-90, and eventually led to the founding of Green Empowerment. Two Nicaraguans were also killed in that attack.

Linder's family embarked on a fundraising tour, eventually netting $250,000 to finish the hydroelectric system in Bocay.

Learn how you can help raise money for the Blacksburg-Bocay Sister City Project.

-- Tonia Moxley

On Tuesday, Blacksburg Police Chief Kim Crannis announced the promotion of school resource officer Steve Workman to the rank of sergeant. Next week he will assume night shift supervisor duties for the department, Crannis said.

Tonight's ceremony marks more than a dozen promotions Crannis has overseen since she was named the department's first female chief two years ago.

The council also approved a $200,000 budget amendement to cover cost overruns for the renovation of the old Doc Roberts Tire Co. building. When construction is complete, the building will house the planning and engineering departments.

-- Tonia Moxley

The old Taylor's Frames & Things building in Blacksburg will remain standing -- for now.

On a 4-1 vote, Blacksburg Town Council tonight upheld a previous Historic Design Review Board decision to deny a demoliton permit for the historic structure also known as the Bennett-Pugh House.

Councilmen Don Langrehr and Derek Myers were absent. Vice Mayor and former Downtown Merchants of Blacksburg director Leslie Hager-Smith cast the lone vote to approve the demolition permit.

"I know we've all been tormented over this," Hager-Smith said.

She urged the council to grant the permit and then to order the salvaging of the building's architecturally significant materials for use in other historic structures. Hager-Smith also argued that documentation of the historical aspects of the building and site could preserve much of its value to the district.

A dozen supporters spoke on Taylor's behalf. At one point, about two-thirds of the nearly full council chambers stood in support of her appeal. But it wasn't enough to sway the majority.

"We can't base our vote on what's best for Ms. Taylor," Councilwoman Susan Anderson said. Instead, Anderson said the decision must be based on the town's ordinances.

A historic district is not just one building, Mayor Ron Rordam said. Rather, it is like a tapestry woven of many threads. Taking one thread out can damage it slightly, he said. But putting the wrong thread back in can do significant harm.

Later, Rordam classified the Taylor vote as among the five hardest he's had to cast in his dozen years on the council.

Rordam supported a suggestion put forward by Councilman Tom Sherman, who appealed to interested buyers of the property to come forward with their plans for review by the town. Sherman called it an opportunity for the council to "resolve problems associated with this structure as well as to have some say in the property's future."

Built in 1900, the Bennett-Pugh House represents a time in Blacksburg's history when residences fronted most of Main Street. Taylor and her late husband, Addison, operated a framing business in the house beginning in 1982. They bought the property in 2002. After her husband died unexpectedly in 2007, Taylor shuttered the business to care for her ailing mother, who died later that year.

The house and the .3 acres on which it sits has been on the market since 2005 and is assessed for tax purposes at $419,300.

Taylor said every potential buyer has balked at purchasing the building, which requires $300,000 or more in structural repairs. In its current condition, under state building codes no one may inhabit the property or run a business there, Blacksburg Building Official Cathy Cook has said.

According to Taylor, two interested buyers have said they would purchase the land if the building were removed. Because it is listed in the town code as a "contributing structure" to the downtown historic district, demoliton of the building requires approval from the Historic Design Review Board.

Taylor -- a widow struggling to pay rent on her own home and a mortgage on a vacant commercial building -- said she faces dire financial consequences if she does not soon sell the property. Friends who spoke to council on Taylor's behalf said she is withdrawing her retirement savings to keep up with mortgage payments on a building she can't use and can't sell.

Officials say the Historic Design Review Board struggled with the decision, but in the end ruled against demolition to avoid setting a precedent of destroying historic buildings that fall into disrepair. Such a precedent could pose a grave threat to the future of the historic district, and, officials say, to plans to revitalize the downtown as an arts and cultural center.

Two doors down, the old National Bank building has sat vacant since it was closed to the public several years ago. An old dry cleaning building beside the Taylor house has sat vacant for decades.

"If we say yes to this, then when will we say no?" board chairman John Bush has said of Taylor's demolition request.

Council members have quashed hopes that the town might take ownership of the house, as it did with the Alexander Black House in 2002. The town already owns several vacant historical buildings and is struggling to find money to rehabilitate them.

The Taylor case has also brought to light a loophole in the town code. If the council had overruled the board's decision tonight, the code allows little regulation of what could replace it.

So Rordam, with the support of the council, has asked the planning commission to draft new regulations that would give the Historic Design Review Board authority to modify or deny redevelopment requests in the historic district. It is hoped this change could further protect the integrity of the historic district.

Taylor's son, Will Armstrong, said after the vote that his mother has not decided if she will appeal the council's decision to Montgomery County Circuit Court. She had 30 days to do so.

She has already notified the town that the house and property is again for sale, however. If it hasn't sold within a year, under town code the demolition request must then be granted.

Of her future plans, Taylor said: "And we go and we pray and we put it back in the hands of God. I'm not defeated. And we are not hopeless."

-- Tonia Moxley

Radford Fire Chief Lee Simpkins conducted a promotion ceremony for five members of his department at Monday (Jan. 12, 2009) night's City Council meeting. "We'll start with the long awaited rental inspector," Simpkins told council. Soon-to-be rental inspector David Stilwell has one more class to attend before he's certified and ready to go. Spurred mostly by student rental housing that got parents and event students complaining, council has been talking about setting up a rental inspection program since at least 2004.

David Stillwell, the new rental inspector, and Chief Lee Simpkins

Simpkins ceremonially promoted three lieutenants, Gary Akers, Curtis Whitt II and Keith Reed. Whitt was a volunteer for eight years before joining the department as a career firefighter. His father is the city's retired fire chief. Reed was a volunteer for 15 years. His father is the volunteers' assistant chief. Akers is chief of the Long Shop/McCoy volunteer fire department. Last on the list was Assistant Chief Rodney Haywood, who's also assistant chief of the Max Meadows volunteer fire department.

Then, toward the end of the meeting, City Manager Tony Cox announced that Zack Kyle, the city's human resources director and zoning administrator, will be leaving at the end of the month. Kyle said he's leaving Radford for Salisbury, N.C., after four years. Since coming to the New River City, Kyle has created the city's employee handbook, updated the zoning ordinance and shepherded a comprehensive plan update. In Salisbury, he'll be in charge of human resources. Someone else will have to deal with zoning.

-- Tim Thornton