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Montgomery County School Board is poised to wash its hands of the Old Blacksburg Middle School. Smart.  That thicket of competing interests has only created headaches.  That leaves the county Board of Supervisors and Blacksburg Town Council to suss out what the future of the property.

We are writing an editorial for Sunday's NRV Current that will urge the two public bodies to get to work on a plan. There has been little to no movement in the last year. Overall, we tend to side with the town on wanting a less impacting -- and hence less profitable for the county -- use there.

The Montgomery County School Board promised transparency in its hiring of a new superintendent. Now that the process is underway, however, it chooses secrecy. In an editorial we are writing for the Sunday NRV Current, we will urge the board to create a genuinely open process and name the semifinalist candidates it is interviewing.

Minor election problems add up

Montgomery County election officials had several problems this year that demand further investigation.

Montgomery County residents might ask just what the heck is going on at the elections office. Voter Registrar Randy Wertz and his team faced a string of niggling problems this year. None is individually damning, but together they warrant a closer look.

Read more.

Making sense of local elections

By Christian Trejbal

Trejbal is an editorial writer for The Roanoke Times. He is stationed at the paper's New River Valley bureau.

For the New River Valley, last week's election had two interesting and important outcomes that had nothing to do with the commonwealth's regrettable slide toward theocracy under the statewide GOP ticket.

In Christiansburg, voters resoundingly chose to move town council elections from May to November. Ninety percent voted for the change.

Read more.

We're writing our NRV Current editorial today about electoral hiccups in Montgomery County on Tuesday night. First there was an error in a spreadsheet formula that caused delays in reporting results.  Then there was a data-entry error that for a while reported the wrong winner in a race.

No one wants to see those sorts of problems, but in our editorial we will commend Registrar Randy Wertz and his staff for catching them.  They did not rush to produce results but instead made sure everything added up.  Nor should anyone take this as an indictment of electronic voting machines. There are plenty of reasons not to like them, but this wasn't their fault.

Discuss the election results here as they come in.

We're writing an editorial for Wednesday about potential Wild and Scenic River designation for 19 miles of the New River from Glen Lyn into West Virginia.  The National Park Service studied the idea for nearly 20 years and finally issued a 194-page report that found evidence to support hte designation but ultimately recommended against it.  Public comment on the recommendation runs through Friday. (Leave comments on the NPS site.)

In our editorial, we will recommend Congress and President Obama move forward with the designation. This glorious stretch of natural beauty deserves protection. Opposition primarily is coming from West Virginia where some residents and local governments want to keep the option to develop along the river.

Our editorial will also urge the Giles County Board of Supervisors to approve a resolution on Wednesday supporting the designation.

Blacksburg remains an innovator in Southwest Virginia when it come to better governing through technology. Check out this nifty tool for letting the town know where you ride your bike. It's an interactive map that allows you to trace your bicycle and pedestrian routes and share them with the town. (Instructions for using the map.)

Why should you do that? From the town press release:

The information sought from these surveys is an understanding of riders’ points of origin and destination, the most travelled route from high density origins to common destinations, preference for in-road, shared-use, or off-road riding, and requests for additional amenities such as lockers or bike racks to facilitate users’ commutes. Once the data is collected, this information will be used to prioritize route improvements. These improvements include widening and improving roads for in-road bike lanes, construction of shared use off-road paths, in-road markings or signage for preferred routes, and assignment of an alpha numeric designation for each route for the purposes of navigation and mapping.

In other words, before the town can build new lanes, bike racks and so on, it needs to know where they are needed.  So if you bike in town or would if there were safer routes, visit the survey and let Blacksburg know where you ride.  The public comment period runs from Wednesday through Dec. 2.

Local election endorsements

We round up our endorsements in New River Valley races.

The Roanoke Times editorial board endorsed candidates in races for Blacksburg Town Council and Montgomery County School Board, as well as a referendum in Christiansburg. We interviewed the candidates, studied the issues and recommended those whom we believe will best serve their communities.

Blacksburg Town Council

Michael Sutphin, Susan Anderson, Cecile Newcomb and John Bush

Perhaps the most hotly contested race of the season in the New River Valley, 10 candidates appear on the ballot vying for four seats...

Montgomery County School Board

Phyllis Albritton and Jamie Bond

...

Christiansburg council election referendum

Yes

Voters in Christiansburg will decide whether to move town council elections from May to November.

Read more.

Voters have only themselves to blame

By Christian Trejbal

Trejbal is an editorial writer stationed at the papers New River Valley.

New River Valley governments recently experimented with two types of parenting. In Radford, the city council prefers tough love; in Montgomery County, supervisors shelter their charges.

The constitutional officers in both localities have fallen on hard financial times thanks to revenue shortfalls in Richmond.

Commonwealth's attorneys, sheriffs, circuit court clerks, commissioners of revenue and treasurers get most of their money from the state, and four rounds of state budget cuts in two years have taken a toll.

The most recent cuts, to help make up a $1.35 billion statewide shortfall, could break them.

These offices ran lean operations before the state started slashing. Now they must provide essential services without adequate resources.

Read more.