What do you think of the tie vote on the asphalt plant?
By now, you’ve probably already heard about the tie vote at the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors last night that will lead to a delay in acting on the proposed asphalt plant in Glenvar that has generated so much controversy. If not, here’s a link to the story by reporter Cody Lowe.
The latest: The editorial board at The Roanoke Times doesn’t think much of the action. Here’s a post on the editorial blog RoundTable that gives a glimpse of what’s coming in Thursday’s paper. Their headline: “Roanoke County supervisors were too quick to say ‘no’.”
What do you think? You can leave a comment below.
Here on So Salem, we’ve had previous coverage of the proposed asphalt plant on Jan. 20 and Jan. 23 — and both those posts have generated comments, as well.
January 28, 2009 - 12:42 PM
I wonder what this is all about. Will this indicate that the votes on this issue will follow this voting pattern and Roanoke county will win ? The people in Glenvar will do everything possible to get the facts out to the people.
We are organizing and getting facts We need for as many people as possible to attend the Feb.3 meeting.
While I appreciate the efforts and early support from the two supervisors on this issue this was a purely symbolic gesture. The petitioner has a right to his hearing. As well, the citizens have a right to be heard on this issue. I’ll admit now that I don’t completely understand all of the inner workings of this process. But if the impact of the tie vote buys the citizens a little more time to prepare an opposition then the vote against the first reading was worth while.
I stand with others in the Glenvar area and oppose this proposal. I see no benefit to the County nor the residents of this community to placing an asphalt plant on that site. I agree that asphalt has it’s place in and around a growing community but their is a fairly high concentration of residents in this area that would be at risk of negative home value and marketability as well as quality of life impact (60-100 larger asphalt trucks per day, 5-7 day per week operation, 8-24 hours per day).
Any petitioner has a right to be heard. However, the community has a right to fair notification and time to prepare an opposition commensurate with the preparation of the petitioner. Often this is not the case.