A theme for next week's Christiansburg Planning Commission (PC) and Town Council (TC) meetings could be "If at first you don't succeed; try, try again."
First we looked at the deja vu PC meeting scheduled for Monday at 4 pm; now let's look at the TC meeting scheduled for Tuesday at 7:30 pm.
A Joint Public Hearing for a rezoning request for 520-540 Depot was addressed in the PC post, and would apparently bring existing use into compliance with code. This generates the question of whether what is going on with this property today and if the rezoning is coming as an afterthought.
Another Joint Public Hearing for a flea market and amending an existing conditional use permit comes back again. This matter had most recently been before council a year ago, on the May 20, 2008 agenda.
The New River Valley Development Corporation had requested the town assume a "moral obligation" on refinancing to keep the organization solvent, committing to an increased potential debt for the town. Council rejected this risk at its last meeting, but "new information" (and presumably another ask) is coming before council this Tuesday.
Council's first reading of the proposed fiscal year 2009-2010 budget is also on the agenda, along with the required Public Hearing. Council can be expected to approve this budget at its next meeting on May 19th, after receiving citizen input this Tuesday and after it has its second reading. What do you know about it? One way of looking categorically at these numbers is as follows:
- Transportation Related Funding: $401,260
- Community Related Funding: $247,878
- Personnel: $13,724,000
- Operating: $13,508,000
- Debt Service: $1,119,600
- Reserves, Unallocated: $901,500
- Enterprise Funding (Water/Sewer/Trash): $6,151,000
- Grand Total Estimated Revenues & Proposed Allocations: $35,933,061
While there was a legal notice for the Public Hearing published April 26th, did you see publication of a brief synopsis summarizing this proposed budget as required by State Code?
The Finance Committee met three times and council has had one work session on the budget, so citizen awareness of this process and impacts can be expected to be fairly limited at this point.
The aquatic center's business plan, the Blacksburg Transit expanded bus service, and specific use of the additional retained lodging taxes have not been fully discussed in public.
We now read that the recreation program has become the town's "cash cow," but don't see the dots connecting this claim in the current or proposed budget -- does this mean net revenues from these activities (expenses minus revenues equal big bucks for town coffers) surpass BPOL fees, meals and lodging and real property tax revenues (the former "cash cows" for generating revenue for the town)? Why is the Roanoke chamber's tourism formula being used, instead of the one created by the town's tourism partner, the TDC?
Last year's "Rentals, Etc" was budgeted at $141,000 and actual revenues are now estimated to hit $112,500 for the year. For the upcoming budget, $251,500 has been forecasted (more than double actual receipts this year). This is a "cash cow"?
So if you have any thoughts, comments or questions relative to town finances, you'd best plan on attending Tuesday's council meeting.