The Shadow
On Tuesday, April 9, the Clifton Forge Town Council met for their regular monthly meeting to discuss several areas of regular business. Additionally, the town welcomed two new faces to their staff: town clerk Kyla Crosier and new town attorney, Mike Lockaby. For Crosier and Lockaby, it was their appearance at a town council meeting.
As readers may recall, Kyla Crosier takes over for Taylor Ginger who was recently promoted to Accounts Clerk 3. Meanwhile, Mike Lockaby replaces Jared Jenkins who recently resigned after being put on administrative leave by the town due to his pending legal issues in Rockbridge County.
Following the convocation, led by councilman Carl “Shorty” Wolfe, a brief presentation was held to honor former Clifton Forge Police Chief, Chad Wickline. Wickline was presented with a badge by current police chief, Scott Balser.
Afterwards, it was time to get down to regular business. Following the approval of minutes and department reports, Mayor Jeff Irvine moved to approve two separate proclamations on the agenda. The first was to declare April as Clean Up Month in the Alleghany Highlands, while the second was to declare April as National Child Abuse Prevention Month. The recommendation was to approve both proclamations and both were voted on and passed unanimously by the council.
The next order of business was the “Request of Agony of the Alleghanies Gran Fondo.” Josh Taylor, executive director for the Alleghany Highlands Chamber of Commerce and Tourism, requested “closure of Church Street between Jefferson and Commercial for Saturday, June 29th, from approximately 8am to 6pm and to use the Rose Street parking lot for shuttle drop-off and pick-up as in years past. Mr. Taylor was also requesting services from the Clifton Forge Police Department and Rescue Squad as an in-kind contribution.” This motion was passed unanimously by the council.
Next up was the request to “close Ridgeway Street between Roxbury and River Street, as well as Commercial Avenue between Main Street and Ridgeway Street from 5pm to 9pm on June 28th, July 26th, August 30th, and September 27th to allow for Fridays in the Forge activities.” This motion was passed unanimously by the council as well.
The next order of business was the reappointments on the Industrial Development Authority. According to the document, Ronald Goings’ appointment expired on December 31, 2023, Jennifer Oeltjen’s appointment expired on September 30, 2023, and Richard Deaton’s appointment expired on May 31, 2023. This issue was heavily debated by council and the public, with concerns spanning from why it took so long to reappoint, who else can run, should an ad be placed inviting others to run, etc. In the end, council decided not to approve the reappointments quite yet, but to table the issue until a decision could be made.
Town Manager Chuck Unroe was next to speak. Unroe began by thanking the new town attorney, Mike Lockaby, for taking on the task of representing Clifton Forge before welcoming the new town clerk, Kyla Crosier. “She [Crosier] fits in the office like she’s been here forever and it’s been a good transition,” the town manager stated about the new clerk who jumped in and immediately began to “clean stuff up.”
Unroe then addressed a new state requirement put forth by the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) which involves the town of Clifton Forge creating “an inventory by October this year of all the potential lead and copper service lines” within the town limits. Unroe stated that Amanda Gunter (Assistant Director of Public Works) had been given the assignment and “within a month’s time, she’s 40% complete with that project already.” Unroe anticipates that Gunter will have fulfilled that requirement well within the given time frame and praised Gunter for taking on such a difficult task while still carrying out her regular duties at the Public Works Department.
Unroe also discussed Community Clean Up Day happening in April to coincide with Clean Up Month. The town of Clifton Forge has always selected the Saturday prior to National Earth Day as their town clean up day. This year, National Earth Day falls on Monday, April 22, so community clean up day will occur on Saturday, April 20. All willing participants are asked to simply show up at Town Hall that morning around 9am.
Afterwards, the town of Clifton Forge welcomed public comments. The only one to speak was Pam Lightfoot. One thing Lightfoot discussed was how she goes out sometimes to take pictures of graves in the area. Lightfoot then requested that the town “create a cemetery committee under Parks and Rec. to be able to work with actually taking pictures and making sure that the charts the town has for the graves are accurate.” She also made a request for a possible museum in the town of Clifton Forge.
Following a few comments by council members, the meeting was adjourned before moving into a closed session.
Additional Business Included:
—Approval of minutes for the March 12 meeting. This passed unanimously by the council.
—Approval of department reports for code enforcement, police department, public works, library, water plant, and fire department. This passed unanimously by the council.
—Town Manager Chuck Unroe talked about Virginia Tech (VT) hosting their first small towns conference on June 10 and June 11 in Abingdon.
—It was noted by Unroe that Brad Church was working toward becoming a certified building maintenance inspector for the town of Clifton Forge, who hasn’t had one since 2016.
