Question, Answer Time For Consolidation

CLIFTON FORGE -It’s question and answer time for the members of the Citizens’ Committee to Perfect a Consolidation Agreement.

Meeting Tuesday at Dabney S. Lancaster Community College, members of the committee began facing some of the questions raised by a consolidation agreement the committee approved on July 13.

The group’s legal counsel, Carter Glass IV, advised committee members that they, either individually or as a group, cannot engage in any type of marketing that would urge voters to vote one way or the other for the plan.

However, Glass said, the group can answer any questions that may arise from residents concerning the rationale behind various portions of the proposed consolidation plan.

He said those questions can come in the form of presentations to civic and church organizations, questions submitted by the local governing bodies or questions submitted to committee members by individual residents.

Committee mediator Art Mead of the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia presented the committee with a list of possible questions that members may be asked.

Possible answers for each question were also included.

Below are a few of the questions and answers. The questions and answers are quoted directly from Mead’s handout.

Question: We are surrounded by pastures and national forest. How could it make sense for us to be considered as part of a city?

Answer: The commonwealth of Virginia has historically classified its localities by functionality, rather than physical dimensions or even population.

Thus, one can find Virginia towns with populations over 30,000 and Virginia cities with populations under 5,000.
Substantial portions of the cities of Suffolk, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach remain in agricultural use; and, a major part of the Great Dismal Swamp, which is controlled by the federal government, like a national forest, is located in the city of Suffolk, a Virginia city similar in size to Alleghany County.

The consolidation committee chose the classification of city for the proposed new consolidated jurisdiction as a vehicle to obtain the most for its citizens and not connected to the amount of space in the jurisdiction.

Additionally, a number of Virginia cities, such as Suffolk, receive funding through the federal Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program. Hence, those payments already received by Alleghany County resulting from national forest land in its jurisdiction will continue in a consolidated city of Alleghany Highlands.

Question: Snow removal is very important on our rural roads. Will we have to wait for the city’s Public Works Department to scrape snow on our road?

Answer: No. The consolidation plan proposes to take advantage of a part of the Virginia State Code that allows for the Virginia Department of Transportation to continue maintaining those public lane miles of highway within a consolidated city that were previously part of a county territory.

Question: Will the fire departments in Alleghany County be consolidated with the Covington Fire Department?

Answer: No. All of the fire departments now operating in Alleghany County will continue to function in the consolidated city of Alleghany Highlands, but with enhanced funding.

To increase available revenue, the consolidation plan provides for the “soft” billing of residents’ insurance by the new city administration. This would be for emergency services in general and would therefore include the services of rescue squads.

Question: The city of Covington is reported to have significant debt. What possible advantage is there for county residents to become partly responsible for repaying the debt created by the city?

Answer: Much of the city’s debt is tied to valuable assets that will be of benefit to all residents of the consolidated city of Alleghany Highlands.

However, a portion of the city’s liabilities will continue to be paid by residents of the current city. For example, the closure, monitoring and remediation costs resulting from usage of the Peters Mountain Landfill prior to consolidation taking effect will be financed through a fee charged only to residents living in a service district coinciding with the boundaries of the city of Covington.

This is the same fee now charged to each city resident as the refuse collection part of the monthly utility bill.

Hence, the money it generates will not be from a new fee but would instead be a reallocation of the same funds already generated by an existing fee.

According to the accounting firm of Robinson, Farmer, Cox & Associates, in Virginia, when measured on a per capita basis, the average local government debt is $3,785 in cities and $2,455 in counties.

This figure in the consolidated city of Alleghany Highlands would be $3,007, placing it roughly midway between the average city and average county.

Question: If “smaller is better” in kindergarten through grade 12 education, how will the consolidation of Covington’s schools with those in Alleghany County affect the quality of the education our children receive?

Answer: There are currently 131 K-12 public school systems in the commonwealth of Virginia.

With jurisdictions like Fairfax County and the city of Virginia Beach among the largest by student count, the city of Covington School System ranks 125 in size with approximately 900 students enrolled.

Alleghany County ranks at 77.

An Alleghany Highlands City School System will have about 3,800 students and would rank 69 out of 130.

Hence, it would still be a small system by state standards.
Question: Will an extra layer of taxes be imposed on that part of the new jurisdiction that is now the city of Covington?

Answer: No. The consolidation plan does not call for the use of an “urban service district” as permitted by the state code.

Former Covington residents will experience the continued payment of $14 per month now charged as a garbage fee attached to their monthly water-sewer utility bill.

This $14 per month will go into an escrow account dedicated to expenses connected to the Peters Mountain Landfill, based on use of the landfill prior to the consolidation occurring, not future use of the landfill by the city of Alleghany Highlands.

Question: The city of Covington does not measure the volume of water consumed by its individual utility customers. Are water meters likely to be installed after consolidation?

Answer: The consolidation plan requires that the city of Covington water and sewer system be segregated from the county utility system, so that each is operated as a separate enterprise fund.

Thus, the city of Alleghany Highlands administration can continue to sell unmetered water and sewer service to the residents of the former city of Covington on a flat-rate basis.

The consolidation plan requires this arrangement for at least 10 years, but if Covington residents desire to continue the unmetered water service, the separate systems could be maintained indefinitely.

Question: Will my mailing address change?

Answer: No. The possibility of having to change their mailing address is apparently seen by many as a potential unintended consequence of a local government consolidation.

This is especially true with a totally new jurisdictional name.

However, without a local initiative, the United States Postal Service will not change any address. This includes the zip code.

Question: Where can residents find a copy of the consolidation agreement and/or city charter?

Answer: The Alleghany County Administrator’s Office and the Covington City Manager’s Office have copies. These documents are subject to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act guidelines for release to the public.

For an electronic or digital record of these documents, e-mail a request to Art Mead at amwccuva@netscope.net.
Be certain to include the phrase “Consolidation Document” in the subject line of your e-mail request.

Question Of The Week

In an attempt to educate voters on the various aspects of the plan, the committee agreed that it would ask Virginian Review Editor Horton Beirne if the newspaper would publish a question and answer each week.

Members said they would choose “hot button” issue questions and answer them in each week’s article.

Committee members also applauded Beirne and his staff for their coverage of the committee’s meetings and the recent publication of the proposed consolidation plan in its entirety for readers to keep and refer to.

Alleghany County Board of Supervisors Chairman Steve Bennett, on behalf of the board, submitted a list of 13 questions late Tuesday evening, just prior to the consolidation committee meeting.

Committee members said they would work on compiling answers for each question as soon as possible.

The 10-person committee – with five members representing the city of Covington and five representing Alleghany County – was formed in November by Alleghany County Circuit Court Judge Malfourd W. Trumbo after the governing bodies hit an impasse and could not come up with a plan for the consolidation of Covington and Alleghany County.

Since December, the committee has met 25 times to develop the consolidation plan that was presented in July.

One of the plan’s features is that the newly-consolidated jurisdiction will have a seven-member governing body elected from seven electoral districts.

With the combined population of Covington and Alleghany County is approximately 23,000 and the city representing less than 6,000 of that total, will, at most, elect no more than two members of the seven-member governing body, according to the plan.