There were no public comments in response to the staff report on the town’s Fiscal Year 2019 recommended operating budget at last week’s town council meeting.
The public hearing on adopting the recommended budget will be April 24. The 232-page recommended budget and its summary, the budget is available for public review online at www.blacksburg.gov, as are all current financial documents and previous years’ adopted documents.
This year’s recommended budget and summary are also available at the Blacksburg Public Library.
Staff has spent the last month and a half going over the recommended budget at town council meetings. Winding down before the final April 24 decision on budget adoption, Town Manager, Marc Verniel, led a brief presentation of its highlights at the last council meeting.
The recommended budget comprises two ordinances, 1862 and 1863, that include a property tax rate increase of a penny, amending town codes to increase a water meter fees rate increase to help pay for the new water authority treatment plant, and an increase in the recycling rate. The average utility bill will increase by $3.70 Verniel said.
Following the budget report, Matt Hanratty, assistant to the town manager, discussed the town’s annual action plan for its Community Development Block Grant, the grant program from the Department of Housing and Urban Development designed to support communities for housing, facilities, public infrastructure and jobs that predominantly benefit low to middle income communities.
This is the second year of a five-year action plan submitted to HUD last year.
The town’s action plan was developed with citizen-input identifying community need and approach.
Listing the town’s projects achieved or underway with the formula-derived $425,000 grant, Hanratty said the town had launched commercial facade improvement projects and is dedicating the largest portion of the funds, $230,000, to housing resiliency through The Bennett Hill/Progress Neighborhood Stabilization project, which will establish more owner occupied properties in that neighborhood.
Home repair will respond to immediate needs of a low-income homeowner, helping to fix leaky roofs and maintaining houses are part of the town’s efforts.
“That allows them to improve energy efficiencies,” Hanratty said.
The grant money also supplies public service dollars for interfaith childcare scholarships, the Women’s Resource Center and the NRCA homeless intervention program.
After almost a decade of reductions, the HUD grant was increased this year.
“If you’ve been keeping up on the federal level, the CDBG got about a10 percent increase,” he said.
There were no questions or public comment and the CDBG action plan was approved, although Councilman Michael Sutphin abstained in light of his work with Community Housing Partners, which works closely with HUD.
Following the vote, the floor was opened to citizen comments, which focused on the pump station at Windsor Hills.
The pump on the east side of town has failed two times in two years, once in January last year, and once in January this year resulting in flooding of sewage out of the pump well and causing general health concerns among neighbors of the Harding Drive and Ascot Lane neighborhoods.
Douglas White, a Windsor Hills neighbor who has been vocal on this topic, “agreed to take it easy” he said, speaking to the council.
He complained that the town has not adequately notified nearby residents of the pump’s failure although he thanked members of staff for a recent open dialogue.
Intimating that staff was not informing council adequately of the pump station failures, White said he felt discussions with the town were moving in the right direction.
The town and citizens are waiting for an independent evaluation by the engineering company CHA to find out why the pump failed.
Another neighbor on Harding Road appreciated the public meetings the town has had on the pump station problem.
Pointing out the role of government is to protect citizens, he asked council to communicate with citizens when incidents occur.
“There was no outreach to known-affected residents nor proper communication to affected residents,” he said. “This is a shame since citizens are good data points to [assess] either the severity or not severity of incidents that might occur at the station,” he said.
He recommended the council help improve communication with county government and encouraged council to go beyond what might be statutorily required to make sure neighbors receive information for their health and well being.
With no unfinished or new business, Mayor Leslie Hager-Smith adjourned council and voted to enter a closed meeting with counsel regarding a disputed boundary line.
The schedule for Blacksburg public hearings is at www.blacksburg.gov/town-council/meetings/public-hearings.
