ABINGDON, Va. – At their regular meeting Monday, no one spoke at public hearings on the town’s budget, which included a new $800,000 expenditure to fund the first year of Abingdon’s new capital improvement plan.
The money, coming from reserves, is part of a $13.3 million budget that had its first formal reading Monday.
Included in that budget figure is $3 million for the town’s sewer department, which includes a 10 percent rate increase for the 2010-11 fiscal year.
Town Manager Greg Kelly said the increase is necessary to pay for the $10 million sewer plant expansion completed in the past few years, which modernized the plant and added capacity while improving its environmental footprint.
“Hopefully that is the only rate increase we will have to have for some period of time,” Kelly said. He said no other rate or fee changes or tax rate increases are anticipated.
Town Councilman Jason Berry said the sewer increase will amount to an average $3 extra on the average household’s monthly sewer bill.
The capital improvement plan is a first for the town, said Mayor Ed Morgan. It was approved effective July 1.
Kelly said it takes into account pedestrian pathways and urban trails, streets and infrastructure, buildings, parks and recreation, signs and signalization.
First on its list of priorities are sidewalks and drainage improvements on White’s Mill Road, and Court, Oak Hill and McBroom streets and storm drainage improvements in the Country Club Estates subdivision.
The Academy Drive widening project, for which grant funding is being sought, also is near the top of the list, Kelly said, along with signs to help visitors find their way in town.
Mayor Ed Morgan said that, despite the recession, the town’s meals and lodging tax has remained steady. It’s a reflection, he said, on things the town is doing right to make Abingdon a good place to visit and live.
Also Monday, the council adopted a new noise ordinance, as many localities are doing after a Virginia Supreme Court decision ruled a similar ordinance in Virginia Beach unconstitutionally vague.
Town Attorney Deborah Icenhour said more specific language was added to make it “more objective, measurable, precise and reliable.”
The standard, said Police Chief Tony Sullivan, is whether the noise is audible 50 feet away – or slightly less than the distance to the next light or telephone pole.
The council also voted to award a long-awaited contract to build bathrooms and a community space at Alvarado, the approximate halfway point between Abingdon and Damascus on the Virginia Creeper Trail.
The facility is to be operated on a day-to-day basis by the trailside store in the former train-stop community of Alvarado, with larger-scale maintenance issues to be handled by the town of Abingdon.
dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701
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