"Trifecta" This Past Tuesday

(1) Early Roanoke City Independent candidate announcement - (2) My Roanoke Times Commentary - (3) Roanoke City Council Meeting.

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Quite by accident (another story in itself) the Roanoke Times "Announces Me". However, I was just beginning the process of gathering petition signatures. It all snowballed from the prior day attending a "draft Bowers" event.

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So there it was on Tuesday I announced ... really? I did not read further as I rushed to the unveiling of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., monument. Someone said to me, "the press must like you". I gave them a puzzled look. Later I was told by another that my commentary was on the editorial page as well. Holy smokes - I put that in 2 weeks ago. The editorial board saved it for the day Countryside Neighborhood would attend the 7:00 PM Council Meeting where a public hearing was schedule on the 1 acre to be sold to Newbern, LLC. I could tell they saved it for that very day because when I wrote it I had "Feb. 19th" which they changed to say "today". CLICK HERE FOR COMMENTARY.

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It goes to show you there IS a wall between news and the editorial board. This was a coincidence. Now then I had to go to Council that evening a bit uneasy with these two events. However, the Council Meeting went well and they seemed to be paying more attention to us now. They were unable to vote on the sale of publicly owned property with only 5 members in attendance. Monday, March 3rd, they will give it another shot. Councilman Lea was dismayed at the maintenance needed as the VP of Operations for Meadowbrook wrote. I gave each member of Council a copy of the VP's letter to Economic Deveopment. I also gave them copies of the map telling them that without knowing what is going to be built on the acre - there is no certainty that it will not interfere with play. They agreed so at the March 3rd, 2:00 PM meeting the plans for the Trane building expansion should be available for Council members.

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Good news this evening - it looks like sprucing up the golf course is moving ahead. The city is cleaning up the pool area and demolishing the pool building. That will be sad for my community members who grew up using this pool. It was a community center and partially covered at one time. When I first moved here it was still operating. There is no saving any of it.

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There is also the promise of even more maintenance being applied to the golf course itself. No promise regarding the irrigation system or golf paths however. We should hear more in the coming months.