2008 Roanoke Citizen of the Year

A surprise announcement was made by Mayor Bowers this evening at a reception honoring volunteers who serve on Authorities, Boards, Commissions and Committees. In addition to Estelle McCadden being named "Citizen of the Year" she also receive a Key to the City.

Estelle McCadden
2008 Citizen of the Year

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At 82 Estelle is a neighborhood advocate and activist, and currently serves as the President of the Melrose-Rugby Neighborhood Forum, Inc. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Neighborhoods USA (NUSA), a national organization dedicated to developing partnerships between neighborhoods, local government, and public/private agencies across the United States. Her accomplishments are too many to put here. She will be honored at a subsequent Council meeting.

BULL: A Puppet Musical and FiddleFest Lite Videos

Saturday and Sunday at the Dumas Center on Henry Street, the Thistledown puppeteers premiered “Bull - A Puppet Musical.”

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Thistledown Puppets is a family-friendly puppet company dedicated to entertaining and inspiring the child in everyone. These young puppeteers share their love of puppets through funny and memorable characters and engaging stories. They offer puppet design custom puppet building and performances. Below is a snippet from the show.

Below is clip from FiddleFest Lite held at the Taubman Museum on Sunday, November 9th. It featured the Sandy Ridge group and Herschel Sizemore who teaches mandolin.

Provision Added to Countryside Golf Club Operating Agreement

At Monday’s City Council meeting a provision was added to the operating agreement between the City and Meadowbrook Golf Group, Inc. At the October 23rd City Council meeting an Ordinance was adopted to extend Meadowbrook’s operation of Countryside Golf Club for a period of one year. The agreement was effective on November 1, 2008.

The modification was as a result of the Roanoke Regional Airport Commission requesting that the extension include a provision that the Commission can terminate the lease with the City under certain conditions. This would result in the termination of the Operating Agreement between the City and Meadowbrook. The Airport Commission owns a portion of the property containing fairways of the golf course. Now that the City owns the golf course, the City is responsible for negotiating the lease with the Airport Commission. Meadowbrook agreed to this provision with consequences.

The provision reads in part - The parties acknowledge that any financial obligations between the Owner of the Airport Commission relative to the Lease being negotiated between the City and the Airport Commission are the responsibility of the City. The parties further acknowledge that any obligations to alter, modify or improve the property subject to the Lease being negotiated between the City and the Airport Commission are the responsibility of the City. If such Leased property becomes no longer available to the City, the City will make a payment to Meadowbrook. Payment ranges from $20,000 to $170,000 depending on the month of termination. Council unanimously agreed to the provision.

Long Lines at Ruffner Middle School on Election Day - Video

At 6:00 AM the line snaked around the dead end at the Marriott. The first in line arrived at 4:30 AM. Parking was scare as people resorted to Home Depot and Shewels. Rev. Carl Tinsley, Chairman of the Electoral Board opened the door and greeted the first in line. The machines were at times not working properly which held up the voting process. Remarks in line were "if you can file your taxes online then you should be able to vote online." There were 4 lines by alphabet to check in and get your voting slip. They ran out of voting slips quickly and just gave blank white pieces of paper saying "voting slip." Remarks were made that this was not secure as anyone could write on a piece of paper without checking in and vote. The machine if "Presidential" was selected only gave you the option to vote for President. The other option which seemed to be confusing was "Federal" which gave you in addition to President the option to vote for Senate and Congress candidates.