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The Roanoke Star-Sentinel February 11 - 17, 2011
NewsRoanoke.com
Community | News | Per spective
[Riding for a Cause]
Roanoke City Walks Thin Line On Budget
Biking the U.S. for MS
With “caution” being the word of the day, Roanoke City’s Director of Finance, Ann Shawver and Director of Management and Budget, Amelia Merchant began framing the budget for fiscal year 2012. At a briefing with council Monday fingers were crossed that revenue will remain stable and expenses will continue to stay below this year’s budget. Fiscal year 2010 was the first year ever the city had declining revenue. Fiscal year 2011’s adopted budget anticipates another year of City Gov’t decline at 1.5 percent. The preliminary forecast is for a flat fiscal year 2012 compared to 2011--Flat being an improvement after two consecutive declining years. A surplus of $3.78 million for fiscal year 2010 is due to hiring delays and salary freezes. The economic downturn has produced a “smaller government” for Roanoke City. The employee per capita has declined to below the 2006 level at .0185 of an employee per person. Though sales tax revenue hit a growth spurt in November, Shawver notes that fixed costs are increasing. Shawver remained wary with the lost revenue from the delayed openings of Wal-Mart and Kohl’s which are now scheduled for the middle of fiscal year 2012. Kohl’s is expected to generate about half the sales tax rev-
Romance Pages P8–9 Looking for some great ways to say “I Love You?” Check out our special Valentine’s section!
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Cyclists on a recent Bike the US for MS trip gather for a group photo just after arriving on the West Coast.
H. Bruce Rinker, PhD
God and
Evolution P5– Bruce Rinker says that evolution is one of life’s little facts - and that God is its divine and sustaining author.
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hat’s it like to load food and provisions onto your bicycle and set off for a two-month, cross-country, quadriceps-powered ride? Just ask Mason Cavell of Blacksburg. By day, Cavell crunches data and numbers for the Office of Economic Development at Virginia Tech. By night, Cavell, who is graduating in May with a master’s degree in urban planning from the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, recruits riders and plots routes for a three-year-old bike riding enterprise that raises hundreds of thousands of dollars for multiple sclerosis (MS) research. > CONTINUED P3: Bike
Virginia and Maryland last year had the biggest baby oyster boom in more than a decade, providing a sliver of good news for the critical Chesapeake shellfish whose overall population hovers near historic lows. The annual fall oyster survey found an average of nearly 80 spat, or baby oysters, per bushel, the highest since 1997, when the spatfall index, as the count is called, was 277. The annual fall survey also found low disease mortality for the
seventh straight year. highest spat counts since 1985. The index is the average number of The heaviest spat counts were in the spat found in each bushel southern Eastern Shore, sample collected at 53 oyster where one sample showed Regional News bars scattered through Mary910 spat. But baby oysters land’s portion of the Bay. The were also found in low safall survey has been conducted annually linity areas, where spat is found only since 1939. about once a decade. Unlike 1997, when the index was drivThe timing couldn’t have been better, en primarily by a very heavy set in East- biologists say. Last year, in a controverern Bay, the 2010 boom was widespread. sial move, Maryland set aside about a Eleven bars had the highest or second quarter of its high quality oyster bars as
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protected sanctuaries. Spat in those areas will be protected from harvest. “Historically, when an area was open to fishing, once you developed a high concentration of mature oysters, they would be quickly discovered and exploited,” said Mike Naylor, director of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Shellfish Program. “Now you > CONTINUED P2: Oyster
Watoto Children’s Choir Presents Concert Of Hope
P11– Patrick Henry Captures the Western Valley Title, District Playoffs begin and Wild Bill Turner makes his predictions in Sports!
VDOT plans show the proposed layout of the new interchange on I-581.
Valley View Interchange Offers Alternate Options
P14– The Kandinsky Trio will be joined by a human beatbox artist, hip-hop dancers, a jazz trombonist vir tuoso and other soloists at the Lyric on Feb 19th.
> CONTINUED P2: Budget
Chesapeake Bay Oyster Survey Gives Good News
Playoff Time
Beat Down!
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With Governor McDonnell’s transportation bill passing both the Senate Monday and the House Appropriations Committee the week before, the proposed Valley View interchange has been moved to the front burner. City Council members were briefed on the project Monday and if all goes well the Virginia Department of Transportation will hold a public hearing in June. The Federal Highway Administration is looking for the project to be “shovelready” or ready to go, their preferred terminology. Project preparation by the city engineering department has been ongoing for the last two years. The state has kept the interchange’s completion dormant for more then 10 years. The interchange has decreased in size since its last visit to the drawing board. Reduction in collector roads has decreased the price tag slightly. The estimated cost is now $62 million according to Mark Jamison, Roanoke City’s Transportation Manager. It won’t be costing the city one dime as there is no requirement for the city > CONTINUED P3: Interchange
The Watoto Chilowed by AIDS or war). dren’s Choir from This gives them a famUganda brought a bit of ily environment –they Africa to Raleigh Court are brothers and sisters Presbyterian Church to each other and the last Friday evening as woman becomes their they presented their mother. Each village Concert of Hope. The also includes a school, a twenty-two children, church and a clinic. At ages seven through present, 2000 children Photo by Dennis Fisher fourteen, received prolive in Watoto villages. longed applause for The children of Watoto perform. They hope to have their outstanding perthis concept become a formance of music and dance, which model for other African countries. is an energetic fusion of contemporary The Children’s Choir was instituted gospel and traditional African rhythm. in 1994. With a team of adult leaders, The audience appreciated their enthusi- the choir tours worldwide, presenting asm, their focus and their boundless en- Concerts of Hope and telling the Watoto ergy. The program included information story of how the love of God transforms about their country and the organization lives. Audiences learn that millions of that changed their lives. African children are orphaned by AIDS “Watoto” means “the children.” and warfare. Opportunities to help with Founded by missionaries Gary this transforming work are and Marilyn Skinner in 1992, available through Watoto: by Community Watoto is sponsored by KPC, sponsoring a child ($35.00 a thriving church in Kampala, monthly), by donations, by Uganda. Its purpose is to change the purchasing handmade jewelry, scarves lives of children orphaned by AIDS and and CDs displayed at concerts, and by warfare, enabling them to become edu- prayer support. cated, responsible Christians, and future To learn more about Watoto, go to the leaders in their country. Instead of an website www.watoto.com institutional orphanage, the children live By Mary Jo Shannon in a Watoto village, in a house for eight info@newsroanoke.com children and a “mother” (women wid-
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