http://www.roanoke.com/news/local/blacksburg/blacksburg-to-explore-conve...
The council briefly discussed the issue during a work session Tuesday. Council members were enthusiastic about considering the possibilities. Councilwoman Krisha Chachra was absent.
"I would like to see us at least continue the conversation," Rordam said.
Councilman John Bush responded, "I second that."
Councilman Michael Sutphin recently has quipped on social media about the town converting to city status.
The town considered the move in the 1980s, leading to a study that Verniel told council members he would bring with him in about a month, when he plans to revisit the issue with them. He said he would explain then "what services we'll have to take on."
Towns provide such services as policing, utilities, trash pickup and recreation. But the scope of responsibilities for Virginia cities is much wider.
Cities must provide schools, courts and jail and constitutional officers such as a sheriff, prosecutor and circuit court clerk.
The implications of Blacksburg moving from town to city are numerous. I'm not sure how it will effect VT. I think if Blacksburg moves forward with it Christiansburg will move that way also. This could really have a negative effect on Montgomery County though.
Comments
I'm not really sure what benefits this would bring or why this would be necessary. Those are pretty pricey services they would be required to foot the bill for.
well, maybe because all the revenue from inside the city of Blacksburg would be spent in the city of Blacksburg? Right now, I believe all of the towns in the county pool money into the county coffers. So Blacksburg bringing in crap-tons of revenue helps Montgomery County as a whole, but could help Blacksburg more maybe?
Bingo. Taxes are collected by each locality, so most tax paid within Blacksburg goes to the county budget, such as Personal Property tax and the portion of the state sales tax designated to the locality (VA's sales tax is 5.3%, where 4.3% goes to the state and the remainder goes to the city/county).
Blacksburg does collect a few taxes on top of Montgomery County, but would stand to have a lot more revenue if they cut Montgomery County out of the loop entirely.
We pay Personal Property Tax and Real Property Tax to both Christiansburg and Montgomery County. I'm pretty sure it's the same way in Blacksburg.
The only Personal Property Tax collected by Blacksburg is Real Estate tax, and only at a fraction of the rate of Montgomery County.
Now that you mention it, I do remember paying property tax on my car when I lived in Christiansburg, though. Regardless, the amount that Christiansburg charges in property tax is also only a small fraction of the rate charged by the county. If either town were to incorporate as a city, they would get 100% of the property tax paid by their residents, which would mean a significant increase in revenue.
Speculating - but my guess is it would bring more businesses to Blacksburg.
Joe Meredeth taught my Global Management class my senior year (side note - possibly the best class I ever took at Tech, tied with Pres. Torg's Theory of Organization class, take Global Management if you can), and he sits on Blacksburg's Economic Committee. The committee has a lot of goals to grow the town in a certain way. They want to attract small to medium business (ranging from mom & pop stores to Trader Joes) while minimizing the presence of large businesses (aka, keep all Wal-Marts outside of city/town limits). My guess is that become a 'City' changes what business will come, and maybe what business cannot come.
That seems like a terrific goal for a place like Blacksburg. You have any resources (books, papers, articles, etc) on how becoming a city would serve that?
It's less the inherent properties of city vs. town that determine what businesses can or can't set up shop, but rather that a city has more control over the policies that may attract one business over another. Towns have to navigate county ordinance before they can set policies of their own.
One problem with that theory is that Blacksburg needs to vastly improve their sewer system to accommodate any real new potential business. Their system is old enough that it has significant inflow/infiltration problems that eat into available capacity. For years, they have tried to get potential business customers to pay for those sewer improvements.
Did somebody say "improve the sewage system"?
As someone who grew up in Blacksburg, I think this would be beneficial for Blacksburg and VT in the long run. The county never seems to see eye-to-eye with Bbg in terms of ideology of government and it seems that this a good time for them to part ways. With the University still expanding the benefits of being City I think would make expansion easier as far as infrastructure goes. I think then only negative would be higher taxes.. Christiansburg would be best to stay as town and people that don't like high taxes can move there.
Technically, isn't den hill road in christiansburg?
The post office is Christiansburg but I think government wise it is more of Elliston/Eastern Montgomery Co.
All of Den Hill Rd is technically in Montgomery County and the mailing address in C'burg, but depending on which end you are on you would either be in Blacksburg, Christiansburg, or Shawsville school district I believe. So its kinda like living in no mans land, but that sure is a fun road to drive on.
Taxes might be higher for the City of Blacksburg vs. the Town of Blacksburg, but as a town within Montgomery County, residents are currently paying town taxes and county taxes. Are those two combined more than what residents would pay in city taxes?
Oh god please no.
Beware the law of unintended consequences. There are reasons that a lot of cities are looking at reversion to town status.
^^^^^ 1000 times this. Virginia's "independent city" structure is really impractical unless you have land, population, and a revenue base to support it. Bedford underwent revision, Martinsville is looking at reversion presently. There's a ton of information on the topic overall, and very little of it falls into the "yes, let's become a city" category. The independent city logic only holds IFF there is sufficient revenue WITHIN the boundary at present (there are no foreseeable options for annexation under Virginia law). The other point to make is how rigidly the town has resisted a lot of development initiatives for mixed-purpose housing, etc. The "not-in-my-neighborhood" argument passes muster now because the town is literally flush with cash. But when the cupboard gets empty, something will have to give.
As for joint services, that's been serviceable in some areas, but certain functions are required (the offices of Sheriff, Commonwealth's Attorney, Clerk of Circuit Court, Commissioner of Revenue, and Treasurer [CoR and T may be combined]). Blacksburg previously operated a satellite court within the Judicial Circuit, so that's probably not insurmountable. When they try to form a joint school system with MontCo right after they go independent, the county will definitely stick it to 'em. Right now, being joined at the hip incentivizes cooperation to some degree. If the relationship becomes fully adversarial, I could just see both sides - and all our residents - losing.
All the Cities that reverted to towns had populations of less than 10,000. Blacksburg has a population of 40,000+ which would make it one of the 15 largest cities in Virginia
this has been an off and on topic in the City of Martinsville for years.
I never got the vibe that Blacksburg even wanted to be a large town, much less a city. My uneducated first thoughts would be that its a bad idea. However I would enjoy reading the report.
Fun Fact.
Of the 41 independent cities in the United States, 38 are located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. (the other three are Baltimore, MD St. Louis, MO and Carson City, NV)
Leg because I'm surprised I wasn't the first to mention this.
What is an "independent city?"
cities with completely separate government/schools/services from the surrounding county. Think of it as Washington DC vs Maryland and Virginia. DC has its own government and does not share revenue/taxes/anything with the surrounding states. Same way with independent cities and their neighboring counties.
That is not a great example because DC does not have full autonomy over its laws because it houses the federal government, so congress gets a lot of the final say on issues.
Yeah, D.C. is an entirely different can of worms. Without getting political, I'm in favor of D.C. remaining as it is because the intentions were to keep any single state from being able to exert control over the federal government.
yea i can understand that, but locals here absolutely hate how they don't get the final say on local matters even though the vast majority of the population that would be affected by the laws are in favor of them.
I'm assuming it means they operate outside of the jurisdiction of the county system. For example, here in Raleigh the schools are all a part of the Wake County Public School System (hence all the hubub a couple years ago about across county bussing where kids used to spend an hour+ on the bus to get to a school across town when there was one 10 minutes away), and the Wake County Sheriff patrols alongside the city and highway cops. Should Raleigh become an independent city, all schools within city limits would be pulled away from WCPSS and be a part of a new Raleigh City School System, and I don't believe the county sheriff would have jurisdiction in city limits.
Basically this.
Generally speaking, in Virginia cities are municipalities wholly independent of counties (the Census Bureau considers independent cities to be equivalent to counties). If you have a municipality within a county, it's by law a town.
Virginia is the only state I've lived in in which "city" and "town" differ in more than just name.
Apart from the few other independent cities mentioned earlier, it's actually the only state that has this system. It's a bygone system inherited from our colonial days.
New York seems just as weird, where "County", "City", "Town", and "Village" are all unique divisions defined by the state.
The entire state is divided into Counties, like most states. Cities are similar to most other areas of the country, where it's a defined region that doesn't necessarily lie entirely within a single county that has its own laws but is still subject to some ordinances of the counties it lies in. And then the areas of each county that aren't inside a city are divided into Towns, which are probably best described as "mini counties". Villages are similar to "towns" in Virginia, except they are also a subdivision of a Town.
tl;dr: Any person in New York lives under at least 2 forms of local government (a County as well as a City or Town), and some live under 3 (County, Town, and Village).
Edit: Well that was a lot of work for nothing. ^^^^^^What they said.
All cities in Virginia are separate political jurisdictions from counties. Only state where every city is seperate.
second fun fact
Cities in VA are no longer allowed to expand their boundaries. Back in the day the cities would continue to expand their borders, taking land from the surrounding counties - hence more tax revenue from residents. The state banned this practice (I don't remember when) when counties began to disappear practically. This is why the 757 doesn't have any counties. It's all cities - Norfolk, Hampton, Newport News, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth
Residents of York, James City, and Isle of Wight Counties might object to being left out of the 757. :)
Other than the 757, it is called the 7 cities by residents. Suffolk and Chesapeake would like a word with you. My Wife is 757 and I am from Richmond. We laugh at the fact that Hampton is a city with less residents than Henrico County.
not from the area. just listed the ones i thought of immediately
I'm not sure what your point is. Virginia Beach is the only city in the state with a population greater than Henrico County, so the reason you're laughing at Hampton is also applicable to Richmond, Norfolk, etc.
If you lump cities and counties together and call them "divisions", the two largest divisions by population are counties (Fairfax County has over 1.1 million people, and even Prince William County has more than Virginia Beach), and 3 more counties are larger than the 2nd largest city.
Point is that she is a Hampton High grad and she went to VCU. I am a Henrico High Grad who went to VT.
We're married. Sometimes as we visit our hometowns and notice how both places have developed, we muse about the fact that Hampton is a city with less pop. than Henrico County.
Nothing more.
Yeah, there was a lot of cannibalization of surrounding counties by the original cities in the Hampton Roads area, which led to the counties all converting to cities (either outright or by combining with various cities & former towns) to form the current continuous patchwork of 7 cities surrounding Hampton Roads
Virginia Beach formed because a bunch of counties decided they left Norfolk for a reason and didn't want to be annexed by Norfolk, so they became a city. This is part of why Norfolk and VA Beach leadership barely acknowledge the existence of one another.
So many wasted resources in that area. They need a regional fire/rescue, law enforcement, code enforcement, emergency management etc down there. Would save money and lives.
I mean it wasn't a new idea that they were separate entities. These divisions happened in the 1600s.
The original Elizabeth City Shire (one of the original shires/counties of Virginia) was formed in 1634 and included land on both sides of Hampton Roads.
In 1636 it was split, leaving Elizabeth City Shire (renamed County in 1643) on the north side of the Roads and New Norfolk County on the south.
New Norfolk County was split in 1637 into Upper Norfolk County and Lower Norfolk County.
Upper Norfolk County became Nansemond County in 1646, became the independent city of Nansemond in 1972 and merged with the City of Suffolk in 1974.
Lower Norfolk County was split in 1691 to form Norfolk County and Princess Anne County
By the 1950s the City of Norfolk had already annexed a good bit of Norfolk County and was filing (and winning) annexation suits in Princess Anne County, too. Princess Anne County (which, again, had been separate from Norfolk since 1691) quite understandably didn't like having land taken away from them.
Virginia Beach was originally a resort that became an incorporated town in Princess Anne County in 1906 and then became an independent city in 1952. When Princess Anne County started losing ground to the City of Norfolk, they saw a merger with Virginia Beach as a way to keep Norfolk from annexing more of a county that had been separate for over 250 years. A referendum and General Assembly approval merged the two in 1963.
About that same time, what was left of Norfolk County merged with the City of South Norfolk to form the City of Chesapeake.
TL;DR the City of Norfolk pulled a land grab and entities that had been separate for centuries found ways to remain separate. And yes, that's why none of them get along. Yes, I think it's a shame they don't play nice together.
Great summary.
Imagine the political and economic clout the area would have if the seven* cities of Hampton Roads were one city. It would be between San Antonio and San Diego in size.
* - I only say seven because Williamsburg is kind of isolated, Franklin is too far away, and Poquoson sucks.
Yup. Instead Virginia Beach and Norfolk fight over who has the biggest
.
I'm pretty sure it's set the region back about 50 years.
Former history major with a grandfather that's WAAAAAAAAAAY too into genealogy and would drag me all over the area hunting down old, dead family.
I'm just filled with useless information like this. Another example:
Did you know that the CSS Virginia had to be fully loaded with stores of fuel and ammunition to sit low enough in the water for her armor to be effective? Yep. When planning the conversion from the sailing frigate USS Merrimack, the Virginia's designers forgot to subtract the weight of Merrimack's masts.
Edit: grammar, sorry
that is a fun fact. The armor plating of ships was something that always intrigued me about the civil war
If you haven't picked it up, I recommend CSS Virginia: Mistress of Hampton Roads. It was written by John Quarstein who I don't *usually* recommend but that was a pretty good book. Might be out of print now but worth a look
Cities are allowed to expand their boundaries, if they gain approval from the county they are annexing land from. The problem was that cities were expanding selectively, choosing commercial areas (higher revenue due to taxes, with very little additional expenditures to provide services like education and utilities) and leaving sparser residential areas in the counties.
The counties surrounding Norfolk were losing land to the city, with no way to prevent it. One by one, each county merged with a smaller city bordering it and incorporated the combined area as a new city:
- Norfolk County and the City of South Norfolk merged to form the City of Chesapeake
- Princess Anne County merged into Virginia Beach
- Elizabeth City County merged into Hampton
- Nansemond County incorporated as the City of Nansemond, and later merged with Suffolk
- Warwick County incorporated as the City of Warwick, and later merged with Newport News
The bolded is not always true. See: Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools, Fairfax County Schools (also serve Fairfax City), Greensville County Public Schools (also serve Emporia). So Blacksburg could also enter into an agreement to remain within MCPS if they wanted.
Yeah, I know James City County and Williamsburg have a combined court system too.
How many kids from outside Blacksburg in Montgomery County go to BHS? Wouldn't those kids have to go to a different school since BHS would be specifically zoned for Blacksburg?
Isn't Radford a city within Montgomery County? Or maybe it is between Montgomery and Pulaski and not surrounded by one full county. Given VT is much bigger (and better) than Radford, I wonder if there is an opportunity to scale to how Radford operates on certain things that a city is responsible for...
Radford is bordered on 3 sides by Montgomery County and by the New River on the 4th with Pulaski County on the other side.
Radford is an independent City. Own schools, utilities, etc.
I've also heard Radford has tried to go back to being an incorporated town a few times, but that Montgomery County doesn't want to annex Radford back because of the additional burden on the county -- since both sides plus the General Assembly have to agree.
Seems like it could significantly raise taxes in Blacksburg (income, real estate or sales), given how many non-tax paying residents will be taking advantage of many of those services.
I think 757hokie83 hit the nail on the head above:
Interesting read.
Related Story - I recently had a conversation with another Hokie on Reddit who didn't like President Sands's plan to rapidly expand the university. His belief was that the Town couldn't support a university the size of Ohio State (fair point IMO). However, if the town grows to a city, and expands, who knows?
Man that expansion needs to happen quick if Sands is going to follow through. Traffic and parking is already getting pretty bad (I'm also slowly transitioning into a grumpy local from my old student mindset).
The thought of the university adding that many bodies is a scary one for me. I already find myself unwilling to battle the crowds and staying home more and more these days. If the school got that big I'm not sure I'd venture into town for much besides athletic events.
I, for one, do not agree with the plan of expanding enrollment to ~50,000. I do not want Virginia Tech to become a degree factory. There is no possible way to increase enrollment by around 20,000 students that quickly without compromising your admission standards. Let's focus more on continually innovating our academic programs, admitting the best and brightest students available, and working to get the best faculty in their field. I don't agree with cattle herding as many students as possible to classes as a way to increase revenue. Quality of education will only suffer with less professor-student interaction and more TAs and online-based courses. Parking already has become a huge issue, and one of the things that makes VT's campus so appealing (the vast amount of land on campus) is going to disappear if you nearly double the current enrollment. The school has gotten about as big enrollment-wise as it should be in order for the town to support it.
Couldn't have said this any better. Have a leg.
I find myself in the middle on this, I guess. I think the school has room to grow some (key word: some). I don't think it has room to grow to the size that Sands wants it. The campus and the town can't support that.
But I just want to say thank you for making a logical, sensible argument against expanding the school to that degree. Most everyone that I've talked to about this has either been a townie or a former student that's lived here long enough that they may as well be a townie and I'm so tired of the "I don't want 20,000 extra piles of vomit downtown from asshole college kids."
You're right, I think there are certain opportunities for growth. I think we need to continue to expand and grow our partnership with Roanoke. Having the med school there with such a massive healthcare presence in Roanoke is huge. I also would not mind Virginia Tech starting a law school there in the next 10-15 years. I know law schools have had financial troubles recently, but these things are cyclical. You want more grads making higher salaries donating back to the university. You have the US District Court in Roanoke as well as a number of law firms downtown. This would give law students great access to potential internships and clerkships. This also expands the university without compromising the small town feel of Blacksburg.
I think the 50,000 enrollment runs completely contrary to the "This is Home" marketing we have been doing lately. I know that's primarily for the athletics department, but really it does speak to the entire Virginia Tech experience. If we go over 50,000 students, nothing is going to feel like home about Blacksburg or campus. Blacksburg is not Columbus, Ohio. I don't want Blacksburg to lose that college town feel and charm and become a place that is uncomfortable and unpleasant to visit.
As much as I would love for Virginia Tech to start a law school (coming from someone who wants to attend law school in the near future), Virginia is already saturated with quality law schools. The top 100 law schools, including the top law schools in-state, have long been established which is why new law schools struggle for years to gain any sort of footing in the legal market. A good example of a new law school struggling to put its foot in the door is Charlotte School of Law. If Tech really wanted to have a law school, it's best bet would be to buy out ASL, move it to Roanoke, and dramatically restructure its academics.
I say this as an attorney, a Tech grad, the son of two Tech grads, and the brother of a Tech grad. There is a huge oversaturation in the legal market, it's extremely difficult to find work as an attorney, especially one fresh out of school. The good jobs go almost exclusively to people who graduated from the best law schools in the country. The list of schools that comprise the 'best' is basically set in stone. There's no way that Tech would be able to break into that list.
I would be FURIOUS if Tech opened a law school, because it would make us a laughingstock. Whether it was or not, it would look like a naked cash grab. loluva would make fun of us, and would frankly be justified in doing so. There's absolutely no reason for Tech to open a law school, to do so would be stupid.
TL;DR: Fuck no to a law school.
Well, we already own
Scott StadiumLane North, so if we keep the streak going, eventually we'll just be able to take over the law school in Charlottesville too, right?I would be on board with that course of action.
I think the growth on the Heathwood side town, with the new interchange, will be massive over the next 20 years. There is a lot of room to grow the school and the town/city.
Very much agree - I'd rather see VT at around 25-30k undergrad enrollment, and see the school become even more academically competitive.
I don't really care about parking on campus. 90% of students live within a short walk/bike ride/bus ride/uber (There were a few ubers last time I was in bburg for OSU 2015, I assume it's grown since then). They'll live.
Im curious to see how hard they push for a bigger online student base
Enrollment can grow with online classes, satellite campuses AND growth in Blacksburg.
Leg. That's a great point I didn't consider.
That was my thinking. How does Sands want to achieve that growth?
If the bulk of that is non blacksburg growth, I don't see that as being a bad thing. OSU's enrollment system wide is just over 100k. Roughly 40% of their students aren't part of the Columbus campus.
I would not mind seeing Virginia Tech add more online graduate degree and professional certificate programs. I feel like that is one area where we are a tad behind some other regional competitor schools. That would be something I would be in favor of to increase enrollment and add more grad students.
I do not, however, ever want us becoming an online degree factory pumping out bachelor's degrees left and right.
Former VT admissions counselor. VT could easily take an additional 10,000 students no problem and not hurt admission criteria at all. The caveat is those students would all be engineering and they would likely all come from NoVa.
Hell, any given year VT is turning away a ton of qualified engineers because the college is so popular in conjunction with the fact that engineering degrees have been rammed down everyone's throats so hard in elementary, middle, and high school so they are hot right now.
It doesn't "grow" to become a city; the town limits would become the city limits unless Blacksburg started annexing parts of Montgomery County and residents can choose to not be annexed. In fact, there's a small area inside the City of Radford that is all of about 4 houses that aren't part of Radford, but instead Montgomery County because those residents didn't want to be annexed by the city. Among other things, Montgomery County has to create a voting precinct for those residences and have to keep the poling place for them open until polls close state-wide even if they get 100% voter participation by noon.
As for growth, the City of Radford has about 16,400 residents -- up from 15,800 in 2000 -- and I've heard rumor that Radford has, at times, wanted to go back to being a town in Montgomery County.
Though the flip side is that if Christiansburg and Blacksburg were to become independent cities they'd no longer be exempt from the maximum 11.8% meals tax in independent cities, or 9.3% in counties. Currently, Montgomery County, Roanoke County, Fairfax and one other county (I forget which) can charge whatever they want for a prepared meals tax -- and if you were to go to Outback in Christiansburg your meal would be taxed at 12.8%
Cities in VA have been banned since 1987 from annexing county.
The ban is against "involuntary annexation", but a city and a county can negotiate on terms for annexation.
Yep. I remember in the late '90s, or maybe early 2000s, Bedford city had annexed a good bit of Bedford County before voting to return to an incorporated town -- along with Bedford County voting to take Bedford City back as an incorporated town.
By "charge whatever they want" you mean vote on? I know that just got shot down in Fairfax County in November. I was unaware about any statewide mandated meals tax.
The state law is written as maximum additional 4% in counties, 6.5% in towns, but the law also has exemptions for four locations. By "charge whatever they want" I simply mean they're exempt from these maximums. That's why the meals tax in the town of Christiansburg is a combined 12.8% but in Pulaski County it's 9.3%
Edit: Corrected. Town of Christiansburg combined meals tax is 12.8% -- 7.5% town of Christiansburg, 5.3% state sales tax
Interesting, thanks for the education!
Cburg resident here. Restaurant taxes in bburg n cburg are already 12%. I'm not sure I understand that part of Ur post.
Edit: clarification: the 12% is a combination of 5.3% state sales tax n city added restaurant taxes. Mont county n radford do not have added restaurant taxes.
That part of my post is the fact that if either Christiansburg or Blacksburg became an independent city, they'd no longer be able to charge an additional 7.5% on top of the 5.3% state sales tax -- they'd be limited to 6.5% because they're no longer part of Montgomery County and an independent city. The reason they can charge 7.5% now instead of 4% is because Montgomery County is one of five counties that have an exemption in the state law. The other four are Roanoke County, Rockbridge County, Frederick County and Arlington County.
I think the issue is easily understood when the County Supervisors declined to raise taxes by .02/100 to fund a new school for Christiansburg. This service is needed in the county but too many people outside of Blacksburg are against any tax and it is becoming impossible to run the county on a shoestring budget.
Blacksburg wants to have the authority to manage it's revenue and expenses without the input from the rest of the county because they have vastly different goals.
Part of that is because for decades now, what Blacksburg wants Blacksburg gets. In your example, Blacksburg gets new school buildings far more often than Christiansburg and other areas of the County.
EastMont is new
Riner is new
Blacksburg is new
That is not just pumping money to Blacksburg.
Plus, I did not hear complaints from Blacksburg at raising taxes to fund the Christiansburg school.
East Mont is almost 20 years old. That's not "new". Plus the old Shawsville Elementary School is in a flood plain and I have no clue how old the old E-LES was.
Auburn and Blacksburg are new. Auburn desperately needed a new HS, it's center facade was built in 1938 and the school was a junior high school prior to 1916. Blacksburg HS was built in 1974 and would have cost only $25 million to renovate vs the $57 million to build a new school. That's why people were opposed to it.
And what Christiansburg school?
I saw this and thought, "there is no way East Mont is 20 years old!"
Looked it up and it was built in 99-00. So, close enough.
In other news, I'm old.
Do you only want to renovate the Christiansburg High School which was also built in 1974 or invest in a new school?
The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors struck down a proposed 2-cent tax rate hike meant to speed up the start of new school construction for Christiansburg.
Good. Renovate the damn thing, because I pay enough in taxes to the town of Christiansburg AND Montgomery County as it is.
And part of that extra tax us cburg residents pay is due to the presnt deal between VT and Cburg on the Aquatic center. That needs fixed.
That chafes a lot of Cburg residents who pay for access to the pool only to find out it has been closed yet again for a TECH event.
Prices Fork Elementary is new, Blacksburg High is new, and Blacksburg Middle is less than a decade old... My point is that Blacksburg seems to get a new school for each other one built in the County.
And in the process of becoming an independent city Blacksburg would have to buy those schools from Montgomery County.
Quote from: http://www.roanoke.com/news/local/blacksburg/blacksburg-to-explore-conve...
"County supervisors Chairman Chris Tuck said he has trouble seeing how Blacksburg could support its own schools when it couldn't meet the $3 million asking price for the old high school. The town at one point offered $2.75 million under the provision that it would share the costs of demolition with the county.
"It would be very difficult for them to purchase the new Blacksburg High School. That high school, not including the land, was over $63 million," Tuck said. "I don't know if they're thinking things through, but they got to do what they believe is right for the citizens of Blacksburg.""
To be fair, there's a drastic difference between buying an old school building and the land it sits on when you're only planning on demolishing it anyway, and purchasing a brand new school as an investment into your town/city. If this were to go through, Blacksburg would have to finance all these purchases, with the expectation of paying for them over the coming decades through the drastically increased taxation that would be going straight to them instead of to Montgomery County.
I would be interested to see the financials of the deal, to see how much sense the move would make.
I have trouble understanding how Montgomery County could service it's debt without the revenue from Blacksburg taxes.
Blacksburg would have to take on debt load to build or purchase schools (I have no faith in the asking price from Montgomery County). Would Richmond make Blacksburg buy the county schools (at what rate) or could the City of Blacksburg just take on the debt to build new schools? If it is the latter, Montgomery county would have a major problem with debt service.
Blacksburg has almost 50% of the total county's population so that's about right
As a resident of Christiansburg, I take issue with this statement. Not because it's inaccurate (to support what you said, Blacksburg is 45% of Montgomery County's population) but because the information is misleading.
Data time...
2013 estimates:
* Blacksburg population: 43,609
* Christiansburg population: 21,553
* Montgomery County: 96,207
The problem is 57% of Blacksburg's population is ages 18-24 -- the almost 25,000 residents who make up Virginia Tech's student body.
43609 - 25030 = 18,579 non-college aged residents.
Chances are very few of these college students have school-age children (children 5-18) and only 9.7% of Blacksburg's 43,609 residents are under age 18. That's 4,230 minors.
Christiansburg, on the other hand, only has 8% of its population between 18-24 while 23.8% of its population is under 18. That's about 5129 minors.
That tells me that, when it comes to government school resources, Christiansburg actually needs it more than Blacksburg does. 900 more children.
So, no, Blacksburg doesn't need a new school for every school built elsewhere in Montgomery County.
I highly doubt the student body has mostly changed their residency to Blacksburg from where their parents live.
maybe not legally, but when you see that 45K-ish number thrown about, it does include students. When you look at Blacksburg during the summer, it is certainly a town of <20K with the infrastructure to handle about 35K.
As of the 2010 Census, 57.4% of Blacksburg is ages 18-24, 9.7% is under 18. 23.8% of Christiansburg is under 18.
43,609 * .574 = 25,030
43,609 *.097 = 4,230
21,553 * .238 = 5,129
5,129 - 4,230 = 899
Also, if we assume none of VT's student body is part of that number, you're telling me there's almost 50,000 people in Blacksburg ages 18-24. As someone who lives in Christiansburg and drives in and out of Blacksburg regularly,
I don't buy it. I would wager a lot more students are listed with Blacksburg residency than you realize.
Even then, school resources are based on school age children, not total population and as I just illustrated Christiansburg and Blacksburg have similar need for these resources, so the claim that "Blacksburg has 50% of the population so should have 50% of the new schools" is flat out incorrect.
An easier way to look at this would be what is the current student enrollment of Blacksburg High vs Christiansburg High, Blacksburg Middle, Elementary etc.
The census clearly states to select your place of residence based on where you spend the majority of your time, which for students attending the Blacksburg campus is Blacksburg, not where their parents live.
Source: was a student during the 2010 census.
Which the town benefits from greatly when it comes time to get funding from fed/state government. Something that's often overlooked when townies complain about how students ruin the town.
I agree that Christiansburg gets screwed with appropriations for schools but:
March 20, 2017: The Montgomery County Board of Supervisors struck down a proposed 2-cent tax rate hike meant to speed up the start of new school construction for Christiansburg.
Every County Commissioner representing Christiansburg voted AGAINST funding for the Christiansburg school while 3 of the County Commissioners representing Blacksburg voted in favor of the funding for the Christiansburg school. The problem is not Blacksburg but the representatives elected by the citizens of the county.
But those property owners still pay property taxes. Actually, Blacksburg is in the enviable position of having a large number of residents that do not increase demand on the schools. Property tax revenue for housing 25,000 students is a lot of money and most of these students are low cost to Blacksburg.
Prices Fork is fed by students outside of Town limits, it is not a "Blacksburg" School. It replaced the old Prices Fork Elementary School in Prices Fork, about a mile away.
I know a lot of people who live in Blacksburg (taxes, voting, mail, etc) that have kids that go to Prices Fork Elementary. The Town also redistricted so they could move the low income kids from Kipps to Prices Fork.
It is not that Blacksburg gets whatever it wants (it's schools are not the newest or largest) but that Riner is underdeveloped and Christiansburg gets screwed by the county in regards to their strand of schools. If Christiansburg opened a new high school in 2017, the Average Age of a Student's School would still be 25 years old.
With EastMont High's low enrollment, there is enough space to add the Middle School to the High School facility (square foot/student would become 202) if the residents desired but they have made it clear that they want two separate facilities.
The obvious school that needs to be replaced is Belview. I believe that was the reasoning behind the proposed tax increase. I went there way back in the day(I won't say how long ago) and it was in bad shape then. It's been renovated, and renovated some more, but you can only patch a hole so many times before it's done for.
Being born and raised in Blacksburg, I don't really want it to become a city but Blacksburg does tend to make some bad business decisions.
Well Done! That's the best way to say "work to live, don't live to work". Tight lines to you.
This is a really good read about Virginia cities, annexation fights and towns.
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/vacities/towncityboundaries.html
I have a friend that recently started working for Montgomery Co. I texted her to get her perspective. Says all of this stems from the sale of the old Blacksburg High School and Montco not accepting their under budget offer. Blacksburg wants to take their ball and go home.
Ahhh, local politics.
Is this before or after Shelor bought the property (pending M.C. Board of Supervisors approval)?
Unsure. Didn't get into it that far. Conversation steered away from subject to talk about NC local politics and taxes.
Gotta love it, huh? Having seen this first hand, it is the most infuriating, small potatoes BS drama you will ever encounter.
If I recall Blacksburg offered to buy it at the amount that it was appraised for, but Montgomery Co. brought in an appraiser who valued it higher (compared it to the old jr. high property on main street). Town of blacksburg argued their appraiser was more correct since it is located in a residential area, and not a high access commercial area which is what the Mont. Co. appraisal was based on.
Both parites have butchered this, but from someone who lives in town Montgomery Co. has been the worse party. We will need at least another elementary school soon and there is no other property to build it on, we can't believe they are throwing it away.
Not being thrown away -- it's being developed into residential single-family housing, assuming the Board of Supervisors approves the sale.
..
Also of note...
Mayor Rordam just announced he won't be seeking reelection. So a new Mayor in November might influence this choice as well.
Not sure how municipal politics work however I'd feel it would be incredibly beneficial to have the Amtrak service put in ASAP (link here).
Forgive me for my ignorance, but would becoming a city help/hurt in this regard?
OH MY GOD YES! if i could board a train at rush hour leaving the DC I could be in blacksburg probably 1-2 hours earlier and not wanting to kill myself after dealing with everyone on 66.
RESURRECT THE HUCKLEBERRY LINE!!!!!
The Blacksburg train station needs to be right by Lane Stadium. We could have an actual gameday hype train.
I would think that Amtrack would put a station in Roanoke long before putting one in B'burg.
It's already under construction in Roanoke.
Which is kinda funny, considering how many trains are in Roanoke already.
Yeah, but they didn't have a platform that would support Amtrak.
God yes. Rail service to the NRV that connects it to NOVA and RIchmond/Tidewater is a game changer - assuming it's not bungled. The Northeast Regional is scheduled to begin servicing Roanoke via Lynchburg this year. So that will be a good indicator of how things will run for Blacksburg.
Hyper loop from Roanoke to NOVA/DC then Roanoke to Norfolk with stop in Richmond.
The KTX in Korea does ~190mph and the maglevs in China top out around ~240. Imagine leaving Union Station in DC and being in the burg an hour later.
I just looked at Amtrack from Jacksonville to Orlando, it takes an hour and 5 minutes longer than same trip in a car?!???? WTF?
I'll take "Reasons Why Amtrak Sucks" for $500, Alex.
Like I understand some trips take longer especially on systems with lots of stops but this says there are no other stops. So how the hell does it take an hour longer?
Per Google Maps, the line is largely single-track and there are a ton of at-grade road crossings. Trains have to go slower for those reasons.
Probably mostly due to speed restrictions. Very little railway in the United States was built to support travel above 80mph, and attempts to build improved systems have historically gained little traction due to high cost and low perceived value. And beyond that, many urban areas have fairly low speed restrictions for noise reasons. All of this works together to keep the trains running slower than you would normally go on the highway.
ETA: Also what papilgee said. That certainly doesn't help.
Because when you get above 80 (around 88, specifically), you see some serious shit
You need one of these first
Is the road estimate taking into account the horrible traffic on I-4 through Orlando?
Not to mention the time spent parking, getting a ticket and getting on the train.
Yeah, not a whole lot of train infrastructure in the south.
mostly covered, but ultimately its a decision to be the master of your own destiny, and that comes with a trade off. you get your taxes, greater access to federal (and in some cases State) grants and funds and they will have better position with VT in regards to how the city and school cohabitat symbiotically.
in regards to VT growing per Dr Sands plan, I think overall this is very smart. VT needs a greater alumni base and with it donor base. I don't want it to devalue degrees but I think remote campuses and online programs as noted above will be a great strategy.
personally i would love to take over the campus planning and deliver a sound growth plan for this type of scale. someone tell Dr Sands to give me a call. haha
the new campus master plan is actually being worked on right now. the consultant was in town last week giving preliminary alternatives presentation. final report is due in the fall
Please don't let this happen!!