Looking back at the news of 2011: Part 2

The school board bought land west of Brown Subdivision for the new elementary school Superintendent Dr. Mike Robinson said could be ready for use by the fall of 2012 or early winter 2013. The price was $231,000 for just over 14 acres.

The school board awarded low bidder BurWil Construction Co. of Bristol, Tenn., the contracts for renovation of Marion Primary School and construction of the new elementary school. The bid for construction “hard costs” was $22,252,000, a figure $80,000 less than budgeted, said school superintendent Dr. Mike Robinson.

Soft costs for services, such as financing by a firm selling bonds for the projects that will vary according to the bonds’ selling price, and architectural services, are still in flux but are within the $25 million total committed by the county board of supervisors, Robinson said.

The board of supervisors authorized the school board to apply to the Virginia Board of Education for up to $12.5 million from the Literary Fund. The county may also issue general obligation school bonds not to exceed $9.5 million and issue general obligation loan anticipation notes in a maximum principal amount not to exceed $12.5 million. And it can issue general obligation public improvement bonds not to exceed $3 million.

A request that in many localities has resulted in legal battles over constitutional issues arose and resolved peacefully when a group of clergy in Smyth County asked the school board to consider their offer to post the Ten Commandments in county schools at no cost to the school system. Speaking for the group, Don Medley, pastor of Brookside Baptist Church in Sugar Grove, told the school board the group would fund the project.

Posting the Ten Commandments in schools has generated controversy in many school divisions between proponents and those arguing displaying the Decalogue in public schools blurs the separation of church and state and violates the First Amendment’s prohibition of state establishment of religion.Medley said the Ten Commandments were posted in Giles County schools with “no repercussion yet.” Within days, however, two Giles County families announced intentions to sue the school board over its decision to display the Ten Commandments. Medley said he was aware that a suit is apparently pending in the Giles case, but it did not affect his group’s interest in posting the commandment in Smyth schools.

“We’re not wanting to do anything to get the county in trouble,” Medley said. “We’re not trying to do anything that is not peaceful. If this doesn’t work, there are other ways we can do it.”

Within the month, the clergy withdrew the request.

The Mother of Virginia’s state parks turned 75 this year. Hungry Mother was the first of the original six parks the commonwealth built in the New Deal in a fledgling statewide park system, and was the setting for the inauguration of all six parks and of the future 35-park system on June 13, 1936. That day was called the greatest day in Smyth County’s history by the late historian Mack Sturgill and others. Some 5,000 people were on hand for the event whose festive air Hungry Mother’s staff wanted to recreate for the June 18 anniversary celebration.

While an exact count was unavailable, Hungry Mother and state-level officials felt they may have reached their goal of matching the attendance at the park system’s dedication in 1936 during the daylong 75^th anniversary of that event in June.

“We had 1,064 cars, and you can multiply that by up to 4.5 people per vehicle,” Virginia State Parks Director Joe Elton said late in the day. “And we don’t know how many came by shuttle.”

Two or three dozen of the park’s most ardent supporters remained for the day’s finale, a showing of the Blue Ridge Public Television video Virginia State Parks: 75 Years and Still Growing that looks at the park system’s history, growth, new developments and future plans. They cheered when local park celebrities appeared on screen, like Park Ranger Geoff Hall, Environmental Specialist Forrest Atwood, and parks Friends organization president John Taminger.

Staying until the end was Elton, also applauded as he appeared on screen and drew the video to a close with the words “job well done” for the many who make the parks what they are.

In April, Holston Hills Country Club was changing to meet the challenges and to ward off foreclosure. In a letter to members, Club President Dick Jennings wrote the biggest change in Holston Hills Country Club was “a renewed positive attitude. I honestly believe we will surpass 200 members this year.” Jennings’ letter said the enthusiasm evident in the club “for a feasible plan to keep your club from that awful “F” word, foreclosure, has been so exciting.”

As a non-profit, non-stock corporation, Holston Hills relies on members for it main income. Since 2005 the club saw a decreasing membership reflecting the economy, lost jobs, members’ declining health and deaths. Jennings led a restructuring of membership opportunities in a move to make supporting the club more affordable in tough economic times. The club also offered non-members opportunities to play, paying green fees as they go.

Over the summer, the club began talks with the town of Marion about selling Holston Hills Country Club to Marion for operation as a public recreation facility.

This fall Marion officials met with club employees to begin their transition to employment by the town at the golf course Marion is taking over from the club.

Smyth County Community Foundation is loaning the town $1.5 million for the purchase of the country club. For five years, the town pays only interest at 2.5 percent in monthly payments of $3,125 for a total interest payment of $187,500. The $1.5 million principal would be due at the end of five years for a total outlay of $1,687,500.

The purchase of the golf course would allow repayment of the club’s $1.2 million debt and provide $300,000 operations and restorations of greens and other parts of the facility.

Under the plan, the town would repay the foundation note through refinancing with a local bank, municipal bond issuance, anticipation of retirement of existing debt, refinancing with the foundation, or a combination of options. If the town chooses, it can sell the property to repay the debt.

According to a budget estimate, projected expenses and revenues are balanced at $500,370.

In April, weather nearly unimaginable in these mountains struck. Long before the National Weather Service made a determination, national media and Appalachian Power referred to a “probable” or suspected tornado” as the culprit behind the swath of wreckage that ended northwest of Chilhowie after its devastating and nearly indescribable rampage through Glade Spring.

The 1 a.m. storm destroyed homes, industries and businesses and lives in Glade Spring, then damaged or took homes and barns on farmland on its northeastward rampage. Winds rolled a trailer home onto its top on Plum Creek Road north of Chilhowie. They overturned a trailer and tossed it against a home on Carlock Creek northeast of the town. Other homes there were ruined and a man injured.

NWS rated the tornado as an EF 3 at Glade Spring with winds of 130 miles an hour and an EF 2 in Smyth County with maximum 115 mile-per-hour winds.

NWS said Smyth county officials estimated the tornado caused between $2 million and $2.25 million dollars worth of damage.

A few hundred yards north of South Holston Lake south of Abingdon, the first trees were downed, and not far to the northeast, a hilltop forest was flattened and debris lies in a yard. The last trees to fall in the storm lie just over the crest on the north side of Walker Mountain.

While the atmosphere is capricious, the ground is typically solid and while Saltville isn’t quite sitting on a gold mine, the caverns beneath the town are valuable and subject to taxation.  The town can bill Saltville Gas Storage for about $500,000 in back taxes, a figure representing about one-quarter of the town’s annual budget, Smyth County Commissioner of the Revenue Jeff Richardson told the town’s council members in October.

The back taxes owed for the years 2008-11 do not mean the company actively withheld payment of taxes owed the town, according to Richardson, who called SGS “a fine corporate citizen” and said “nothing inappropriate was done.” Instead, until Richardson made a crucial discovery this summer, no one realized some of SGS’s assets were taxable, he explained.

The assets in question were the caverns left behind from salt extraction, wells that make ideal gas storage facilities in a use that imbues literal holes in the ground with value as utilized resources. In his research, Richardson found the caverns as used were subject to taxation. He also found almost all of the wells are in Washington County and taxable there. That county’s commissioner of the revenue, David Henry, took the research from there, according to Richardson, identifying a firm capable of assessing the new-found assets.

Straddling the county line, Saltville is the big winner for the moment in Smyth County, but the county stands to increase substantially its revenue from SGS. Richardson said future brining operations and the resulting creation of caverns for gas storage will be in Smyth County. What is uncertain, he said, is how quickly those operations will create tax generating holes in the ground.

King College chose Abingdon for the site of its proposed King School of Medicine and Health Sciences Center, ending months of anticipation by Smyth County leaders who lobbied King to build the school here.

John Graham and his brother Tom Graham petitioned the county and town governments to pledge cash or in-kind support to match a $25 million grant for the medical school from the Virginia Tobacco Commission. Marion was first aboard with a $7.5 million pledge. The county supervisors also offered $7.5 million. Chilhowie offered $1 million in cash or in-kind donation of water, sewage and other services if the campus locates inside the town limits. Saltville offered $200,000 and up to 365 acres for a portion for the medical school or associated use such as administration or student housing. With an $11 million in-kind pledge of a portion of the old SCCH building, the Smyth package stood at $26 million last October. Then in November, the Smyth County Community Foundation added $1 million to the package pledges, raising its total value to $27 million.

Graham said the school will involve clinics in Smyth County he called “a good resource” for the school’s clinical training program.

A decade after its initial proposal, the possibility of a natural gas-fired electricity generation plant built in Smyth County was resurrected in Atkins by two votes of the Smyth County Industrial Development Authority.

The IDA approved an option on a parcel of land and a construction easement to Silver Springs, Md.-based Competitive Power Ventures Inc., the company that proposed in April 2001 building a plant fueled by natural gas. The optioned site is south of the intersection of Gordondale Road and Mulberry Lane in Atkins.

Commissioner of the Revenue Richardson said the plant 10 years ago was projected to generate about $1 million tax revenues annually for the county. That figure could now be as much as double, he said.

Gener Cotiangco, CVP vice president for asset management, said while the plant, if built, will significantly benefit Virginia and Smyth County with jobs and revenues, it is too early in development to provide those or other details about the project.

dkegley@wythenews.com