Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
P. O. Box 3711
204 Broad Street
Martinsville, Virginia 24115
276-638-8801
Toll Free: 800-234-6575
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
By PAUL COLLINS - Bulletin Staff Writer
The Henry County Board of Supervisors will ask the Virginia Department of Transportation to do a safety study, including the possibility of a traffic signal, at the intersection of Carver Road and U.S. 58 where a fatal traffic accident happened Tuesday.
The board voted at its meeting Tuesday night to direct County Administrator Benny Summerlin to draft a resolution requesting VDOT to do a safety study.
Supervisors Chairman Debra Buchanan, Horsepasture District supervisor, brought up the matter. She said she understood there had been a fatal accident at that intersection Tuesday and for years there had been safety issues about the intersection, such as speed and sight distance.
H.G. Vaughn, vice chairman of the board and Ridgeway District supervisor, made a motion asking the VDOT to do the study, and the motion passed 6-0.
In an interview, VDOT Resident Engineer Lisa Hughes said the study would look as such things as traffic accident history and traffic patterns.
In other business, the supervisors approved changes to the county’s animal impound ordinance after no one spoke at a public hearing. The impoundment fee (the fee charged for the capture and delivery of the dog to the pound) will increase from $30 to $40, and the fee for the boarding dog at the pound will increase from $5 per day to $7.
Under the old ordinance, after dogs were kept at the pound for a minimum of 10 days, they became property of the county and the county could turn them over to the SPCA or other interested persons for adoption, or it could euthanize the dogs. The change approved Tuesday will reduce the holding period from a minimum of 10 days to a minimum of five days for dogs without ID tags and would require that dogs wearing ID tags be held at least 10 days.
Under the old ordinance, it was the same impoundment fee whether the dog was picked up the first or subsequent times. With the change approved Tuesday, each subsequent capture of the same dog will result in an $80 impoundment fee for the owner to reclaim the dog.
County Attorney George Lyle told the board that the higher fees will help the county recoup more of what it costs to operate the pound and pay animal control officers.
He encouraged people to vaccinate and tag their dogs, noting that statewide estimates are that perhaps fewer than 20 percent of dog owners comply.
In other business:
• No one spoke at a public hearing on the South Street Neighborhood Improvement Project budget.
Summerlin said funding for the $2,169,853 project includes a Community Development Block Grant and some other grants. The project will involve such things as rehabilitating low- to moderate-income homes, and street, stormwater and other improvements in the South Street neighborhood in Bassett, he said.
The board approved the budget 6-0.
• Hughes said the VDOT has come up with a cost-effective solution to meet a federal requirement that Adopt-a-Highway volunteers doing roadside trash cleanup on primary roads must wear reflective vests. (Primary roads are numbered 600 and below.)
The VDOT has bought 50 vests that meet the federal requirement for $3.50 each for local volunteers, and the VDOT can order more as necessary, she said. These are more durable than the disposable, smaller reflective vests that volunteers now wear. The VDOT will pay the costs of the vests, and there is no cost to the county, she said.
“I think everything is taken care of,” Price said.
• Hughes told the board that in response to a board inquiry about poor lighting conditions at night at the on-ramp from U.S. 58 to the U.S. 220 Bypass southbound in the Grassy Creek community, VDOT plans to install some reflectors and signs and will look at the feasibility of installing a street light or two.
In an interview, Hughes said the VDOT will open bids today for a federal safety project to build left turn lanes at the intersection of Kings Mountain Road and Plantation Road/Colonial Avenue in Collinsville. There is a history of rear-end collisions at that intersection, she said.
• After a closed session at the board’s afternoon meeting Tuesday, the board extended a lease agreement with Turner Properties for the former Samuel H. Hairston School ball field. It’s a 5-year-lease agreement for $1 a year.
The board also approved a few changes in phrasing in what is now called a facility cost agreement between the county and the Department of Social Services for the new DSS facility. |
| |
|
|
|
.jpg)
