The Christiansburg Finance Committee held its second budget review meeting on Monday, tweaking numbers for the capital items and reducing requests to approximately $10 million. General operating revenues were trending lower than expected, yet balancing the 2009-2010 budget is proposed as being revenue neutral without tax increases. The Finance Committee is proposing a budget which will be balanced with about $500,000 from reserve funds and no new debt. The entire Town Council should expect to see a meeting scheduled for a full work session by the end of April, and having the proposed budget advertised by mid-May is a current goal. A Public Hearing will be scheduled prior to the budget being adopted.
Six open positions in the Public Works Department are proposed to remain unfilled, with any project work seeing personnel shifted from the Street Department if needed. Passing only the stated regional water and sewer fee increases on to users, this would likely mean a bi-monthly town bill grows from approximately $90 ($45 per month) to $95 ($47.50 per month). New water and sewer connection fees haven't increased in nearly a decade and doubling these is now being proposed (from $1000 each to $2000 each). Compared to like rates, this is still a bargain for developers as the town's new fees would be just 1/3 of those charged for connections to the county's system.
Lodging taxes, which saw an additional 15% of 1% added to the other 6% already retained by the town, were stated as being distributed throughout the budget. Projections for meals and lodging taxes, typically two of the largest revenue sources besides real property taxes, were fairly equal to those which were included in the current year's budget.
The Finance Committee is expected to meet again next week, with date and time confirmed later today.
Also Monday night, the Montgomery County League of Women Voters hosted a forum entitled "Downtowns ReVisioned" at the Blacksburg Municipal Building. Approximately 55 attended, including four Christiansburg Town Council members, two Christiansburg Town Planning Department staffers, a Christiansburg event organizer, a member of the town's Planning Commission and two employees of oft hired resident civil engineering firm, Gay & Neel. Two of Blacksburg's Town Council members were also present.
Panelists with diverse experience in commercial development, economics and downtown revitalization shared their thoughts about each downtown's assets and opportunities. Success stories from other areas were detailed, with Lynchburg Landing reporting $100,000 net from hosting First Friday's with alcohol and gate sales each summer season. Events were stated as being a means to showcase existing companies with the venue as a destination for new business, rather than primarily bringing in one-time or outside vendors.
The two traditional downtown areas were each seen as unique and compatible, versus competing for the same markets. Attendees were encouraged to continue to build on the positives, with Christiansburg offering itself as an opportunity for additional restaurants and an antiques destination convenient to major road systems (a place to drive to, rather than through). Blacksburg heard that a proposed trolley system could feature its downtown as a central location between the new, more upscale First & Main strip mall and renovated, enclosed University Mall. Most of the observations heard last night echo threads which have been posted on this blog previously, and can be reviewed by searching "tourism" or "downtown" or "economic development". A recording of this forum will be available via Blacksburg's WTOB.
Some of these same concepts were touched on during a recent New River Valley Planning District Commission "Vision 20/20" (NRV PDC) meeting held at the NRV Mall. Those meetings are shifting to various locations throughout the region and community feedback results are to be posted here. No Christiansburg staff members or elected officials were present at the NRV PDC meetings.
More on the Christiansburg budget process as details evolve.