The Blacksburg Town Council held its regular meeting on Tuesday, April 12, 2022, at 6:30 p.m. in the Roger E. Hedgepeth Chambers of the Blacksburg Municipal Building. The meeting included a proclamation, moments of silence, approval of the consent agenda, four public hearings, budget disclosures, and a closed session. All votes were unanimous.
Oh. Will the uh council please come to order? Um will the clerk please call the role? Anderson present Bush. Here Oliver Ward. Eggers Smith here. Here. Will the Vice Mayor lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation under God. Indivisible with liberty and justice for all. I'm going to begin this evening with a proclamation, and that is to do with Arbor Day. And this is a brief proclamation that I will read out. Whereas in 1872, a special day called Arbor Day was set aside for the planting of trees, whereas Arbor Day is now observed throughout the nation and the world. Whereas trees provide a pleasing environment for the benefit of our residents and visitors, increase property values, enhance the economic vitality of our business areas, and contribute greatly to Blacksburg's positive image. Whereas trees can reduce the erosion of our precious topsoil, cut heating and cooling costs, moderate the temperature, clean the air, produce life-giving oxygen, and provide habitat for wildlife. And whereas trees, wherever they are planted, are a source of joy and spiritual renewal. Now, therefore, I, Leslie Hager Smith, mayor of the town of Blacksburg, Virginia, do hereby proclaim April 23 as Arbor Day in the town of Blacksburg. And I urge all citizens to celebrate Arbor Day and to support efforts to protect our trees and woodlands. And further, I urge I urge all citizens to plant trees to gladden the heart and promote the well-being of this and future generations. And that is dated this day of April. And there will be an opportunity to volunteer time to help plant trees on that last Saturday in April as well. So I encourage you to go to our website and look for that opportunity. Next, I would like to hand things over to our town manager Mark Furnial who has some remarks to make this today. Yeah, I'd like to mention a couple of town employees who we um lost too soon. Um one um Gary Dowdy, he was a uh employee at the public works department. He uh worked in our foreman in our parks division, so he was a he worked in maintaining our parks, and he um was a friendly face that a lot of people saw if they used our park system, and he was also you know a really good friend to his co-workers at public works, and he um battled cancer from for a while and then um passed away on March 31st. Um, and he was only 55 years old, so we'll we'll miss Gary. Um also a lot of folks have heard of the news about Wayne Garst, um, longtime member of the Blacksburg Fire Department. Um he suffered a tragic accident this past week. Um he was very well known, very well loved by the community, loved the fire department. Um he really was was kind of the face of the fire department. You know, he he ran a lot of our fire prevention programs, spent times with spent time with school children teaching them about fire safety, was uh also a fire inspector, um interacted with our businesses regularly, and just was you know a person in the community that people knew really well. He actually became began as a volunteer firefighter in 1984. Um in 1995, we hired him as our fire prevention coordinator, and then he held other titles. He was a firefighter, but also our our fire code official. Um, and then he retired from the town in October of 2020. Um but he continued to volunteer for the fire department after that point, so he and Wayne was 63 years old. Um so we'll we'll we will miss certainly miss both of them. Um Gary services were held last week, services for Wayne are being planned currently, so as soon as I know the details there, I'll share those with council, but just ask that the community and everyone just please keep the Dowdy and the Garst family and their thoughts and prayers over the next days and weeks. Um and I just want to say that they'll both be missed um dearly by their their co-workers here at the town. Um they were both well known and very well liked, so we'll we'll we'll miss them. Thank you. I wonder if you would all join me in a moment of silence for Gary Dowdy and Wayne Garst. Thank you. We will continue our meeting this evening with uh resumption of our consent agenda, and that uh begins with the approval of town council minutes for March 22nd and April 5. We have also a resolution 4B 22, a resolution supporting the Virginia Community Flood Preparedness grant application for 2022, and then resolution 4C22 acknowledging National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, uh April 10th to 16th. What is council's pleasure on the consent agenda? I move approval of the consent agenda. Second.