By Jimmy LaRoue

Published: May 8, 2008

Twelve minutes, one speaker and it was all over.
At the three public hearings Thursday before the Waynesboro City Council – for the proposed $41 million budget, tax rates and the capital improvement projects – just one person spoke.
Joan Leake, the secretary of the Milepost Zero Bicycle Club, said it planned to provide $1,120 to the Shenandoah Valley Bicycle and Pedestrian Program, and requested that the council match the money.
Councilman Frank Lucente said he wasn’t surprised at the low turnout of the public hearings, and attributed it to post-election fatigue.
“Hopefully, they think they have good representation on council to make the right decisions,” Lucente said.
Vice Mayor Nancy Dowdy said she was surprised that few residents showed up. She said with the meetings being televised, however, residents “know what we’re doing.”
She said she hadn’t heard from too many people about the budget.
“I think that they understand that none of us want to increase the tax rate,” Dowdy said. “I think everybody understands that and appreciates the value of that. And I don’t think any of us want to do that.”
City Manager Doug Walker’s budget calls for a four-cent real estate tax increase, from 70 cents per $100 of assessed value, to 74 cents. For a home assessed at $229,000 – the median home value in Waynesboro – that is a nearly $100 tax increase.
The personal property tax is proposed at $5 per $100 of assessed value, while the machinery and tools tax is proposed at $3 per $100 of assessed value.
Lucente said he would look at the budget “all the way through.”
He said that the stormwater program should be funded “at the level Mr. Walker recommended, but we ought to do it with savings in other areas.”
Walker has recommended a reduced, $685,000 stormwater program.