Troutville Town Councilman Dean Paderick promised a crowd of about 70 area residents council would continue to review plans to expand the town’s corporate limits and would provide letters in the mail about any future meetings about the proposal.

He noted, too, that council was not ready to vote on the proposal, and had made no formal proposal to the Board of Supervisors.

Paderick made the commitment near the end of a community meeting last Thursday evening in the Town Hall where most in attendance were residents of the area council would like to have included as part of an enlarged Troutville corporate limits.

The idea of a boundary change that would enlarge the town from 440 acres to 3,093 acres got a cool reception from most of the audience, though.

David Ostrom, who lives on Stoney Battery Road just outside of the current corporate limits, ask the question many had, “What benefit is it to me to live in the Town of Troutville?”

Paderick’s response, “We may be able to sucker you into being (on Town Council),” adding that council can be more responsive to residents than the county Board of Supervisors because supervisors represent so many more people.

Ostrom said council’s intentions may be “totally different from mine” and noted that he didn’t want to have to worry about his “situation” changing because of someone else’s expectations who lives in the town.

The idea of having more residents as potential council candidates and community volunteers and essentially enlarging the area where the town could extend its water system were the two main reasons for the proposal to enlarge the town.

That’s what one resident noted as the two-hour meeting was winding down. She said she didn’t live in the town limits but is “just as invested in the town.”

Another noted that there seemed little to no interest among residents outside of the town asking to hook up to the town’s water system. “If no one’s coming for water— zero percent— why?” she asked, adding, “Maybe the town needs to focus on community involvement and an expansion if everybody’s happy.”

But Paderick said having the area part of the town would give folks in the community and folks on Town Council more say over development in the Troutville area rather than leaving it to the Board of Supervisors members who represent the whole county.

Jerry Reed, who lives on Mooses Hollow Road, said if he wanted to live in a town, Troutville would be the town he’d move into. “But we don’t want to be in town,” he said.

Others echoed that sentiment, as well, and wondered how having so much agriculture area in town would affect them.

Paderick said council has worked to have the town’s zoning ordinance “mirror” the county’s, and that those areas coming into the town would not be affected in any way from how they are currently used.

Others wanted assurances that the town’s zoning and business-related regulations would not affect their operations.

Paderick said the only change would be who the businesses paid Business, Professional and Occupation License (BPOL) taxes to— the town rather than the county.

Rod Dillman, who lives on Apple Orchard Lane, had a number of challenges to the proposed boundary change, including what he considered violations of the state’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

He used council minutes from the past two years to make some of his points.

“After reading the minutes, I find no advantage to me to being included in town,” he said. He said he has a well and a water softener that he’s satisfied with, that the minutes reflected that a former mayor that was not supported by a former mayor, that a June 2016 committee to study the idea met for over two years and “may be in violation of the FOIA.”

Dillman said he was not provided minutes of the committee meetings and there was no study done to support the proposal.

That committee, Paderick said, may have been in violation of the FOIA because it had three council members— which requires public notification of meetings and minutes.

Dillman said the minutes reflected just two reasons to justify the proposal— one is to extend the water system and the other is to have more residents to run for Town Council.

Dillman said if a water system is going to be extended, he prefers the Western Virginia Water Authority (WVWA) since its water comes from a reservoir and is treated and not from the town’s wells.

According to Paderick, for the town to extend its water system further into the county (it already runs out Stoney Battery Road to the former Camp 25 prison), it has to get approval from the WVWA since it has the water delivery rights to that area of the county. The town does not operate a sewer system.

Paderick said he would never agree to sell the town’s water system to the WVWA.  Botetourt joined and turned over the county’s water and sewer operations to the WVWA three years ago.

Dillman said he doesn’t believe it’s a justification to extend the town boundaries because the town doesn’t have enough people.

“It’s clear the town has a proud history with great people, and you’re trying to do what you think you should do,” Dillman told council. “But, basically, this is being done by volunteers and I don’t want volunteers to be in charge of my water system” and all the other things involved in a town.

He said if the proposal moves forward, council should go to the voters in the affected area to see how they feel.

He said if the area is brought into town, those voters could get together and run a council slate that, if elected, could take steps to annul the town charter.

“It’s clear you don’t have the resources to do this,” Dillman said. “I believe Botetourt County has a lot to lose by giving up this territory and I don’t believe Botetourt County has anything to gain.”

Dillman then quoted several examples from council minutes over the past two years, one of which said in a June 2016 council meeting that the county had already agreed with the town boundary change and it just needed to be done. That was reiterated in the December 2017 council minutes. Those read effectively that the town had the Board of Supervisors’ support for the expansion and would continue to do so unless there was a lot of opposition.

Paderick said while that’s what the minutes may have said, that’s not what the intentions of the statement were, nor reflective of may have been said. He said the council committee had met with a two-member Board of Supervisors committee and gotten advice about how to proceed— essentially following what the Town of Fincastle did to reach a boundary change agreement with the county that had virtually no opposition.

Dillman said the minutes also stated that the Board of Supervisors was “overwhelmed by the size of the expansion” that was proposed by the town; and that the minutes reflected that the people in the county affected by the change “won’t get a vote.” The votes would be by council and the Board of Supervisors.

“While I won’t get a vote,” Dillman said, “I hope we get a say.”

He said council promised to send letters to the residents in the affected area to let them know about last week’s meeting, but none went out.

Paderick and Councilman Harry Ulrich said they intended to get the letters out but it took longer to get addresses and have letters done to meet Postal Service requirements than expected. Both apologized for that, and said they considered postponing the meeting until the letters did go out, but instead decided to hold last Thursday’s meeting to help explain the reasons behind the proposal.

Those letters are supposed to go out this week with an explanation about the proposed boundary change.

Paderick spent the first part of the meeting reviewing the town’s history, the history of the water system, the recent upgrades to the water system, that the town has no additional taxes on real estate and personal property (and didn’t expect to ever have those taxes), and that the proposed new town limits followed natural boundaries.

Paderick said last week’s meeting was not the end of discussions about the proposal with the community.

Council had a map of the proposed boundary change that shows possible new town limits that extend as far northeast along US 11 to Troutville Elementary School and take in Stoney Battery Road. I-81 would be the western boundary, and the proposed new corporate limits would go south to Humbert Road and take in Mountain Pass Road from there back to the current town limits on US 11.