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The Roanoke Star-Sentinel
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Community | News | Per spective
January 8 - 14, 2010
NewsRoanoke.com
[Parks & Recreation]
New Greenway Stage Dedicated
Market Building Renovations Forecast to Cost 7.6 Million Could Displace Vendors for Eight Months
Centennial Scouts
P3– Local Boy Scouts celebrated their 100th anniversary at the Hotel Roanoke with a special visitor - a baby T-Rex.
Jon Kaufman
Snowed In-Sane
P4– Jon Kaufman finds that being snowbound with teens is not for the faint of heart or anyone else for that matter.
Giant Killers
P7– Patrick Henry Routs Top Ranked GW Danville 76-53 in Western Valley District Showdown.
Legend Returns P9– Renowned Hollins Alum George Butler returns to Hollins College for a film retrospective.
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Photo by Stuart Revercomb
Roanoke Parks and Recreation held a frigid dedication on Tuesday for the new Hamilton Terrace section of the Roanoke River Greenway. The long awaited section was completed in December and turned what was a dangerous jog on busy roads surrounding Roanoke Memorial Hospital into a safe swing beneath no less than four bridges that come together just above the new section. In the above picture the Greenway can be seen following the Roanoke River and then disappearing beneath the Carilion pedestrian bridge. The new section then sweeps beneath the small bridge at the end of Reserve Ave before continuing beneath the Jefferson St. and Norfolk Southern bridges and going on another two miles through River’s Edge, Smith and Wasena Parks. Cost estimates for the new 600 foot section hover around $420,000 or about $700 per foot.
Roanoke Environmental Activist Well-Traveled Mark McClain’s passion for local interest in issues like the planet grew out of spendsustainability, energy effiing time outside. ciency, and renewable energy “My interest in environmensources. tal matters really grew out of McClain’s activism was my outdoor things—the canoeborn when he joined some ing and hiking and so forth— paddling outings sponsored because you see the outdoors by the local Sierra Club chapand you see the things that ter in the Dallas area. He soon need to be protected,” said Mcdiscovered a passion for canoe Clain, 64, a Salem resident and camping. Oklahoma native. McClain is “The kind of trip that I reinvolved in a number of local ally like to do is where you get green organizations, including in the boat and throw all your the Sierra Club, the Roanoke camping gear in there and Valley Greenway Commisspend the night out on the sion and the Roanoke Valley river,” he said. “Before long Photo by Dave Perry Cool Cities Coalition, which he Mark McClain at Saltburn-by-the-Sea, a resort town in Yorkwe were doing three and four co-founded with his long-time shire, northeast England. and five day trips, and pretty sweetheart Diana Christopulos. soon I wasn’t doing anything a thing called ‘Cool Green Biz,’ which is a The Cool Cities Coalition is shorter than a seven day trip. one of the Valley’s environmental success business certification. We hope to expand That would be my vacation. I’d spend all stories. Its purpose is to make a difference that greatly and get more and more busi- my vacation on the river someplace.” in the fight against climate change through nesses involved in reducing their carbon He met Christopulos on a canoe trip education, outreach and community ac- footprint. We’ve started an awards pro- down the Brazos River in Texas around gram for people in the community who 1990. He was seeking an escape from Daltion. “We’re really involved now with the are doing things to reduce carbon emis- las because “the weather there was terribusiness community,” said McClain of the sions.” ble,” said McClain. > CONTINUED “Long-term, we really aren’t sure where “It was hot all the coalition. “We’re working with the RoaP2: McClain noke Regional Chamber of Commerce on it’s going to go,” he adds, noting there is time in the sum-
Virginia Tech Engineering Team to Build Battlefield Robots for 2010 Competition The roving, walking robotic soldiers of the “Terminator” films are becoming less sci-fi, and more certain of a future every day. Now, a team of robotics researchers from Virginia Tech will build a team of fully autonomous cooperative battle-ready robots as part of a 2010 international war games challenge that could spur reallife battle bots. The 2010 “Multi-Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge” tasks teams with building squads of fully autonomous ground robots that will coordinate, plan, and execute a series of timed tasks
- including hunting objects, classifying and responding to simulated threats, and mapping diverse terrains at a field competition in Australia late this year. Some specific tasks in the challenge include differentiating friendly non-targets from enemy targets, shooting lasers at and jamming the communications of the latter. The top three winners will get cash prizes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the chance to work with Australian and United States Tomonari Furukawa is leading a group of faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students from Virginia Tech’s Virginia > CONTINUED Center for Autonomous Systems in building a team of battleP2: Robots ready robots as part of an international war games challenge.
Architects for the Roanoke City Market renovation gave city council its first detailed look at the project earlier this week. Cunningham Quill Architects told Roanoke City Council at its noon briefing Monday the total cost will be around $7.6 million. Under the plan the architects prefer, the building would continue to be open for two months this summer while contractors stockpile supplies. The plan calls for the city market building to close around September 7, 2010. The full-fledged renovation is estimated to last eight months, followed by two months during which vendors would be back in their spaces as work continued. Vendors would have to foot the bill for that work, but would get first dibs on new spaces in the renovated building. The newly renovated city market building would then reopen sometime around July 2011. Council members kicked the plan back to architects at the meeting, saying that putting the vendors out for eight months was unacceptable. Architects told council jspeeding up the process would cost an extra $1.5 million, and probably only knock one > CONTINUED P2: Council Notes
Craig Announces Exploratory Committee for City Council Run
Potential Candidate Bob Craig
Retired Marine Corps colonel and long-time citizen watchdog over Roanoke City Council, Robert (Bob) Craig has organized an exploratory committee to look into a potential run for city council in May. Craig says he is concerned about the precarious position of the city’s finances after 10 years of what he considers ill-conceived spending that has compromised the ability of the city to fund its core government functions. Craig recently released a list of three areas of primary concern about Roanoke: Financial responsibility - Craig claims that Roanoke city government does not pri-
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