(The following story by Kathy Adams appeared on The Virginian-Pilot website on September 6.)
NORFOLK, Va. — Arguing that state funding for a Norfolk Southern rail terminal in Montgomery County violates the Virginia Constitution, county officials plan to sue to derail the project within the next few weeks.
Citing the economic benefit for the Roanoke region, the state has pledged to pay 70 percent of the $35.5 million it will cost Norfolk Southern Corp. to build an intermodal rail facility in rural Elliston. The terminal would be used to transfer cargo between trains and trucks.
The county’s Board of Supervisors claims that state spending on the facility violates the Virginia Constitution, which prohibits the use of public funds for private development.
“The government in Virginia shouldn’t be using taxpayers’ dollars to fund a private project. We believe it’s unconstitutional,” said board Chairwoman Annette Perkins. “They would be using taxpayer money and then turning over the facility to a private entity.”
The money would come from the Rail Enhancement Fund, which the state formed in 2005 to invest in rail improvements alongside private entities and local governments to improve the state’s overall transportation infrastructure. So far, the state has approved spending $12.6 million for the first phase of the terminal’s construction, which could start as soon as this winter, said Jennifer Pickett, a spokeswoman for the Department of Rail and Public Transportation. Norfolk Southern would pick up the rest of the first phase’s $18 million tab.
Pickett declined to comment on the lawsuit but said taxpayers throughout the region would benefit from the project, which the department estimates could create 2,900 jobs, take 150,000 trucks off the road each year, and bring in $71 million in annual tax revenue.
“The reason the public funds are available is because there are public benefits to be had from it,” said Norfolk Southern spokesman Robin Chapman, who also did not comment specifically on the suit.
The court challenge is another effort by the Montgomery County officials to oppose the facility’s location in Elliston. The board has passed three resolutions against using that site and claims the
terminal’s effect on traffic and the environment outweigh the potential benefits, Perkins said.
“We gave our reasons for opposing the site here. We felt we were ignored,” she said. “We then moved forward with the litigation team to have our position made more clearly.”
The suit might cost the county as much as $250,000, Supervisor Gary Creed told The Roanoke Times last week. Perkins said she wasn’t sure of the cost, but it would be worth protecting citizens’ interests.
Constitutional law expert Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said the county is in for a tough sell.
“It’s hard to win those kinds of constitutional arguments in Virginia, especially with the Virginia Supreme Court,” Tobias said. “They’re reluctant to interpret the constitution, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t make a good argument and maybe win it.”
He said he could not comment on the constitutionality of using public funds for Norfolk Southern’s facility because he is not familiar with that part of the state constitution.
The Roanoke Region Intermodal Facility is part of Norfolk Southern’s Heartland Corridor initiative, which aims to speed the transport of goods between the port of Hampton Roads and the Midwest. Funds from the federal and state governments would pay for about
63 percent of that project.
The Heartland Corridor is designed to move trains stacked with cargo containers more quickly between Norfolk and Chicago and “make the region attractive to companies that require ready access to international markets” via the ports, Chapman said.
The state also has committed $12 million to $15 million to build a strip of road connecting the Elliston terminal with Interstate 81, said Heidi Coy, spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation. The rail department selected Elliston as the best location last month after a 16-month review of 10 sites throughout the Roanoke region.
Former Montgomery County board Chairman Steve Spradlin, who owns two property rental companies there, said he doesn’t understand why the current board opposes the site, citing widespread community support.
“I think it would be a major economic development tool, not only for the New River Valley, but this entire region,” Spradlin said. “The feeling that I’m getting from a lot of folks that I run into daily and talk about it with is they’re pretty perplexed as to why the Board of Supervisors would want to spend $250,000 of our local tax money to bring suit.”