Steve Frey
Contributing writer
City council also decided to replace the pre-meeting prayer with a moment of silence.
David Ridpath
During its regular meeting on Monday, the Radford City Council unanimously voted to reappoint David Ridpath as city manager. Ridpath has served as city manager for Radford since 2010.
“David, we do believe in you, and we thank you so much for your service and your continued service moving us forward…and we are pleased to have you continue with us,” Mayor David Horton said.
A resolution regarding the agreement between the city and Ridpath will be formally presented at the next city council meeting.
In organizational matters, Dr. Richard Harshberger was elected vice mayor by the council.
Jenni Wilder was approved as city clerk, and Melissa Skelton was confirmed as deputy city clerk. For the position of city attorney, Mike Bedsaul of Sands Anderson was approved by the council. All of these appointments were unanimously approved. The meeting calendar was also approved as were board and staff assignments to various city committees.
The council then looked at the meeting agenda format. Councilwoman Naomi Huntington asked to review the “invocation” listing.
“Radford is a very diverse community with people of many different faiths, and I think it might be appropriate to have a moment of reflection rather than an invocation, and I ask that that be discussed,” she said.
Councilwoman Jessie Critterton agreed with Huntington. Harshberger said he had no problem with a non-denominational prayer, but he did have a problem with a denominational prayer, citing the diversity of the community.
Councilman Rob Gropman said he would like to see the nondenominational prayer continue. Horton said he understood where everyone was coming from with the topic and wanted to keep it as broad as possible.
Huntington said that the moment of reflection would allow everyone to pray or not as they wished and would set a tone that the council welcomed people of all religions.
Horton suggested a compromise that would include a moment of reflection for people to pray in their own fashion and then a reflective statement would be read.
Harshberger felt “the inspirational, reflectional statement is good” because there have been some that have been helpful.
Gropman then suggested that the statement should be created by all of the various Radford churches included in the process.
Horton asked the city attorney Mike Bedsaul, and Ridpath for their input and Bedsaul replied, “You can certainly do a nondenominational prayer. I think a moment of reflection is fine; just open it up to whatever the public wants to reflect upon. I will say that a prayer is really, you know, it’s not necessarily intended to be a prayer for the public as much as it’s a prayer by the council itself for guidance of council itself.”
Mayor Horton said he had done some research and Radford is one of a few municipalities that have the invocation format. Critterton pointed out that the school board uses a moment of silence and that it works nicely and also encompasses all religions or people who do not practice a religion.
Regarding the moment of reflection, Horton said, “I don’t see in any way shape or form that this removes God or faith from those that choose to pray from our meetings. I think if anything, it allows a little more freedom, and this is a week where we celebrate freedom. This is an important component of what we try to do not only as a council but as a nation. I think this would take us down a path that helps us be as inclusive as possible without impinging on anyone’s freedom to express their religion the way they see fit.”
Gropman said he didn’t see this (the nondenominational prayer) as the council telling the public what they should be praying for.
“I just think it’s a nice opening statement,” he said.
Critterton said the council would have to be careful how they word the inspirational statement since if it is religious; it defeats the purpose of doing the inclusive quiet reflection.
About the inspirational statement, she said, “I think there’s lots of inspiration to be found,” but it needs to be looked at carefully.
Huntington suggested that others can create the statement such as “community leaders, people from the schools, teachers, other people who we believe have words of wisdom to give us as we begin our sessions, so rather than making it a faith-based invocation, it becomes words of inspiration followed by a moment of reflection and so that it is inclusive of as many community members as possible.”
The council then passed the motion 4-1 with Gropman dissenting. It was unclear at the meeting how the board would arrange for the inspirational statement to accompany the silent moment of reflection, although during the discussion of the motion the mayor and council members did say that it was something they would further develop.
Over the years many municipalities in the U.S. have moved to the “moment of silence” format, including many in the immediate area, recognizing the diversity of people living in different communities.
In a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in 2014, nondenominational prayers were recognized as permissible as long as they do not “denigrate nonbelievers or religious minorities, threaten damnation, or preach conversion,” or if the prayer-giver is chosen in a religiously discriminatory way.
The decision is up to the legislative body, although the inspirational statement and moment of reflection would be a rather unique combination, as most governing authorities have a moment of silence or nothing with some continuing the nondenominational format.
In other items of discussion, Mayor Horton mentioned the possibility of different short-term task force committees geared around sustainability, downtown business districts and similar areas, where a group of citizens representing multiple areas, boards and/or commissions would study subject matter and come back to advise the council. That process will be worked on in future meetings.
The city council approved a number of Radford citizens to various boards and committees for the city. Horton said, “One of the most important ways for our city government to function is to engage the citizens as much as possible in every aspect of government, and one of the ways we do that is through the many boards and commissions that we have.”
The council tried to include everyone on a committee. They said that those not officially assigned to a committee might be able to contribute to the local committees in an ex-officio manner and that both committees and the interested individuals will be contacted about that possibility.
Here are the citizens assigned or reassigned to various committees by unanimous council vote: Agency on Aging-Mary Ann Semones and Sally Anna Stapleton; Beautification Committee-Edith Carter, Peggy Huber and Matthew Close; Economic Development Authority-Flo Graham, Steve Harvey and Paul Pallante; New River Community College Board-Onassis Burress; Library Board-Wilson Rankin, Claudia Jones and Tommie Bloomer (teen rep.); Recreation Commission-Kenneth Cox, Brooke Love and Catherine Catrupi; Board of Zoning Appeals-Carol Colby will be recommended to the circuit court; Planning Commission-Annie Pearce, Barry Collier and Seth Gillespie; City/University Joint Commission-Josh Smith; Highlanders Festival Committee-Sara Flickinger; Tourism Commission-Joel Young, Diana Dobbins, Laurie Murphy and Scott Dunn.
Vice-Mayor Harshberger said, “This list (of people interested in serving.) is a really quality list, and it says a lot about what’s going on in the city. There’s a lot of hope and a lot of support, and I think a lot of people who are ready to accept a new vision. I think it’s just really, really good.”
“It’s grassroots,” Harshberger added.
