BROWNLEE SLIGHTED CITY, LEA CONTENDS

The U.S. attorney should have spoken against a Roanoke drug clinic, as
he did one in Roanoke County, the councilman says.

Roanoke City Councilman Sherman Lea took his opposition to a proposed
drug treatment clinic to another level Monday by criticizing U.S.
Attorney John Brownlee.

Lea, who keeps looking for a way to stop the clinic from opening on
Hershberger Road Northwest, questioned Brownlee's motives in relation
to the issue at a council meeting Monday. Brownlee spoke at a Roanoke
County Board of Supervisors meeting in October 2003 and said a
proposed methadone clinic there could become new turf for drug dealers.

"There may very well be an increase in crime, and there may very well
be an increase in drug trafficking," Brownlee told the board, which
also was lobbied hard by vocal neighborhood opposition.

Later, the company that was pursuing the clinic at Colonial Avenue and
Ogden Road in the county dropped its plans.

Lea said Monday that he's "disturbed" that Brownlee, U.S. Attorney for
Virginia's Western District, has not made the same public comments
about the proposed Roanoke clinic.

"The U.S. attorney represents Roanoke city as well as Roanoke County,"
Lea said, adding that "this runs a little deeper than we can see."

Reached later Monday, Brownlee, a Roanoke County resident, said he was
invited to the supervisors meeting last year by county officials who
wanted to get his professional law enforcement assessment on a
methadone clinic.

Brownlee said he would be glad to give the same assessment regarding
the proposed city clinic, "but nobody in the city has raised the issue
with me."

Brownlee added that he wasn't the only law enforcement official to
speak to supervisors last year. A representative of the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency and Brownlee's top narcotics prosecutor also
discussed their views on methadone.

When told of Brownlee's remarks, Lea didn't dispute that no one in the
city has contacted the U.S. attorney. But Lea said Brownlee, in his
public position, should have realized the need to speak out on
Roanoke's situation the same way he did in the county.

Lea said he will write Brownlee a letter this week inviting him to
speak at the council meeting Nov. 15.

The proposed Roanoke clinic, which is near several schools, continues
to draw public ire as it draws closer to getting approval to open.

Residents who live near the proposed clinic site urged the council
Monday to find a way to stop it, as they've been doing for months.
Several have said that Roanoke County was successful in stopping the
clinic there because the proposed site was in an upper scale, more
white-collar area, while the proposed Roanoke clinic location is in a
more working-class and predominantly black neighborhood.

City Attorney Bill Hackworth said Monday, as he's done several times
before, that the city has no legal way to prevent the clinic from opening.

The company that's pursuing the clinic applied for a city business
license last year and received it. At the time, the city's zoning
ordinance allowed for a methadone clinic in the commercial zoning
classification that pertains to the proposed site.

Prior to filing for the city business license, the company filed
required state paperwork, too, but Virginia law did not mandate that
Roanoke officials be notified. So city officials said they didn't know
about the company's plans until after it filed for the city license.

State law has since been amended in several ways, including
restricting where methadone clinics can operate. The city zoning
ordinance also has been changed in similar fashion, but the
Hershberger request is grandfathered, Hackworth says.