The Roanoke City Council voted 6-0 on Monday to approve a 3,000-square-foot expansion of the Raleigh Court Health & Rehabilitation Center for a physical therapy unit.

Vice Mayor David Trinkle abstained from the vote because of a potential conflict of interest.

The nursing home at 1527 Grandin Road S.W. wants to invest $750,000 to add a rehabilitation gymnasium, giving it more space for equipment and for patients to receive physical therapy. It also would add 11 spaces for employee parking. According to the request filed for Medical Facilities of America, the center's owner, the expansion will not result in an increase in the facility's 120 beds.

Last month the planning commission responded to neighbors' concerns by adding a proffer to the application that would prohibit additional lighting in the employee parking lot. On Monday, Andrew Kelderhouse, president of Fralin & Waldron, the project's general manager, sought to modify that proffer to allow some lighting.

Council members, however, said that changing the proffer would require tabling the application until it could be reviewed more closely. Kelderhouse said he'd rather see the project approved and abandoned his request to change the proffer.

Council mulls removing parties from elections

The Roanoke City Council unanimously voted Monday to examine the possibility of removing political parties from city council elections.

The issue will be referred to the incoming council's legislative committee. If the incoming council decides to move forward with the idea, it will be added to the city's 2008 legislative agenda because it must be approved by the General Assembly.

Mayor Nelson Harris made this most recent inquiry about taking political parties out of the city's elections, but it's not a new idea. Former city Councilman Mac McCadden proposed the same thing in 1996. The proposal that year failed to make it to the city's legislative agenda.

Harris said he recommended it partly because issues before the council are rarely party-related.

He added that forcing potential candidates to go through a party-oriented nomination process ends up limiting options for voters.

In both of the past two municipal elections, independent candidates were elected to office after opting not to seek a party's nomination.

-- Mason Adams