A plan to shut down two Virginia Department of Transportation offices in the Valley is drawing some concerns from residents and lawmakers. The Page County Board of Supervisors held a meeting Wednesday night to inform residents and to hear some of their complaints.

The residency in Luray is one of 15 statewide offices that could close, but that isn't all that has people fired up.

"The goal is to reach an employee level of 7,500 by July 2010, and the department currently has about 8,400 employees," says Jeffrey Lineberry, the Luray Residency Administrator who gave the presentations.

As it stands the office oversees Warren, Clark and Page counties, but if the office closes Page County will merge with Rockingham and Augusta counties.

This isn't the only concern for the area. VDOT proposes reclassifying the county's roadways and prioritizing the maintenance funds so the more highly traveled roads are taken care of first.

About 90-percent of Page County's secondary roads will fall into category four or five, which would be low on the snow removal priority list. One lawmaker says that poses a big safety concern, especially when it comes to ice removal.

"We've proposed for a couple of years now that VDOT submit to an external audit of its books to see where exactly the waste, fraud and abuse in their system is, and they've resisted that effort," says Del. Todd Gilbert, 15th District.

Gilbert says VDOT is trying to pull a fast one on the Valley, but his district won't go down without a fight.

"The situation that's being proposed by the department is outrageous and it's completely unacceptable to me and the other legislators in the area, and we're not going to stand for it," says Gilbert.

Residents are also worried about how the cuts to maintenance on secondary roads will affect tourism and education. They say kids could miss more school because roads aren't cleared.

VDOT will also be holding a meeting Thursday night at the Augusta County Government Center in Verona to talk about the cuts.