While we're on the subject of consultants reports (see Buracker Study), who knows something about the Davenport Study in 2002 or 2003? This was a study about the costs of the schools and how to pay for them. With the School Board radio show coming up on October 5, now might be the time to dredge THAT up.
I posted the research I did about the landfill for the September 21, SPEAK OUT. You can find it here.
The reason this is important is because many of the same names are up for election. Read that in connection with your candidate choices. The names associated are: Raymond Kite, Gerald Cubbage, Allen Cubbage, Charlie Campbell, and Ron Wilson. Don't vote on rumor. Read the Minutes Book first.
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7 comments:
Alice, I did read the Minutes Book and I did hear you on the radio when you discussed the landfill. I so want to believe what you believe. I just simply can't. There are too many unanswered questions concerning the entire landfill from start to present day. I realize you dismiss Mr. Edward Kieloch and his books, but I personally met this man several months before his death and he was truly a brilliant researcher and used his talent to defend his rights and the rights of others. His research was in depth and many, many, hours, days, months, spent to uncover the corruption that happened here in our county. And yes, I say corruption with no doubt whatsoever. There is too much documented proof to ignore what came about. He had no bones to pick with anyone, no hatred, no personal a animosities. He just wanted to make public what was going on and he proved his facts ten times over. There was never a libel suit brought against him for his written word that I am aware of. He called Mary Gay Whitehead his Unsinkable Molly Brown and stated that "she and her husband brought commonsense and practical wisdom" to help him uncover information that would never have been known before. His facts cannot be denied. They can be pushed aside and be tagged as simply "rumors". Had you resided in this county when this was going on, I believe you, Alice, would have been in the front of the line demanding answers. I'm sure you feel like it is something that is over, forget it, get a life, life goes on....but, we still have several of these people once again running for office. You cannot bury the truth, it happened! READ THE BOOKS...You took the time to read the Minute Book, take the time to open mindedly read the Corrupt County.
Anon, Mary gave me a copy of the Corrupt County and One Year Later. I read them, and I did read them with an open mind. I have very much respect for Mary, even though I never met Ed Kieloch.
While many of the things Ed said were facts, the things he brings out as "illegal", were not necessarily illegal. Putting out a contract with no RFP? Goodness, our Supervisors still do that today. They just did it with the zoning consultant. And these are different supervisors. I don't think it's an uncommon practice, and I surely hope we're not paying George Shanks all that money for constant advice and still handing out contracts without RFPs, if it's actually illegal.
Same thing with the "revelation" that the contractor was unscrupulous and unethical. It's a "Duh." But it doesn't make the contract illegal, as Jack Hennessy apparently agreed. And as the court agreed, when they finally issued a settlement that had Page paying $8M
As far as the allegations that specific people took bribes -- the only reason they couldn't sue him is because he couched it in terms saying, well, there's no proof that this was a bribe but look at this strange coincidence. That's what they were. Coincidences among many transactions. Business people move money around. They borrow from one pot and pay off another. Companies are set up just to do one task. They appear to have just been formed, because the legal entity to do the task was just formed, so they can keep the pots of money separate. That's how it works. It's not illegal. It's set up that way so the investors can always end up winning. One task doesn't work? Bankrupt that entity, and leave the rest of your money untouched. That's just how it's done. Maybe not "right". Just True. And definitely not illegal.
Regarding the $200,00 check? An accounting error among many accounting errors. Look at the books today. SURELY there are many more of them. Paperwork operates and flows in offices short of staff, with computers that don't work together, and people who are stressed. This happens. Ed took it to the courts, and the courts rejected his "proof." What? Are the courts corrupt, too? Or was his "proof" not really compelling?
My problem is that the only way Ed's book works is if MANY people were corrupt and unethical. Through a long string of corruption. And that's just not my perception, experience, or observation. Few people, in rare cases, are corrupt. Many people, in common occasions, are overwhelmed, underprepared, inexperienced, imprecise, and tired.
To me, Ed's books appear to be written by an academic, who researches intensely, but who does not have business experience. He seems to expect business to do something other than make money. If you look for business to be benevolent, you will feel betrayed and violated after the experience. As I read that book, that's what I see.
The first time I tried to read his books, I stopped before finishing, because the words seemed, in a word, "naive." Landfills are businesses, and they are big money making businesses. If you let them make the money, you get to share in the profits. If you stop them from making the money . . . well, it was a legal contract.
You said, "Had you resided in this county when this was going on, . . ."
This is still going on. It's not over. We only get $11.3M out of real estate tax in this county, after the 68% increase.
And this year alone, $1.2M went to additional capital for the landfill, and $600,000 went for debt service for the landfill, and $400,000 went for operational expenses for the landfill, and an unrevealed number went for lawyers fees for the landfill, and I can't believe there's not more hidden in some other line item. Public officer liability insurance, for example. "The Ballard Settlement", whatever that is, for example. Line item after line item in that budget is unexplained and undecipherable.
We have a county budget that grew from $37M to $65M between 2003 and 2007. Do we get more services for that increase? That's the increase BEFORE counting the debt for the schools.
Where did that increase go?
I'm sure Dr. Kieloch was sincere. I'm sure those things he quoted as facts were facts. But when you remove the innuendo from what he wrote, the facts that are left were not enough to convince a court. That's the reason he couldn't get the prosecutor to prosecute. It's not corruption. It's naivete, lack of business experience, and just plain culture shock.
A lot of people have written on the blog, regarding the ongoing Grand Jury investigation, that "Grand Juries are not convened unless its already a sure thing that the person is guilty". This has been used to attack the character of basically the ONE office in this county that works well. Yet, in Ed's books, he points out that citizens can get these Grand Juries convened, and he got one, and was disappointed that it did not end in indictments.
If it didn't end in indictments, don't you have to conclude that the people weren't guilty? Isn't that the system? The only other conclusion is that the prosecutor, and the attorney general, and even the governor, and then by extension, the President, were conspiring.
I'm not willing to go there. Incompetence, apathy, foolishness, conceit, ego, and all the other shared follies of humanity, I see in myself and others. I think those are prevalent and well sprinkled throughout the population. These are things we work with whenever we work in groups. But corruption is something reserved and different. It is rare and unlikely. And as much as its been said about Page County, as much as people have looked for it, I will be the most surprised person in the county, if it's ever found.
Alice
Touche! You are right, it will never be found, but then again, you can't see air either. You know it's there, you know it blows in strange odors at times. Spray it, fan it, deodorize it, legalize it all you want, but the stench (no pun intended) is still there.
This is for Alice and I am none of the above anon.
I would like to ask you a question.
When you record history from the board meetings minutes, do you hear the emotions from the people?
For example:
The minutes from March 28, 2000, Special Meeting, Page 12.
"Finance committee meetings, she noted, should be public and more people should be involved, which would hopefully avoid the situation that the county currently faces. She said she is unwilling to be held accountable for the decisions or recommendations of a two-man committee."
Now, when you read that statement, do you HEAR MEMBERS OF THE AUDIENCE CHEERING LOUDLY?
If you had been there, that's what you would have heard. But you do not hear that by reading minutes, which are written by the board and their secretary.
You can compare it to the minutes this year, when you attended flood plain meeting issues, could you hear the emotion from the people, by reading the minutes?
And, also, Alice, if you will go back and read the minutes from the BOS Public Hearing to increase the local tax levy meeting on March 28, 2000, you will see that the only dissent on the board at that time was Elaine Mayberry, who was the newly elected member.
Now, fast forward, to a year or so from then, and who has she buddied up with on the board?
This is where power comes into play.
And like you say, they are good guys just trying to do a job when they start out.
But do you think the people should give a "Constitutional Officer"
job to one of these power hungry Board of Supervisors, that the people witnessed first-hand exhibiting this kind of behavior? If ever there was a clique that the so-called-person on this site, always talks about, It was the threesome on the previous board.
Allen Cubbage-Nora Belle Comer--and Elaine Mayberry!
I do hope you will print this, Alice.
I completely agree that we have a real problem with the process of our Board of Supervisors, and the arrogance, conceit, self-importance, disrespect, pig-headedness, and just plain trickery exhibited by a majority of its members. And now I'm speaking of the current members, not the ones who were in place before I came. I'm just saying none of those things are illegal, so you can't get anywhere by calling in the courts and the lawyers to fix it. They have a lawyer sitting there with them at all times, just to make sure they can get away with whatever it is they have in mind.
Unfortunately, it's same old stuff, different day. With luck, we can change the players to change the game, but that didn't happen in the last change. In 2004, Page County voted everybody out, or they chose not to run again, except Gerald, who was consistently voting as the voters wanted.
So now there is a new Board, and they took the landfill back, which under the circumstances was best, but that didn't end the problem. The problem is in the process, not in the people. They start out as your friends and neighbors, and you elect them, and right after that, they're erecting barriers to keep from hearing from you. They're not all rocking on the porch. Some of them are drinking the bath water, instead.
Why is that? There's no Mafia/White House investor paying them off. There's no Boss Hogg peeling off hundred dollar bills. What is there?
My observation is that there's just limited time, too much demand, too much asked for too little (these are essentially volunteers, not paid employees). They are trying to take the path of LEAST RESISTANCE in order to get something done that they have in their minds when they get elected.
If they pay attention to the people, answer the phone calls, and sway to the political wind, they will never get where they wanted to go when they ran for office. So they try to erect barriers to keep "the voice of the people" diverted, distracted, and diluted. As the only way to get anything done.
This particular Board, as a group, has a picture in their minds that development is on its way. They think if they don't act to get zoning restrictions in place, ZAP, we're going to turn into Fauquier County. So they are doing what they can to slide under the radar with zoning restrictions, capital improvements (it's not just schools, they've got grand ideas about a county office complex, too) They've increased the county budget, possibly just because they think those services should be there, and now they are increasing the county debt, much more than is currently understood by the public.
Why are they doing it? They actually think growth is coming, and they want to be the Board that prepared for it. They are actually trying to use foresight and be ready. They are TRUE BELIEVERS that this is what is happening. And they think they are going to be the ones who "did the right thing" and got the county ready.
Never mind what YOU, the voters, think. In their mind, the voters are primarily the "ignorant class", as exhibited by the contempt shown by a few posters on this website, and the refusal of those who are "too good" to post (but be assured they are reading). They are the elite, who had the insight and courage to paternalistically do what was "right for the county" in spite of what the people wanted, because they believe the people don't know what's good for them, and they are thinking "father knows best."
Excuse my Harvard Democrat leanings. There's no doubt that I'm opinionated. But when I see that I'm wrong, I don't "stay the course." I flip flop, because flip flopping is what you do when you see that you're wrong. I think the landfill was "taken back" for all the wrong reasons. I think the public was given bad information about what was going on. I think it doesn't matter why now, it only matters what to do next. Because the problem isn't solved.
But most importantly, I think the public has a right to know EVERYTHING about government operations, decisions, and actions. And I also think the public has a responsibility to butt in, speak out, and WATCH the operations of government.
As my German grandfather used to say, "Love your country, but monitor your government."
When I posted the above two blogs above Alice's comments, I never mentioned anything about illegal stuff or calling in the courts or lawyers to fix it.
WOW, so now it is okay for the Board of Supervisors to NOT PAY ATTENTION TO THE PEOPLE, ANSWER THE PHONE CALLS, SWAY THE POLITICAL WIND, etc....Because if they did those things, they would never get anything done.
So barriers are erected so they can get something done.
Is it the process erecting the barriers?
Now, I don't understand.
Alice wants the public to butt in, speak out, and watch the operations of Government.
In my opinion, maybe Alice should just advise the public to let the pitiful BOS be. As she says, they are volunteers, not paid employees. They have limited time, too much demand, too much is asked of them for too little.
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