Seriously. We could move the county administration building to Rappahannock and buy land for a lot less than $66,000 an acre.
It turns out its 9 acres for $600,000.
In a down market. With no one else bidding or trying to buy that same land.
The real beauty of a plan for the county to buy land at $66,000 an acre is that after the sale, that number will go into the database of sold land, and when the state counts the land sold compared to the price, considering how LITTLE land will be sold in Page, it will dominate the numbers, and make our real estate values look LOW, because the database contains very few sales except that crazy one.
Then Tommy La France can tell Charlie Campbell it's okay to do a reassessment, because the values went up again, and they need the extra money to pay for the school athletic fields, the county office COMPLEX, etc etc
Anybody who can find some alternative land for the county to buy, at an actual reasonable market price -- they're looking for 9 acres. Somebody go find them an alternative and post it quick. They need parking areas, flat land, easily accessible, near town. Then call 743-4142 and ask to talk to Mark Belton.
Fact is: if no alternative 9 acres shows up, they still have 3 of the 5 votes to push this kind of stuff through. Who will vote for it? For SURE, John Rust will vote for it. Tommy LaFrance will vote for it. And then either Carol Lee or Charlie will vote for it, depending on factors I haven't figured out yet. Interesting that Charles Ballard's seat was left empty for so long, without a temporary fill in. It makes 3 the winning number.
Mark Belton. What are you thinking?
To the posters out there whose posts are being rejected. Try focusing on THIS. Baby steps, people. Take it slow. Don't step on the mines.
OR, maybe the Blog is still full of crap, and it's true that "prime" commercial land in Page is worth $66,000 an acre.
Let's go with that. Does anybody have any data to support any price in Page on land for $66,000 an acre? What did that developer who bought the land next to the Mimslyn for condos pay? That's prime commercial real estate in town. Yo, I'd bet HE'd sell it for $66,000 an acre. And hire a band to play "happy days are here again" after he signed the contract.
Can anybody come up with some FACTS? Blissful? Peter Rabbit? Chris Says? This is the way to accomplish your goals, through facts and responsive information.
Without that, all we got here is a Yellow Brick Road.
Showing posts with label Better than a three-ring circus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Better than a three-ring circus. Show all posts
Friday, November 9, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
The County Line
As in, the Party Line of the County.
Actually, this is good stuff. Go to the county website.
http://www.co.page.va.us
In an attempt to be responsive, which is what we all want, the county administrator has started posting explanations of issues there. You select Our Government, and then select FAQs.
There are three FAQs posted so far.
1. The Reassessment Process
2. The Battle Creek Landfill
3. Economic Development Efforts
Yes, it's the Party Line. but it's a start at being responsive, and I'm really impressed with it as an effort.
I applaud Mark Belton and the county administration for doing this. Information disseminated like this gives the citizens a good opportunity to ask thoughtful questions and participate in the process of governing.
Thank you, County Administration Team.
Alice
Actually, this is good stuff. Go to the county website.
http://www.co.page.va.us
In an attempt to be responsive, which is what we all want, the county administrator has started posting explanations of issues there. You select Our Government, and then select FAQs.
There are three FAQs posted so far.
1. The Reassessment Process
2. The Battle Creek Landfill
3. Economic Development Efforts
Yes, it's the Party Line. but it's a start at being responsive, and I'm really impressed with it as an effort.
I applaud Mark Belton and the county administration for doing this. Information disseminated like this gives the citizens a good opportunity to ask thoughtful questions and participate in the process of governing.
Thank you, County Administration Team.
Alice
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
The Wheels on the Bus
The following are the notes of one citizen who attended the meeting of the Board of Supervisors on October 16, 2007. They are not official minutes of the meeting.
1. The Board met in closed session to talk about buying property for a business park and for a county office building.
2. They passed an ordinance to add more members to the Economic Development Authority and stagger terms.
3. They changed some people’s 911 addresses.
4. They appointed Tommy LaFrance and John Rust to a committee to consider who should own the airport. (It is currently owned 50-50 by the Town of Luray and the county, and apparently there’s some reason to change that.)
5. They changed 3 tax assessments that Charlie Campbell said were mistakes.
6. Big News Alert! Mark Belton had some figures that said some state agency measured our real estate sales in actuals, compared to our real estate assessments, and the measure was 92.7%. That means our assessments are a little bit LOW compared to actual sales. So Mark suggested that maybe we want to reassess sooner, so there is not so much of a gap between our market value and our assessments. Tommy said, we’ll just keep an eye on that number and when it changes too much in either direction we can reassess again.
7. They appointed people to committees: John Van Wyck (sp?) was appointed to the Northwest Community Services Board, Dawn Liscomb Ponn was appointed to the Planning Commission, and Robin Stevens was appointed to the Community Policy and Management Team.
8. Mark Belton explained that in 2004, there was a court ordered audit of the landfill, which was a result of a citizen lawsuit, or petition, or something. Well, here it is 2007, and the auditors are just getting around to doing it. This only came up because the auditors are now sending bills for their work. By the end of this month there should be an audit report of what happened to the landfill and why things went wrong. Mr. Rogerson (a member of the audience, not a board member), said the reason the citizens filed that lawsuit was in the hopes of getting some of the lost money recovered, which is now a moot point since it took so long to do the audit. The auditors are allowed by the court to bill $30,000 for their work. So the point is moot and irrelevant now, but the bill for the auditors is actual now. Mark thinks the report will say something like, “there was a bad contract in place and it wasn’t monitored closely”. But since the audit was court ordered, it will take place anyway.
9. The auditors for the fiscal year financials that ended June 30 will be late with their report this year because the documents they need were taken to the court in Abingdon.
10. Mr. La France wanted to set the record straight in response to Randy Arrington’s editorial in the Page News last week. Randy said there was an “us vs them” mentality between the county and the town, and he suggested there should have been more communication about the Salyards business, Shenandoah Waste Services, and maybe the three towns should have a seat on the Economic Development Authority. Tommy wanted to be sure everybody knew that there was this ordinance which had been in process of being passed since July 18, 2006, that would put new members on the EDA, including one from each town. He showed a stack of emails from Tom Cardman, Economic Development Director, and the town about the SWS business, and he pointed out that the town Planning Commission approved the SWS location. He said that 1 ½ to 2 years ago, the Board considered economic development to be the biggest challenge facing them, and they had to change from Industrial Development to Economic Development Authority and we are a Dillon Rule state, whatever that means, and now we’re adding people to the EDA, and all of this stuff takes time to get passed.
11. Tommy asked our attorney to look into other ways to make public announcements other than the Page News. (Now, would that action be motivated in order to make it easier for the public? Or is that vengeance over an editorial? Surely it must be because our Board Chairman is ever searching for ways to make the public aware of what the Board is doing.)
Citizen comments:
John Rogerson said:
1. If we build the longer runway at the airport and the hangars, and the people don’t come with their airplanes, are we going to end up having to pay out of our taxes for a failed airport that only benefits a few families? And also, putting John Rust and Tom LaFrance on the committee to discuss ownership of the airport is stacked, because both of them are for the airport expansion. (Tom answered this, and after many words, it sounded like the answer was yes, the taxpayers will be stuck with a loan that doesn’t get paid back if the airport were to fail to get the hangars filled.)
2. The purpose of the landfill lawsuit was both to hope to get some money back, and also to send a message to future Boards that they had to follow the law when paying invoices, and not just pay for things that hadn’t been received, just because they got a bill.
3. Maybe Randy didn’t get some things right in his editorial, but the fact that there is a dysfunctional relationship between the town and the county was the point, and that was correct. There is also a North-South divide in the county between the town of Luray vs the towns of Stanley and Shenandoah.
4. John Rogerson said Tom Cardman (EDA director) and Henry Mikus (Landfill Manager) both just got big pay raises, but the county hasn’t gotten any new business and the landfill doesn’t meet its minimum intake to breakeven. He wonders why pay isn’t tied to performance. He said it’s not right to say the landfill has forty years life left, because we were putting in 1500 to 2000 tons a day and that’s not calculated in correctly.
5. He said now that everybody knows you’re trying to buy land for an industrial park and for the county office building, everybody who’s willing to sell will raise the prices.
6. He said, for the county office building, why did you buy the land and get the plans ready, at a cost of $400,000 and then just throw them away over a tree that nobody knows where the documents are that say it’s a historical tree, and if you can overturn the guy’s will who didn’t want you to park the cars for the fairground on his land, why can’t you adapt the plans around an old tree?
Supervisors responses:
1. Charlie “Potted Plant” Hoke, said what he always says, “Thanks for coming.”
2. John Rust said, “Don’t forget to come out to vote. Voting is your input into government.”
3. Gerald Cubbage said a couple of interesting things, about building coalitions and getting the towns involved.
4. Carol Lee said coalitions are where it’s at, and Shenandoah has an office of the EDA and also a Chamber of Commerce in Stevens Cottage.
5. Tom said the airport is paid for 95% by federal, 3% by state, 1% by county and 1% by town. If the hangars are built there is a federal grant plus the county has to give a loan to the airport for the rest, but the loan will be paid back from the money for renting the hangars. The hangars need 27 out of 30 filled in order to pay the loan back.
So that’s your local government at work.
Alice's Opinion: Leadership is in choosing the topics to be discussed, in setting the course, and in working toward goals. What are the goals here? What is not being talked about that needs to be? What issues are not addressed and ignored every time they're brought up? VOTE NOVEMBER 6. Good, informed voting is the beginning of good government. Then holding those elected accountable to the people is step 2.
And I'm just going to ASSUME that Chairman LaFrance asked the county attorney to find a way to inform the public about hearings other than the Page News because our Board Chairman is concerned about getting the news out to the people in better ways.
1. The Board met in closed session to talk about buying property for a business park and for a county office building.
2. They passed an ordinance to add more members to the Economic Development Authority and stagger terms.
3. They changed some people’s 911 addresses.
4. They appointed Tommy LaFrance and John Rust to a committee to consider who should own the airport. (It is currently owned 50-50 by the Town of Luray and the county, and apparently there’s some reason to change that.)
5. They changed 3 tax assessments that Charlie Campbell said were mistakes.
6. Big News Alert! Mark Belton had some figures that said some state agency measured our real estate sales in actuals, compared to our real estate assessments, and the measure was 92.7%. That means our assessments are a little bit LOW compared to actual sales. So Mark suggested that maybe we want to reassess sooner, so there is not so much of a gap between our market value and our assessments. Tommy said, we’ll just keep an eye on that number and when it changes too much in either direction we can reassess again.
7. They appointed people to committees: John Van Wyck (sp?) was appointed to the Northwest Community Services Board, Dawn Liscomb Ponn was appointed to the Planning Commission, and Robin Stevens was appointed to the Community Policy and Management Team.
8. Mark Belton explained that in 2004, there was a court ordered audit of the landfill, which was a result of a citizen lawsuit, or petition, or something. Well, here it is 2007, and the auditors are just getting around to doing it. This only came up because the auditors are now sending bills for their work. By the end of this month there should be an audit report of what happened to the landfill and why things went wrong. Mr. Rogerson (a member of the audience, not a board member), said the reason the citizens filed that lawsuit was in the hopes of getting some of the lost money recovered, which is now a moot point since it took so long to do the audit. The auditors are allowed by the court to bill $30,000 for their work. So the point is moot and irrelevant now, but the bill for the auditors is actual now. Mark thinks the report will say something like, “there was a bad contract in place and it wasn’t monitored closely”. But since the audit was court ordered, it will take place anyway.
9. The auditors for the fiscal year financials that ended June 30 will be late with their report this year because the documents they need were taken to the court in Abingdon.
10. Mr. La France wanted to set the record straight in response to Randy Arrington’s editorial in the Page News last week. Randy said there was an “us vs them” mentality between the county and the town, and he suggested there should have been more communication about the Salyards business, Shenandoah Waste Services, and maybe the three towns should have a seat on the Economic Development Authority. Tommy wanted to be sure everybody knew that there was this ordinance which had been in process of being passed since July 18, 2006, that would put new members on the EDA, including one from each town. He showed a stack of emails from Tom Cardman, Economic Development Director, and the town about the SWS business, and he pointed out that the town Planning Commission approved the SWS location. He said that 1 ½ to 2 years ago, the Board considered economic development to be the biggest challenge facing them, and they had to change from Industrial Development to Economic Development Authority and we are a Dillon Rule state, whatever that means, and now we’re adding people to the EDA, and all of this stuff takes time to get passed.
11. Tommy asked our attorney to look into other ways to make public announcements other than the Page News. (Now, would that action be motivated in order to make it easier for the public? Or is that vengeance over an editorial? Surely it must be because our Board Chairman is ever searching for ways to make the public aware of what the Board is doing.)
Citizen comments:
John Rogerson said:
1. If we build the longer runway at the airport and the hangars, and the people don’t come with their airplanes, are we going to end up having to pay out of our taxes for a failed airport that only benefits a few families? And also, putting John Rust and Tom LaFrance on the committee to discuss ownership of the airport is stacked, because both of them are for the airport expansion. (Tom answered this, and after many words, it sounded like the answer was yes, the taxpayers will be stuck with a loan that doesn’t get paid back if the airport were to fail to get the hangars filled.)
2. The purpose of the landfill lawsuit was both to hope to get some money back, and also to send a message to future Boards that they had to follow the law when paying invoices, and not just pay for things that hadn’t been received, just because they got a bill.
3. Maybe Randy didn’t get some things right in his editorial, but the fact that there is a dysfunctional relationship between the town and the county was the point, and that was correct. There is also a North-South divide in the county between the town of Luray vs the towns of Stanley and Shenandoah.
4. John Rogerson said Tom Cardman (EDA director) and Henry Mikus (Landfill Manager) both just got big pay raises, but the county hasn’t gotten any new business and the landfill doesn’t meet its minimum intake to breakeven. He wonders why pay isn’t tied to performance. He said it’s not right to say the landfill has forty years life left, because we were putting in 1500 to 2000 tons a day and that’s not calculated in correctly.
5. He said now that everybody knows you’re trying to buy land for an industrial park and for the county office building, everybody who’s willing to sell will raise the prices.
6. He said, for the county office building, why did you buy the land and get the plans ready, at a cost of $400,000 and then just throw them away over a tree that nobody knows where the documents are that say it’s a historical tree, and if you can overturn the guy’s will who didn’t want you to park the cars for the fairground on his land, why can’t you adapt the plans around an old tree?
Supervisors responses:
1. Charlie “Potted Plant” Hoke, said what he always says, “Thanks for coming.”
2. John Rust said, “Don’t forget to come out to vote. Voting is your input into government.”
3. Gerald Cubbage said a couple of interesting things, about building coalitions and getting the towns involved.
4. Carol Lee said coalitions are where it’s at, and Shenandoah has an office of the EDA and also a Chamber of Commerce in Stevens Cottage.
5. Tom said the airport is paid for 95% by federal, 3% by state, 1% by county and 1% by town. If the hangars are built there is a federal grant plus the county has to give a loan to the airport for the rest, but the loan will be paid back from the money for renting the hangars. The hangars need 27 out of 30 filled in order to pay the loan back.
So that’s your local government at work.
Alice's Opinion: Leadership is in choosing the topics to be discussed, in setting the course, and in working toward goals. What are the goals here? What is not being talked about that needs to be? What issues are not addressed and ignored every time they're brought up? VOTE NOVEMBER 6. Good, informed voting is the beginning of good government. Then holding those elected accountable to the people is step 2.
And I'm just going to ASSUME that Chairman LaFrance asked the county attorney to find a way to inform the public about hearings other than the Page News because our Board Chairman is concerned about getting the news out to the people in better ways.
Monday, September 17, 2007
The Elephant in the Room
The Elephant in the Room (At What Price, Part 3)
There is a history in this county, that impacts the culture and the way things are perceived to be. Like it or not, that history has something, I'm not sure exactly what, to do with the Landfill. As I've looked at various actions currently, I think it looks like not only the past, but a lot of the present and the future, also have something to do with the landfill. Why? Because the landfill has in the past, and seems to be continuing in the present and the future, to be using up a considerable number of our tax dollars. I don't exactly know why yet.
I'm not talking about the 11 cents on the dollar, oh, yeah, it costs money to get rid of trash, type numbers. I'm not talking about the $400,000 a year in operating expenses plus the $600,000 a year in debt service plus the couple of million here and there that gets classified as new investment to open up new cells.
I don't actually know what I'm talking about yet. I'm still looking to find out.
Maybe someone reading this knows, and will tell me. Gary Gibbs suggested that I go get the court documents from June 2005. I'm doing that. It's in process. I've also been offered a copy of the actual contract buyout documents. But right now, I'm not quite sure what's going on. I'm just uncomfortable that the numbers and the documents I'm seeing don't have all their pieces yet.
Someone else suggested that I go back through the Board of Supervisors meetings from that time period. That would be the time period before electronic records were kept, so it would be quite difficult. Plus the meetings were closed. Perhaps someone out there would like to tell me where to look.
You see, here's what has me uncomfortable. I'm meeting the people who were around a long time, and I'm not meeting any Bad Guys. I read that Ed Kieloch book, but it didn't ring true to me. It didn't seem to present a rounded picture of what was happening, or present motivations, or describe the complexity, of how what looks like a bunch of normal and well intentioned people could have gotten into such a mess. It painted everybody as a Bad Guy, and then I met them, one by one, and they just didn't have any horns. People have flaws. They respond oddly under pressure. And they make mistakes. You can’t elect anybody to do anything, without later finding out they’re not perfect. Human beings are imperfect. Once in a while, one of them lashes out and tells the people not to touch the pastries, but things like that are just human mistakes, not actual character flaws.
It would seem like we could say, “It’s time to forget it and move on.” I would agree, but there are three reasons why we can’t.
First, we can’t forget it because we have the same names running for office or sitting in office that we had at various times during the landfill issue. Raymond Kite. Charlie Hoke. Carol Lee Strickler. Gerald Cubbage. Allen Cubbage. C R Suddith. Ron Wilson. Charlie Campbell. And more. These names appear in the past, the present, and in hopes for the future. If we don’t know what happened before, how will we prevent it from happening again?
Second, we can’t forget it because it hasn’t been fixed. That’s the part we need the contract documents to untangle. It seems it got somewhat fixed, sort of. But you can’t turn your head and look away yet. It’s not gone.
And then there’s a third reason we can’t forget it. The third reason is: you can’t forget what you never knew. People get impressions, perceptions, misunderstandings, half-truths, and just plain wrong information. It gets in their heads. And if nobody challenges it, it rots there, where it becomes a memory of something that never happened. This mistaken memory sits there where it calls and recalls emotion, which eventually triggers rage, frustration, and a sense of powerlessness. It is not empowering to fail to know. It is empowering to know. If we don’t know something, but we think we know it, that is the worst of all worlds.
Right now, in this beautiful county, full of wonderful people, we have a culture that promotes “lack of empowerment”. Because too many people think they know something that never happened. It creates a Boogeyman. It encourages fearfulness. It incubates apathy. It creates a populace that is willing to roll over and play dead. It reminds me of that old saying, “Nobody can be your boss without your permission.” The citizens are the boss of the Board of Supervisors. It’s not the other way around. A long term resident told me once, “There’s no point going in and talking to them (the Board). They just let you talk a while, and then they go do what they want to do anyway.”
Sarah, this man who said that to me was not talking about Allen Cubbage. It doesn’t matter which Board it is, or who the Chairman is. These aren’t professional politicians. They sometimes seem to the citizens to be arrogant baboons, and that is more than likely to happen, no matter who gets the job, once in a while. We just hope that the people who are elected have an intention to be kind, an intention to be responsive, and an intention to respond to the people. Even if they do, there will always be a time or two, under pressure, when it won’t look that way.
So here’s what I think.
I think we have to go back and correct the record on this landfill thing. I think we can’t let the Ed Kieloch book sit out there as the only recorded history of it, with the Karen Kwiatkowsky article as the entry point to Page County that comes up every time a tourist wants to rent a cabin. I think we can’t do well at marketing the county for business and tourism when it looks like people can expect to meet Boss Hogg and Cooter on Main Street.
I’m not talking about writing any books. I’m talking about getting the minutes of the Board meetings during the right period, getting the contract documents, and the court documents, and getting it clear and straight who did what to whom when. Summarizing it. And posting it on the Internet.
I think that’s the only way we’ll know.
Perhaps many people will say we don’t need to know, that it’s a dead horse. But I say . . . it’s a dead Elephant. And its carcass is rotting in the living room, while we all turn our eyes and our focus away from the current landfill issue, and bleed our property taxes onto the living room carpet.
So, whomever would like to help me find out . . . email Research@PageCountyWatch.org or post your clues for where to look right here.
And whomever thinks this isn’t important, just go Blog under a different post.
Alice
There is a history in this county, that impacts the culture and the way things are perceived to be. Like it or not, that history has something, I'm not sure exactly what, to do with the Landfill. As I've looked at various actions currently, I think it looks like not only the past, but a lot of the present and the future, also have something to do with the landfill. Why? Because the landfill has in the past, and seems to be continuing in the present and the future, to be using up a considerable number of our tax dollars. I don't exactly know why yet.
I'm not talking about the 11 cents on the dollar, oh, yeah, it costs money to get rid of trash, type numbers. I'm not talking about the $400,000 a year in operating expenses plus the $600,000 a year in debt service plus the couple of million here and there that gets classified as new investment to open up new cells.
I don't actually know what I'm talking about yet. I'm still looking to find out.
Maybe someone reading this knows, and will tell me. Gary Gibbs suggested that I go get the court documents from June 2005. I'm doing that. It's in process. I've also been offered a copy of the actual contract buyout documents. But right now, I'm not quite sure what's going on. I'm just uncomfortable that the numbers and the documents I'm seeing don't have all their pieces yet.
Someone else suggested that I go back through the Board of Supervisors meetings from that time period. That would be the time period before electronic records were kept, so it would be quite difficult. Plus the meetings were closed. Perhaps someone out there would like to tell me where to look.
You see, here's what has me uncomfortable. I'm meeting the people who were around a long time, and I'm not meeting any Bad Guys. I read that Ed Kieloch book, but it didn't ring true to me. It didn't seem to present a rounded picture of what was happening, or present motivations, or describe the complexity, of how what looks like a bunch of normal and well intentioned people could have gotten into such a mess. It painted everybody as a Bad Guy, and then I met them, one by one, and they just didn't have any horns. People have flaws. They respond oddly under pressure. And they make mistakes. You can’t elect anybody to do anything, without later finding out they’re not perfect. Human beings are imperfect. Once in a while, one of them lashes out and tells the people not to touch the pastries, but things like that are just human mistakes, not actual character flaws.
It would seem like we could say, “It’s time to forget it and move on.” I would agree, but there are three reasons why we can’t.
First, we can’t forget it because we have the same names running for office or sitting in office that we had at various times during the landfill issue. Raymond Kite. Charlie Hoke. Carol Lee Strickler. Gerald Cubbage. Allen Cubbage. C R Suddith. Ron Wilson. Charlie Campbell. And more. These names appear in the past, the present, and in hopes for the future. If we don’t know what happened before, how will we prevent it from happening again?
Second, we can’t forget it because it hasn’t been fixed. That’s the part we need the contract documents to untangle. It seems it got somewhat fixed, sort of. But you can’t turn your head and look away yet. It’s not gone.
And then there’s a third reason we can’t forget it. The third reason is: you can’t forget what you never knew. People get impressions, perceptions, misunderstandings, half-truths, and just plain wrong information. It gets in their heads. And if nobody challenges it, it rots there, where it becomes a memory of something that never happened. This mistaken memory sits there where it calls and recalls emotion, which eventually triggers rage, frustration, and a sense of powerlessness. It is not empowering to fail to know. It is empowering to know. If we don’t know something, but we think we know it, that is the worst of all worlds.
Right now, in this beautiful county, full of wonderful people, we have a culture that promotes “lack of empowerment”. Because too many people think they know something that never happened. It creates a Boogeyman. It encourages fearfulness. It incubates apathy. It creates a populace that is willing to roll over and play dead. It reminds me of that old saying, “Nobody can be your boss without your permission.” The citizens are the boss of the Board of Supervisors. It’s not the other way around. A long term resident told me once, “There’s no point going in and talking to them (the Board). They just let you talk a while, and then they go do what they want to do anyway.”
Sarah, this man who said that to me was not talking about Allen Cubbage. It doesn’t matter which Board it is, or who the Chairman is. These aren’t professional politicians. They sometimes seem to the citizens to be arrogant baboons, and that is more than likely to happen, no matter who gets the job, once in a while. We just hope that the people who are elected have an intention to be kind, an intention to be responsive, and an intention to respond to the people. Even if they do, there will always be a time or two, under pressure, when it won’t look that way.
So here’s what I think.
I think we have to go back and correct the record on this landfill thing. I think we can’t let the Ed Kieloch book sit out there as the only recorded history of it, with the Karen Kwiatkowsky article as the entry point to Page County that comes up every time a tourist wants to rent a cabin. I think we can’t do well at marketing the county for business and tourism when it looks like people can expect to meet Boss Hogg and Cooter on Main Street.
I’m not talking about writing any books. I’m talking about getting the minutes of the Board meetings during the right period, getting the contract documents, and the court documents, and getting it clear and straight who did what to whom when. Summarizing it. And posting it on the Internet.
I think that’s the only way we’ll know.
Perhaps many people will say we don’t need to know, that it’s a dead horse. But I say . . . it’s a dead Elephant. And its carcass is rotting in the living room, while we all turn our eyes and our focus away from the current landfill issue, and bleed our property taxes onto the living room carpet.
So, whomever would like to help me find out . . . email Research@PageCountyWatch.org or post your clues for where to look right here.
And whomever thinks this isn’t important, just go Blog under a different post.
Alice
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
VDOT and Business Entrances
Topic 2: VDOT’s rules for business entrances - August 7 Work Session
These are my notes, the notes of one citizen who attended. They are not minutes of the meeting. I post them here, because if you wait for the official minutes to come out, it will be October, and then if there were anything discussed that you wanted to take action about, it will be too late. If anyone was there and had a different take on what happened, just hit the Comments button and add your two cents.
Jeff Lineberry from VDOT was invited to talk to the Supervisors. The topic was: can VDOT please identify what is a requirement, versus what is an “aspiration” when they review business licenses. The problem that is arising is that it is Page County’s policy to withhold a business license until VDOT approves the application. But, VDOT is coming back with comments of things that would be “nice to have” instead of just things that are required by law. So somebody applies for a business license, and VDOT says, “Gee, it sure would be great if you would move that electric pole so it won’t line up with all the other electric poles on that section of the road”, and then Page County holds up the business license and won’t let the guy operate. Then it takes forty phone calls while everybody tries to figure out whether it’s a Virginia LAW to move the electric pole or not.
The conclusion of this was that VDOT will answer more directly, maybe.
Don’t even Comment on this, I can’t take it.
These are my notes, the notes of one citizen who attended. They are not minutes of the meeting. I post them here, because if you wait for the official minutes to come out, it will be October, and then if there were anything discussed that you wanted to take action about, it will be too late. If anyone was there and had a different take on what happened, just hit the Comments button and add your two cents.
Jeff Lineberry from VDOT was invited to talk to the Supervisors. The topic was: can VDOT please identify what is a requirement, versus what is an “aspiration” when they review business licenses. The problem that is arising is that it is Page County’s policy to withhold a business license until VDOT approves the application. But, VDOT is coming back with comments of things that would be “nice to have” instead of just things that are required by law. So somebody applies for a business license, and VDOT says, “Gee, it sure would be great if you would move that electric pole so it won’t line up with all the other electric poles on that section of the road”, and then Page County holds up the business license and won’t let the guy operate. Then it takes forty phone calls while everybody tries to figure out whether it’s a Virginia LAW to move the electric pole or not.
The conclusion of this was that VDOT will answer more directly, maybe.
Don’t even Comment on this, I can’t take it.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Quiet Time
It's a quiet time at the Board of Supervisors. The big controversy over the flood plain ordinance is over. The Comprehensive Plan is what it is, and the amendments made satisfied the worst objections. The County Attorney missed out on his big chance to get extra extra rich defending the county over the flood plain lawsuits. And Charlie Hoke figured out what he could say that would make him sound like he was in tune with the will of the People.
At the end of the last Board meeting, Supervisor Hoke introduced a proposal to deny county services to illegal immigrants. Lee McWhorter, who makes it his function to provide the comic relief at these meetings, suggested that we should check to see if we have any illegal immigrants before we waste the money paying the county attorney to write something up. Tommy LaFrance said we do, because the school board was forced to hire Spanish tutors for them last year. (I don't think that's exactly what he said, remember I'm just a citizen taking notes, and I write down things as I hear them, which is not necessarily exact. My reports are not minutes of the meetings.)
Lee pointed out that other counties who have done this have ended up paying lawyer money to defend themselves over it, and it would be a shame to spend our money that way if it's not really much of a problem.
The meeting wasn't really about this issue -- it was about the dogs at Brenda Jolly's place and about the passing of the Comprehensive Plan more. There were a lot of people there, which was a very good thing. But, although this was just a short comment at the very end, it got a big front page headline in the Page News.
Why? Because most probably, it's a very popular proposal. A lot of people will agree with it, and not many will oppose it. So Charlie Hoke, who made his constituents so angry at the district meeting over the Comprehensive Plan in his district, when he opposed the changes to the Comprehensive Plan about the flood plain -- made them so angry there was murmuring and aggravation so intense that some people started looking up the rules for how to impeach a Supervisor --- pulls himself out of the hot seat by:
1. voting unanimously with the rest of the Board FOR the changes to the Comprehensive Plan, and
2. introducing this illegal immigrants proposal which gets him front page news AND HIS PICTURE in the paper. Although the picture doesn't really look like him. Where's the little beard?
In any case, a lot of people will think "Charlie Hoke -- isn't he the guy who introduced that legislation for the county against illegal immigrants?" and will feel kindly toward him.
Honestly, I can't even think of an argument FOR providing county services to illegal immigrants. I think most people, if you tell them we are hiring special tutors in the schools and providing emergency services to people who came here illegally would say --- "Yo, Not with MY tax dollars, I hope".
I think Charlie came up with a winner, in terms of introducing something that most people will agree with. Although I surely hope we don't have to get involved with lawsuits over it.
Alice
At the end of the last Board meeting, Supervisor Hoke introduced a proposal to deny county services to illegal immigrants. Lee McWhorter, who makes it his function to provide the comic relief at these meetings, suggested that we should check to see if we have any illegal immigrants before we waste the money paying the county attorney to write something up. Tommy LaFrance said we do, because the school board was forced to hire Spanish tutors for them last year. (I don't think that's exactly what he said, remember I'm just a citizen taking notes, and I write down things as I hear them, which is not necessarily exact. My reports are not minutes of the meetings.)
Lee pointed out that other counties who have done this have ended up paying lawyer money to defend themselves over it, and it would be a shame to spend our money that way if it's not really much of a problem.
The meeting wasn't really about this issue -- it was about the dogs at Brenda Jolly's place and about the passing of the Comprehensive Plan more. There were a lot of people there, which was a very good thing. But, although this was just a short comment at the very end, it got a big front page headline in the Page News.
Why? Because most probably, it's a very popular proposal. A lot of people will agree with it, and not many will oppose it. So Charlie Hoke, who made his constituents so angry at the district meeting over the Comprehensive Plan in his district, when he opposed the changes to the Comprehensive Plan about the flood plain -- made them so angry there was murmuring and aggravation so intense that some people started looking up the rules for how to impeach a Supervisor --- pulls himself out of the hot seat by:
1. voting unanimously with the rest of the Board FOR the changes to the Comprehensive Plan, and
2. introducing this illegal immigrants proposal which gets him front page news AND HIS PICTURE in the paper. Although the picture doesn't really look like him. Where's the little beard?
In any case, a lot of people will think "Charlie Hoke -- isn't he the guy who introduced that legislation for the county against illegal immigrants?" and will feel kindly toward him.
Honestly, I can't even think of an argument FOR providing county services to illegal immigrants. I think most people, if you tell them we are hiring special tutors in the schools and providing emergency services to people who came here illegally would say --- "Yo, Not with MY tax dollars, I hope".
I think Charlie came up with a winner, in terms of introducing something that most people will agree with. Although I surely hope we don't have to get involved with lawsuits over it.
Alice
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Has the Tide Turned?
I wasn't at the first of the five District meetings, held in Shenandoah, but preliminary reports say . . . all is well. What I heard briefly late last night was that Goal 3, Objective 2, line C has been removed and replaced with a substitute language that is . . . just fine.
This would be tremendous news, and frankly it would speak very well of all the Supervisors. It would make peace return to the Valley. When I hear more, I'll post it.
If you were there, or you heard from someone who was there . . . tell us more.
Push the Comments button and Blog.
This would be tremendous news, and frankly it would speak very well of all the Supervisors. It would make peace return to the Valley. When I hear more, I'll post it.
If you were there, or you heard from someone who was there . . . tell us more.
Push the Comments button and Blog.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
The Line of No Return
Here's what happened:
At the July 3 Work Session, the Board of Supervisors reviewed their changes to the Comprehensive Plan, made at the Retreat.
Their changes were: change the word "prohibit" to "regulate".
Supervisor Gerald Cubbage, District 4, proposed that the newly added goal, 3 C, be removed entirely. The goal says:
"Develop ordinances that REGULATE (instead of Prohibit) buildings and businesses in the 100 year flood plain"
Supervisor John Rust objected to removing it. County Administrator Mark Belton suggested that removing that line might jeopardize our compliance with FEMA. Charlie Hoke recommended that we ask if it would do so. Tommy LaFrance said he didn't see why we couldn't just leave it there.
Chairman LaFrance complimented Natalie Zuckerman on her work to prepare this Comprehensive Plan for the County.
Mark Belton then explained that there would be public meetings held by District, beginning Monday and continuing for five nights. There was a small notice in the July 3 Page News and Courier, in the Classified section, that said these meetings would be held.
At the break, I went up to Tommy LaFrance and said, "what happened to your statement that the flood plain ordinance was dead. If you leave that in there, it's the same as directing the planning commission to revive it" and he said, "okay, he didn't care if it was taken out" and I asked him if he would tell Kevin Henry to take it out, and he said yes, he would do that.
After the break, he moved on to the next agenda item and didn't do it. If one were to assume that he was sincere in what he said to me, one would expect that meant he was planning to do it after the meeting at some point. I will continue to call him and Kevin Henry and let you know if it's taken out.
Here's what's next:
It is entirely unlikely that anyone will show up at these five district meetings. Their importance and the significance of the Comprehensive Plan has not been publicized by the county in any manner, and the notice in the Classified section would not mean anything to many people. There has been no explanation in the Page News about the significance of these meetings. In fact, Virginia Code says a Comprehensive Plan is supposed to contain a Land Use Map to guide zoning. Ours doesn't. Ours guides zoning by saying, "corral all the people into the towns, keep them from building anything outside of the towns, don't let anybody build on any more than a 16% slope, and keep them away from all bodies of water" It's a no-growth plan, which leaves the county areas with fewer and fewer houses over which to spread the exploding tax burden. The landfill continues to be a cash guzzler, and the purchase of a new County Office Building and Regional Jail will require additional tax hikes for years to come.
After the five meetings occur with no citizen pushback, the Comprehensive Plan will be approved on July 17, and the Planning Commission will be free to begin the process of rewriting the Zoning Ordinances. Any complaints about how the zoning ordinances are rewritten will be met with the refrain, "but it was in the Comprehensive Plan, and we tried to take it to the citizens, but the citizens didn't show up at the meetings."
If you would like to attend one of the public meetings, the places and dates are listed in the Blog previous to this one. If you go, please post your experiences here on the Blog, or email me and let me know what happened at the meeting you attended.
Email Research@PageCountyWatch.org
Thank you,
Alice
At the July 3 Work Session, the Board of Supervisors reviewed their changes to the Comprehensive Plan, made at the Retreat.
Their changes were: change the word "prohibit" to "regulate".
Supervisor Gerald Cubbage, District 4, proposed that the newly added goal, 3 C, be removed entirely. The goal says:
"Develop ordinances that REGULATE (instead of Prohibit) buildings and businesses in the 100 year flood plain"
Supervisor John Rust objected to removing it. County Administrator Mark Belton suggested that removing that line might jeopardize our compliance with FEMA. Charlie Hoke recommended that we ask if it would do so. Tommy LaFrance said he didn't see why we couldn't just leave it there.
Chairman LaFrance complimented Natalie Zuckerman on her work to prepare this Comprehensive Plan for the County.
Mark Belton then explained that there would be public meetings held by District, beginning Monday and continuing for five nights. There was a small notice in the July 3 Page News and Courier, in the Classified section, that said these meetings would be held.
At the break, I went up to Tommy LaFrance and said, "what happened to your statement that the flood plain ordinance was dead. If you leave that in there, it's the same as directing the planning commission to revive it" and he said, "okay, he didn't care if it was taken out" and I asked him if he would tell Kevin Henry to take it out, and he said yes, he would do that.
After the break, he moved on to the next agenda item and didn't do it. If one were to assume that he was sincere in what he said to me, one would expect that meant he was planning to do it after the meeting at some point. I will continue to call him and Kevin Henry and let you know if it's taken out.
Here's what's next:
It is entirely unlikely that anyone will show up at these five district meetings. Their importance and the significance of the Comprehensive Plan has not been publicized by the county in any manner, and the notice in the Classified section would not mean anything to many people. There has been no explanation in the Page News about the significance of these meetings. In fact, Virginia Code says a Comprehensive Plan is supposed to contain a Land Use Map to guide zoning. Ours doesn't. Ours guides zoning by saying, "corral all the people into the towns, keep them from building anything outside of the towns, don't let anybody build on any more than a 16% slope, and keep them away from all bodies of water" It's a no-growth plan, which leaves the county areas with fewer and fewer houses over which to spread the exploding tax burden. The landfill continues to be a cash guzzler, and the purchase of a new County Office Building and Regional Jail will require additional tax hikes for years to come.
After the five meetings occur with no citizen pushback, the Comprehensive Plan will be approved on July 17, and the Planning Commission will be free to begin the process of rewriting the Zoning Ordinances. Any complaints about how the zoning ordinances are rewritten will be met with the refrain, "but it was in the Comprehensive Plan, and we tried to take it to the citizens, but the citizens didn't show up at the meetings."
If you would like to attend one of the public meetings, the places and dates are listed in the Blog previous to this one. If you go, please post your experiences here on the Blog, or email me and let me know what happened at the meeting you attended.
Email Research@PageCountyWatch.org
Thank you,
Alice
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
The Scorecard
Here's the Scorecard for the Comprehensive Plan Informational meetings to be held July 9 - 13 and the meeting tonight, July 3.
Tonight's meeting is a Board of Supervisors Work Session at the Luray Courthouse at 7 p.m. This is the culmination of the famous Retreat. The Retreat came about because at the May 15 public hearing on the Comprehensive Plan, where more than 70 citizens came to object to the line "Develop ordinances that prohibit buildings and businesses in the 100 year flood plain", the Supervisors determined that they were "up to the task" of making the necessary changes to the plan themselves. They scheduled a Retreat at Skyland in order to do that.
When they got to the Retreat, they only spent an hour talking about the Comprehensive Plan. They concluded during that hour that all they had to do was change the word "prohibit" to "regulate". They also said that if there were any further changes the Supervisors would like to individually propose, they could do so privately, after the few citizens who were in the audience were no longer there.
At this July 3 meeting, we will find out what changes were actually to be made to the plan.
After this meeting, five district meetings will be held to explain the plan to the citizens. The meetings will be held at the following locations:
July 9 - Shenandoah Elementary School
July 10 - Page County High School
July 11 - Stanley Fire Hall
July 12 - Luray Elementary School
July 13 - Springfield Elementary School
The district meetings all start at 7 p.m.
Go to at least one of these meetings if you can. The questions to ask are:
1. According to Virginia code, a Comprehensive Plan contains a Land Use Map to guide zoning. Where can I see that Land Use Map? (The answer is: one wasn't developed yet)
2. The county is in the process of hiring a consultant to help with a rewrite of the zoning ordinance. Why is the zoning ordinance being rewritten? (The answer is: the Supervisors want to keep our county from becoming too crowded so they want to change the zoning so that people can't build outside of the towns areas, unless they can buy a lot of land)
3. I'm aware that our existing flood plain ordinance is in compliance with state and federal requirements. What is the intention of the Supervisors in refusing to vote changes down and put attempts to throw the people off their land to bed once and for all?
4. Will zoning changes impact me and my family?
And the big one . . .
5. Will these zoning changes increse or decrease our chances for a bigger real estate tax increase in the next two or three years?
Answers to these questions are important to the citizens of this county. Shouldn't you know what the Board of Supervisors intends to do and why?
To comment on this Post and Blog, hit the Comments button. All you have to do is type into the box that comes up, you don't have to do any special codes. Then you can select Other if you want to sign your name, or Anonymous if you don't. Anonymous posts really are anonymous. Nobody can tell where they came from.
Alice Richmond
Tonight's meeting is a Board of Supervisors Work Session at the Luray Courthouse at 7 p.m. This is the culmination of the famous Retreat. The Retreat came about because at the May 15 public hearing on the Comprehensive Plan, where more than 70 citizens came to object to the line "Develop ordinances that prohibit buildings and businesses in the 100 year flood plain", the Supervisors determined that they were "up to the task" of making the necessary changes to the plan themselves. They scheduled a Retreat at Skyland in order to do that.
When they got to the Retreat, they only spent an hour talking about the Comprehensive Plan. They concluded during that hour that all they had to do was change the word "prohibit" to "regulate". They also said that if there were any further changes the Supervisors would like to individually propose, they could do so privately, after the few citizens who were in the audience were no longer there.
At this July 3 meeting, we will find out what changes were actually to be made to the plan.
After this meeting, five district meetings will be held to explain the plan to the citizens. The meetings will be held at the following locations:
July 9 - Shenandoah Elementary School
July 10 - Page County High School
July 11 - Stanley Fire Hall
July 12 - Luray Elementary School
July 13 - Springfield Elementary School
The district meetings all start at 7 p.m.
Go to at least one of these meetings if you can. The questions to ask are:
1. According to Virginia code, a Comprehensive Plan contains a Land Use Map to guide zoning. Where can I see that Land Use Map? (The answer is: one wasn't developed yet)
2. The county is in the process of hiring a consultant to help with a rewrite of the zoning ordinance. Why is the zoning ordinance being rewritten? (The answer is: the Supervisors want to keep our county from becoming too crowded so they want to change the zoning so that people can't build outside of the towns areas, unless they can buy a lot of land)
3. I'm aware that our existing flood plain ordinance is in compliance with state and federal requirements. What is the intention of the Supervisors in refusing to vote changes down and put attempts to throw the people off their land to bed once and for all?
4. Will zoning changes impact me and my family?
And the big one . . .
5. Will these zoning changes increse or decrease our chances for a bigger real estate tax increase in the next two or three years?
Answers to these questions are important to the citizens of this county. Shouldn't you know what the Board of Supervisors intends to do and why?
To comment on this Post and Blog, hit the Comments button. All you have to do is type into the box that comes up, you don't have to do any special codes. Then you can select Other if you want to sign your name, or Anonymous if you don't. Anonymous posts really are anonymous. Nobody can tell where they came from.
Alice Richmond
Friday, June 29, 2007
The REAL Page County
I just went to the nicest, homiest, warmest event. It was the Election Debate hosted by Mary Whitehead at the VFW. Mary was a fantastic Mistress of Ceremonies. She really knew what the deal was in Page County, and seemed to have everybody’s “number.” Mary invited all the candidates running for office, and the VFW hall was filled to overflowing with citizens. Every candidate got to say their piece and give their platform. Mary was very strict about not having any negative campaigning or crucifying anybody, either on the stage or from audience questions.
You know what? It was really nice. It was heartwarming to hear each person talk about why they wanted to run for office and what they wanted to do. It was amazing to me how many people came, since I knew it wasn’t publicized much. In addition to the candidates, Mary also had Todd Gilbert there, and a representative of Mark Obershain.
All the candidates were there except District 2 Supervisor John Rust, and District 4 Supervisor Gerald Cubbage and his Democratic challenger Raymond Kite. Other than that, everybody else running was there. They gave such GREAT speeches. I’m not kidding, they were really, really good speeches, from everybody.
What was so good about them was that these were real people, with real heartfelt desires to serve the people. It didn’t matter whether they were polished public speakers or just speaking from the heart. You could tell they were people who cared. All of them.
In fact, when you listened to them, you started to think, Gee. It wouldn’t really matter which of these candidates got the most votes.
They were all winners.
I hope everybody in Page County gets to meet the people who have put themselves on the line to run for office. Mary will be running another one of these debates in the Fall. In August, Page County Watch will be setting up a special Elections Section of the website, where every candidate will have their own pages, and citizens can submit Questions for the Candidates.
You know what? It was really nice. It was heartwarming to hear each person talk about why they wanted to run for office and what they wanted to do. It was amazing to me how many people came, since I knew it wasn’t publicized much. In addition to the candidates, Mary also had Todd Gilbert there, and a representative of Mark Obershain.
All the candidates were there except District 2 Supervisor John Rust, and District 4 Supervisor Gerald Cubbage and his Democratic challenger Raymond Kite. Other than that, everybody else running was there. They gave such GREAT speeches. I’m not kidding, they were really, really good speeches, from everybody.
What was so good about them was that these were real people, with real heartfelt desires to serve the people. It didn’t matter whether they were polished public speakers or just speaking from the heart. You could tell they were people who cared. All of them.
In fact, when you listened to them, you started to think, Gee. It wouldn’t really matter which of these candidates got the most votes.
They were all winners.
I hope everybody in Page County gets to meet the people who have put themselves on the line to run for office. Mary will be running another one of these debates in the Fall. In August, Page County Watch will be setting up a special Elections Section of the website, where every candidate will have their own pages, and citizens can submit Questions for the Candidates.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The Incomprehensible Plan
Guest Blog by Steve Whisler
PCW has posted the editable versions of the revised amended Comprehensive Plan, Comp Plan 5-8 rough scan (intended for inclusion in the Comp Plan) and Virginia Code 15.2-2223 under Comprehensive Plan on the main site at http://www.PageCountyWatch.org The DVD of the Comprehensive Plan portion of the Supervisors Retreat will be made available as soon as possible, most likely in time for the individual District Supervisor meetings to be held.
The Incomprehensible Plan
The Board of Supervisors has now returned from its retreat after deliberating for an entire hour on a 100 page document, a revised amended comprehensive plan. I have read the document as well as the Virginia code that requires county governments to have a comprehensive plan. The Virginia code states that a comprehensive plan is to address the physical development of the territory, in this case Page County. It is essentially described as a mapping/planning exercise intended to identify and document current land use and infrastructure and what it will need to be to accommodate projected changes in land use requirements.
The revision to the amended comprehensive plan under consideration by the Board is quite a different bird. It is a hash of goals and objectives only a few of which have anything to do with planning the physical development of the county. For some unexplained reason, even after significant editing, there remain academic discourses on unrelated topics such as Karst topography, acid rain, air pollution, etc, as well as policy implication statements, statements to encourage or discourage this, promote that, to prohibit or regulate the other, most of which have nothing to do with planning land use
(i.e., educating kids about robotics and aerospace technology; educating citizens about environment and water quality; promoting tourism; obtaining funding, etc. It goes on and on.). Buried within the document are the elements of what a comprehensive plan is suppose to be according to Virginia code. However, even those elements fall short of completeness.
Virginia code also calls for performing careful and comprehensive surveys and studies of existing conditions and trends of growth, and of the probable future requirements of the county and inhabitants in the context of land use. There is no evidence those types of things were ever done. Interestingly, there are elements of the plan that call for performing surveys and studies that should have been done prior to the development of a comprehensive plan. Even stranger is the fact that in the little snippet called “Comp Plan 5-8 rough scan” under the heading Land Use, what is suppose to be a land use plan calls for the creation of a land use plan. What?
Further, a comprehensive plan under Virginia code is mandated to include “A zoning ordinance and zoning district maps.” Why is the comprehensive plan subcommittee just now beginning work on that issue? What exactly would the Board of Supervisors be approving under the amended plan? It would seem that the comprehensive plan committee may have a little malfeasance problem as well. After three years or so of fumbling around they have produced absolutely nothing of value for the Board of Supervisors to adopt.
To be sure, many of the elements that are irrelevant for inclusion in a comprehensive plan as contemplated by Virginia code should be considered in developing it. However, they should be addressed somewhere else, possibly as part of a broad county strategic plan. It is a mystery how what was supposed to be a comprehensive plan was corrupted into what it has become. It may well be that somewhere, way back when, there was a recognition there was a need to have a broad strategic vision for the county and it seemed like a good idea at the time to roll it into this thing called a comprehensive plan. Egad, now we have a precedent!
What really concerns me is the Board of Supervisors is in the mood to adopt a comprehensive plan regardless of how fouled up it is. Changing a word here and shifting a sentence there really does not answer the mail. I would be willing to wager if the title “Comprehensive Plan” was to be placed on a comic book, as is the case here, they would approve it. Over recent months, the Board has shown little overt interest in what the citizens of the county have to say. If they do come to their senses regarding the comprehensive plan, they will realize that attempting to put lipstick on a pig will not make it anything other than a pig.
Steve Whisler
Note: The Board will review their “changes” to the Comprehensive Plan in the work session of July 3. At the Retreat, they said they would then take this plan to the citizens in individual district meetings, Supervisor to Citizen.
PCW has posted the editable versions of the revised amended Comprehensive Plan, Comp Plan 5-8 rough scan (intended for inclusion in the Comp Plan) and Virginia Code 15.2-2223 under Comprehensive Plan on the main site at http://www.PageCountyWatch.org The DVD of the Comprehensive Plan portion of the Supervisors Retreat will be made available as soon as possible, most likely in time for the individual District Supervisor meetings to be held.
The Incomprehensible Plan
The Board of Supervisors has now returned from its retreat after deliberating for an entire hour on a 100 page document, a revised amended comprehensive plan. I have read the document as well as the Virginia code that requires county governments to have a comprehensive plan. The Virginia code states that a comprehensive plan is to address the physical development of the territory, in this case Page County. It is essentially described as a mapping/planning exercise intended to identify and document current land use and infrastructure and what it will need to be to accommodate projected changes in land use requirements.
The revision to the amended comprehensive plan under consideration by the Board is quite a different bird. It is a hash of goals and objectives only a few of which have anything to do with planning the physical development of the county. For some unexplained reason, even after significant editing, there remain academic discourses on unrelated topics such as Karst topography, acid rain, air pollution, etc, as well as policy implication statements, statements to encourage or discourage this, promote that, to prohibit or regulate the other, most of which have nothing to do with planning land use
(i.e., educating kids about robotics and aerospace technology; educating citizens about environment and water quality; promoting tourism; obtaining funding, etc. It goes on and on.). Buried within the document are the elements of what a comprehensive plan is suppose to be according to Virginia code. However, even those elements fall short of completeness.
Virginia code also calls for performing careful and comprehensive surveys and studies of existing conditions and trends of growth, and of the probable future requirements of the county and inhabitants in the context of land use. There is no evidence those types of things were ever done. Interestingly, there are elements of the plan that call for performing surveys and studies that should have been done prior to the development of a comprehensive plan. Even stranger is the fact that in the little snippet called “Comp Plan 5-8 rough scan” under the heading Land Use, what is suppose to be a land use plan calls for the creation of a land use plan. What?
Further, a comprehensive plan under Virginia code is mandated to include “A zoning ordinance and zoning district maps.” Why is the comprehensive plan subcommittee just now beginning work on that issue? What exactly would the Board of Supervisors be approving under the amended plan? It would seem that the comprehensive plan committee may have a little malfeasance problem as well. After three years or so of fumbling around they have produced absolutely nothing of value for the Board of Supervisors to adopt.
To be sure, many of the elements that are irrelevant for inclusion in a comprehensive plan as contemplated by Virginia code should be considered in developing it. However, they should be addressed somewhere else, possibly as part of a broad county strategic plan. It is a mystery how what was supposed to be a comprehensive plan was corrupted into what it has become. It may well be that somewhere, way back when, there was a recognition there was a need to have a broad strategic vision for the county and it seemed like a good idea at the time to roll it into this thing called a comprehensive plan. Egad, now we have a precedent!
What really concerns me is the Board of Supervisors is in the mood to adopt a comprehensive plan regardless of how fouled up it is. Changing a word here and shifting a sentence there really does not answer the mail. I would be willing to wager if the title “Comprehensive Plan” was to be placed on a comic book, as is the case here, they would approve it. Over recent months, the Board has shown little overt interest in what the citizens of the county have to say. If they do come to their senses regarding the comprehensive plan, they will realize that attempting to put lipstick on a pig will not make it anything other than a pig.
Steve Whisler
Note: The Board will review their “changes” to the Comprehensive Plan in the work session of July 3. At the Retreat, they said they would then take this plan to the citizens in individual district meetings, Supervisor to Citizen.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Holy Moly, now I get it!
Alert! Alert! WE can go to the Retreat! Page County Watch has learned that the Retreat is a public meeting! We are allowed to attend!
By George and By Jove . . . we WILL attend! In fact, we will attend with Bells on. And when you see our Bells, you will know what I mean.
So . . . mark your calendars. Page County Watch will post the date, the time, the location, and the directions to get there. And chances are . . . we will know before it's announced in the paper or posted on the website.
Current thinking: it's going to be mid-June, at Skyland, on a weekday, just one day from about 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
PLAN to be there!
By George and By Jove . . . we WILL attend! In fact, we will attend with Bells on. And when you see our Bells, you will know what I mean.
So . . . mark your calendars. Page County Watch will post the date, the time, the location, and the directions to get there. And chances are . . . we will know before it's announced in the paper or posted on the website.
Current thinking: it's going to be mid-June, at Skyland, on a weekday, just one day from about 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
PLAN to be there!
Thursday, May 3, 2007
The May 1 meeting
Here's What happened at the May 1 meeting
The May 1 Board of Supervisors meeting was a Work Session. It just happened to be that we listed that meeting in the ad. We did it to try to reach people that hadn't heard, and to try to get them on the website.
The Flood Plain Ordinance was not on the agenda.
About 30 - 40 people showed up at the meeting in response to the ad, but only 5 of them had an email address. We got as many as would fit in the room to come inside anyway, just to show that people were paying attention and would come to these Supervisors meetings.
Here is my impression of the agenda items. (Remember, this is not "minutes of the meeting." It's just my notes, in my subjective opinion.) If you want the actual official minutes, you can wait until they post them on the county website, in a month or two.
1. The first item was a request from Powell Markowitz to lower the personal property tax for aircraft. He said the current rate of $2.16 is higher than surrounding airports and people will put their planes in Culpepper or Warrenton rather than come here. He said the airport provides jobs and needs to be competitive. Personal property tax for cars is $3.90. There was no action taken by the Board at this time.
2. The Town of Stanley wants to change their boundary lines slightly, to extend water and sewer service.
3. The Stanley Little League needs a new ball park and they want to coordinate investment and actions with the county.
4. The Stanley Fire Department needs an approval letter so their EMTs can give medicines when needed.
5. Charlie Campbell, Commissioner of Revenue, wants a new position approved for his department. He needs a certified appraiser on staff to a) correct the mistakes the Blue Ridge Mass Appraisal company made this time and b) monitor any appraisers hired next time. This sounded like a very good idea. Charlie said the people deserve and the law requires that the appraisals be done correctly.
6. J D Cave, who owns the local radio station, appealed to the Board because his business license was turned down. Something about VDOT sending a letter saying the electric pole was too close to the highway. The electric pole is in a line of electric poles, and for some reason the Page County Zoning ordinance says he can't get a business license without VDOT approval. Actually I may have that wrong, I seemed to get confused over what was happening. In the end, I'm pretty sure the Supervisors said to just give this man a license and stop being goofy about it.
7. Charlie Campbell pointed out that many times people ask for a business license to do an Internet business out of their homes, and they can't approve the license because there isn't a commercial entrance to the building, which is ridiculous because there are no customers or suppliers coming to an Internet business. So he said the county misses out on the revenue, because he doesn't think the business stops operating just because Page County didn't issue it a license. The Supervisors said this is an issue that should be forwarded to the Planning Commission for a Zoning Ordinance change to allow Internet businesses. We'll put a few stars next to this one to see what happens to it.
8. The big news of the night came when Mark Belton asked the Supervisors if they wanted to rescind their vote to buy the Wallace Building for a County Office Building. It turns out the owner of the building does not think there is a valid other buyer for it. The argument FOR buying it was that the county could sell it to another business, and if they didn't buy it, the owner might want to take a 10 year contract to make it a warehouse. But the arguments against buying it were that it should be left to be available for other business and the county should look elsewhere, because it would be more expensive anyway. The vote was to rescind, so the Wallace Building is no longer being considered as the new County Office space. A committee was set up headed by John Rust to come up with a new plan for the county office building.
That was it. The meeting was over.
After the meeting some of us introduced ourselves to the Supervisors and told them about Page County Watch and its purpose. We talked about the problem with the Flood Plain Ordinance and they assured us that it would not be passed. They had been under the impression that the state sent us a letter stating that our ordinance was not in compliance. They are getting a confirmation from Richmond that is not the case, and will end it as soon as they know our current ordinance is fine. We also pointed out that the Comprehensive Plan had been changed to say it was a goal of the county to pass ordinances to get houses and businesses off the flood plain. They said they knew about that and would correct it.
So we had verbal confirmation that all will be well in time. However, we will need to follow up until that is true in writing.
An important part of our discussion was "how can things like this happen?" In a county that is small and depends on volunteers to do its research and work, it can happen that there aren't any volunteers. In fact, it usually to always happens. So there may be some people with a special interest or an agenda, and they turn out to be the only people volunteering. If enough of them volunteer long enough, they can dominate a committee, and the result turns out to be biased toward the special interest, instead of a reflection of the interests of the county as a whole.
The conclusion: we need more participation in the local government so that there will be a wider base of volunteers to get stuff researched and done for the county.
That's what Page County Watch is for. One idea we had is that we could build a "skills database" of people who live in the county. There is an amazing set of skills here from retired people. The Boomers are starting to show up, and this is not your grandmother's retirement. People are showing up from age 55 and up, with their health and their skills well intact. Many people in the county now have experience and time to provide the volunteers county government needs. With a wide base of interests, things like the Comprehensive Plan and the new Zoning Ordinance changes could be made to better reflect the interests of the whole, rather than the interests of one set of special interests. Plan to come to the Planning Commission and the Supervisors meetings. They're better than Reality TV!
Blog about what you think! Hit the Comments button at the bottom. You can sign your name or post anonymously. Others will see your Blog. Get your friends and neighbors to go to the site and sign up for the NewsList. If you want your own blog, email me and I'll post what you write.
Alice Richmond
The May 1 Board of Supervisors meeting was a Work Session. It just happened to be that we listed that meeting in the ad. We did it to try to reach people that hadn't heard, and to try to get them on the website.
The Flood Plain Ordinance was not on the agenda.
About 30 - 40 people showed up at the meeting in response to the ad, but only 5 of them had an email address. We got as many as would fit in the room to come inside anyway, just to show that people were paying attention and would come to these Supervisors meetings.
Here is my impression of the agenda items. (Remember, this is not "minutes of the meeting." It's just my notes, in my subjective opinion.) If you want the actual official minutes, you can wait until they post them on the county website, in a month or two.
1. The first item was a request from Powell Markowitz to lower the personal property tax for aircraft. He said the current rate of $2.16 is higher than surrounding airports and people will put their planes in Culpepper or Warrenton rather than come here. He said the airport provides jobs and needs to be competitive. Personal property tax for cars is $3.90. There was no action taken by the Board at this time.
2. The Town of Stanley wants to change their boundary lines slightly, to extend water and sewer service.
3. The Stanley Little League needs a new ball park and they want to coordinate investment and actions with the county.
4. The Stanley Fire Department needs an approval letter so their EMTs can give medicines when needed.
5. Charlie Campbell, Commissioner of Revenue, wants a new position approved for his department. He needs a certified appraiser on staff to a) correct the mistakes the Blue Ridge Mass Appraisal company made this time and b) monitor any appraisers hired next time. This sounded like a very good idea. Charlie said the people deserve and the law requires that the appraisals be done correctly.
6. J D Cave, who owns the local radio station, appealed to the Board because his business license was turned down. Something about VDOT sending a letter saying the electric pole was too close to the highway. The electric pole is in a line of electric poles, and for some reason the Page County Zoning ordinance says he can't get a business license without VDOT approval. Actually I may have that wrong, I seemed to get confused over what was happening. In the end, I'm pretty sure the Supervisors said to just give this man a license and stop being goofy about it.
7. Charlie Campbell pointed out that many times people ask for a business license to do an Internet business out of their homes, and they can't approve the license because there isn't a commercial entrance to the building, which is ridiculous because there are no customers or suppliers coming to an Internet business. So he said the county misses out on the revenue, because he doesn't think the business stops operating just because Page County didn't issue it a license. The Supervisors said this is an issue that should be forwarded to the Planning Commission for a Zoning Ordinance change to allow Internet businesses. We'll put a few stars next to this one to see what happens to it.
8. The big news of the night came when Mark Belton asked the Supervisors if they wanted to rescind their vote to buy the Wallace Building for a County Office Building. It turns out the owner of the building does not think there is a valid other buyer for it. The argument FOR buying it was that the county could sell it to another business, and if they didn't buy it, the owner might want to take a 10 year contract to make it a warehouse. But the arguments against buying it were that it should be left to be available for other business and the county should look elsewhere, because it would be more expensive anyway. The vote was to rescind, so the Wallace Building is no longer being considered as the new County Office space. A committee was set up headed by John Rust to come up with a new plan for the county office building.
That was it. The meeting was over.
After the meeting some of us introduced ourselves to the Supervisors and told them about Page County Watch and its purpose. We talked about the problem with the Flood Plain Ordinance and they assured us that it would not be passed. They had been under the impression that the state sent us a letter stating that our ordinance was not in compliance. They are getting a confirmation from Richmond that is not the case, and will end it as soon as they know our current ordinance is fine. We also pointed out that the Comprehensive Plan had been changed to say it was a goal of the county to pass ordinances to get houses and businesses off the flood plain. They said they knew about that and would correct it.
So we had verbal confirmation that all will be well in time. However, we will need to follow up until that is true in writing.
An important part of our discussion was "how can things like this happen?" In a county that is small and depends on volunteers to do its research and work, it can happen that there aren't any volunteers. In fact, it usually to always happens. So there may be some people with a special interest or an agenda, and they turn out to be the only people volunteering. If enough of them volunteer long enough, they can dominate a committee, and the result turns out to be biased toward the special interest, instead of a reflection of the interests of the county as a whole.
The conclusion: we need more participation in the local government so that there will be a wider base of volunteers to get stuff researched and done for the county.
That's what Page County Watch is for. One idea we had is that we could build a "skills database" of people who live in the county. There is an amazing set of skills here from retired people. The Boomers are starting to show up, and this is not your grandmother's retirement. People are showing up from age 55 and up, with their health and their skills well intact. Many people in the county now have experience and time to provide the volunteers county government needs. With a wide base of interests, things like the Comprehensive Plan and the new Zoning Ordinance changes could be made to better reflect the interests of the whole, rather than the interests of one set of special interests. Plan to come to the Planning Commission and the Supervisors meetings. They're better than Reality TV!
Blog about what you think! Hit the Comments button at the bottom. You can sign your name or post anonymously. Others will see your Blog. Get your friends and neighbors to go to the site and sign up for the NewsList. If you want your own blog, email me and I'll post what you write.
Alice Richmond
Monday, April 23, 2007
We found our heroes
If you missed the April 23 Planning Commission, you missed a great time! We had some heroes emerge, saw some weird things happen, and got the word "however" taken out of the Comprehensive Plan. The big news is: the Planning Commission, in a narrow and cliff-hanging 4 to 3 vote decided to recommend to the Board of Supervisors that the Draft Flood Plain Management Plan be taken out of consideration, debate ended, and the existing flood plain ordinance be reverted to.
We had a good night.
Now here's the Play by Play.
First, they talked about the Comprehensive Plan. That's the one nobody has copies of yet, but we'll be getting copies of that on the website before it gets considered by the Board of Supervisors. It has some problems, but they are fixable, and we'll be getting to that another day.
The big cool thing about that was Peggy getting up and objecting to the word "however" on page 74. You see, the old plan said blah, blah, blah paraphrasing "Page County's scenic beauty attracts recreational house development." The new one said, "Page County's scenic beauty, however, also attracts recreational house development."
Now is that rude, or is that rude?
So Peggy got them to take the "however" out.
I objected to them adding a GOAL to write an "ordinance to prevent houses and businesses from being in the 100 year flood plain" and I didn't even get a discussion about it. I guess that's okay, because it gives us more reason to object to the Comprehensive Plan when it gets to the Board of Supervisors. If there was no reason to change the ordinance BEFORE, now you can't write that line in the Plan and then say that's the reason you have to do it.
But the real hero of the night, in a night of at least 4 heroes, was Planning Commissioner Darrell Short. Darrell proposed a motion, which he had nicely written out and elegantly presented. His motion said that the commission should recommend to the Board that they stop debate on the draft ordinance, abolish the draft ordinance and revert to the existing ordinance if any further discussion were to come up, and abolish the subcommittee. Okay, I might have that wrong because it was long and I couldn't follow it, but I think that's the basic gist of it.
Hero number 2 came along when Commissioner Sandra Hammel seconded the motion.
Commissioners De Serio, Otto, and Newton voted No on that motion. Their argument (and I do have to paraphrase and trust my memory and understanding when I say this stuff. I don't have a tape recorder or write shorthand on this) . . . anyway, I think their argument was that they've learned a lot from all the citizen input and it would be better to rewrite the ordinance in a subcommittee.
Chairman Woodward voted Yes, becoming Hero number 3 for the night.
And then it was down to Commissioner Dot Donato. Remember, Dot was on the subcommittee who wrote this in the first place, and last week, she was holding up a Flood Insurance program and saying everybody should read this. So at first she abstained. And then she was the deciding vote.
So she voted YES.
It took our audience a while to understand what happened, so we didn't just jump right up and start cheering. In fact, we didn't figure it out until the Chairman moved on to New Business.
So then some people thought we should pull the ad, and it is true that the ad tells people to go to a meeting that is now not going to happen . . . but this isn't done yet. All the commissioners can do is recommend to the Board that this take place. The Board still has to decide, and we don't know when that will occur.
So the ad . . . which says "call your supervisor and tell them to stop the flood plain ordinance" . . . is actually perfectly timed. This action is now before the supervisors, or it will be soon, and it is the perfect action to tell the citizens everywhere what the implications are and ask them to demand that the ordinance be pulled.
We did give our four heroes a heads up on the ad, though. Didn't want them to be blind sided by it after what they did.
So hip, hip, hooray for a rational government.
What does this prove? Citizen input counts. Government works. And an informed citizenry makes a better government. Oh, and there were some funny parts, too. You had to be there.
Stay tuned for the next installment . . .
We had a good night.
Now here's the Play by Play.
First, they talked about the Comprehensive Plan. That's the one nobody has copies of yet, but we'll be getting copies of that on the website before it gets considered by the Board of Supervisors. It has some problems, but they are fixable, and we'll be getting to that another day.
The big cool thing about that was Peggy getting up and objecting to the word "however" on page 74. You see, the old plan said blah, blah, blah paraphrasing "Page County's scenic beauty attracts recreational house development." The new one said, "Page County's scenic beauty, however, also attracts recreational house development."
Now is that rude, or is that rude?
So Peggy got them to take the "however" out.
I objected to them adding a GOAL to write an "ordinance to prevent houses and businesses from being in the 100 year flood plain" and I didn't even get a discussion about it. I guess that's okay, because it gives us more reason to object to the Comprehensive Plan when it gets to the Board of Supervisors. If there was no reason to change the ordinance BEFORE, now you can't write that line in the Plan and then say that's the reason you have to do it.
But the real hero of the night, in a night of at least 4 heroes, was Planning Commissioner Darrell Short. Darrell proposed a motion, which he had nicely written out and elegantly presented. His motion said that the commission should recommend to the Board that they stop debate on the draft ordinance, abolish the draft ordinance and revert to the existing ordinance if any further discussion were to come up, and abolish the subcommittee. Okay, I might have that wrong because it was long and I couldn't follow it, but I think that's the basic gist of it.
Hero number 2 came along when Commissioner Sandra Hammel seconded the motion.
Commissioners De Serio, Otto, and Newton voted No on that motion. Their argument (and I do have to paraphrase and trust my memory and understanding when I say this stuff. I don't have a tape recorder or write shorthand on this) . . . anyway, I think their argument was that they've learned a lot from all the citizen input and it would be better to rewrite the ordinance in a subcommittee.
Chairman Woodward voted Yes, becoming Hero number 3 for the night.
And then it was down to Commissioner Dot Donato. Remember, Dot was on the subcommittee who wrote this in the first place, and last week, she was holding up a Flood Insurance program and saying everybody should read this. So at first she abstained. And then she was the deciding vote.
So she voted YES.
It took our audience a while to understand what happened, so we didn't just jump right up and start cheering. In fact, we didn't figure it out until the Chairman moved on to New Business.
So then some people thought we should pull the ad, and it is true that the ad tells people to go to a meeting that is now not going to happen . . . but this isn't done yet. All the commissioners can do is recommend to the Board that this take place. The Board still has to decide, and we don't know when that will occur.
So the ad . . . which says "call your supervisor and tell them to stop the flood plain ordinance" . . . is actually perfectly timed. This action is now before the supervisors, or it will be soon, and it is the perfect action to tell the citizens everywhere what the implications are and ask them to demand that the ordinance be pulled.
We did give our four heroes a heads up on the ad, though. Didn't want them to be blind sided by it after what they did.
So hip, hip, hooray for a rational government.
What does this prove? Citizen input counts. Government works. And an informed citizenry makes a better government. Oh, and there were some funny parts, too. You had to be there.
Stay tuned for the next installment . . .
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Coming Monday April 23
This Monday, April 23, the Planning Commission will do two things of interest to Page County Watch.
First, and most importantly, they will vote on whether or not to turn the issue of the Flood Plain Ordinance back to a subcommittee. This is important because currently all the members are learning what the issues are. If it's taken back to subcommittee, only a few members will hear anything about it. Next the issue comes up: who is on the subcommittee? Some say the same people who wrote it expect to be the subcommittee. In fact, some think that's a given.
But Roberts Rules of Order say NO. By Roberts Rules of Order, once the subcommittee turned in its report in the Fall of 2006, it was automatically disbanded as an entity. The Rules say that subcommittee no longer exists, and it can now go to a newly formed subcommittee.
That makes sense to me. The first subcommittee did a shameful job. They let a rabid fanatic do their work for them, and they fell under the spell of thinking they had the right to take people's property rights away in the name of personal power. Surely, it would be common sense to form a NEW subcommittee, and not turn the whole issue back to the people who caused it in the first place.
The second issue coming up Monday night is amendments to the Comprehensive Plan. Guess what? The same individual who made a farce out of the Flood Plain ordinance added some choice and laughable changes to the Comprehensive Plan.
More on that later.
Hope to see you all on Monday night, April 23, at 7 p.m. in the Courthouse for the ongoing saga of . . . the Page County Planning Commission.
First, and most importantly, they will vote on whether or not to turn the issue of the Flood Plain Ordinance back to a subcommittee. This is important because currently all the members are learning what the issues are. If it's taken back to subcommittee, only a few members will hear anything about it. Next the issue comes up: who is on the subcommittee? Some say the same people who wrote it expect to be the subcommittee. In fact, some think that's a given.
But Roberts Rules of Order say NO. By Roberts Rules of Order, once the subcommittee turned in its report in the Fall of 2006, it was automatically disbanded as an entity. The Rules say that subcommittee no longer exists, and it can now go to a newly formed subcommittee.
That makes sense to me. The first subcommittee did a shameful job. They let a rabid fanatic do their work for them, and they fell under the spell of thinking they had the right to take people's property rights away in the name of personal power. Surely, it would be common sense to form a NEW subcommittee, and not turn the whole issue back to the people who caused it in the first place.
The second issue coming up Monday night is amendments to the Comprehensive Plan. Guess what? The same individual who made a farce out of the Flood Plain ordinance added some choice and laughable changes to the Comprehensive Plan.
More on that later.
Hope to see you all on Monday night, April 23, at 7 p.m. in the Courthouse for the ongoing saga of . . . the Page County Planning Commission.
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