Fight or Flee, That Is the Question for Fluvanna Taxpayers

by Douglas R. Johnson
February 23, 2009

Moses was 80 years old when he started to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. When are you too old to start something new. We all have history of what we have done over our lifetimes. When do we say that it is time to die; time to sit around and wait for the Grim Reaper?

I thought coming to Fluvanna was my getting ready for days of retirement, rest and relaxation. But the conditions changed. Some few thought they knew best for the rest of us. They wanted to "plan".

Plans are nice but plan for yourself and not for me. Whether they want to plan a crosswalk to nowhere or something grand. Dreamers dream and that is good when they dream for themselves. But when they dream ideas for me, they need to sell me on that dream not force it on me.

We in Fluvanna County are victims of planners who have their own ideas as what is best for the County and are pushing it on the rest of us. I came from an area of high services and high taxes. I came to Fluvanna because it had low taxes and low services. We have no sidewalks, no sewers, and no public water. We had two acre minimum zoning and you had to have a good well and good drainage to support your septic.

Now don't get me wrong. I lived in the city and I liked getting water from a faucet and when I flushed, I liked how it all left my property. I certainly liked walking on sidewalks. But I did not like paying over $600 per month in property taxes. Property taxes need to be paid whether you have income or not.

I am not trying to change anything. It is the "planners" who are changing things. They win an election by very few votes and they act as if they got a mandate. They just squeaked by and here we are thinking that they have this huge power base.

These planners have tried there grandiose plans in the past and were beaten back. We need to beat them back again. They should be the ones fleeing. We need to fight to preserve our county.

We simply need to wake up our long time residence and show them what is happening. Trust me, they do not want to leave. They have roots here that go back to colonial times. They just don't believe what the planners have in store for them.

And those of us who are new to the county, we came with eyes open to the way it was here and frankly, we have a moral responsibility to keep the county the way we found it. If we want any change whatsoever, we need to be very careful not to put our plans for change on those who have lived here for many years if not decades.

The deceit of two years of no payment on the school bonds shows how the planners are afraid to let residence know what is happening until it is too late for us to do anything. This joint Water Authority with Louisa is now being pushed through with many unanswered questions.

I would rather take a cruise in the Carribean than fight these planners. But I need to fight for myself and my children and my grand children. We all need to put our self interest aside and rise to the occasion and fight one more time. We need to stop the madness now.