Fluvanna Boards Do Not Listen to Public

Our Board of Supervisors wants to improve communications and are looking for ideas as how to do so.

Well I am answering in spades.

It seems the communication they want is the Board tells the public and the public learns.

But that is not what they are saying with their words. Their words are: "Please tell us your input and we will listen."

Their plan is that they will make early presentations to the public and the public will make suggestions. The Board will then "tweak" the proposal based on the suggestions.

But that is a bunch of xxxx. When the public speaks, the Board ignores them.

I give three major examples:

1. Tanasco - There was a very strong opposition to the building of the power plant. At least one key politically connected community leader was hired as a consultant and it no longer mattered what the public said, the deal was done.

Whether or not the power plant was a good idea or not, is not the issue. The issue is how the Board dealt with the controversy.

What could have been done was what they did when they built the new Courthouse. The public was divided as to whether to build it at Pleasant Grove or in the center of Palmyra. That time, no one had any secret agenda. So what did they do? The put it to a referendum. Palmyra was chosen and all controversy was ended.

2. Domino Plan - The public was convinced that a new school was needed and a "blue ribbon" committee was formed and an outside consultant was hired. The committee agreed on what was called the "Flex Plan". All was going fine but the School Board had a secret agenda and deals were made and presto, we got the one hundred million dollar Domino Plan.

The controversy of that deal is on-going. We are not going to solve that fiasco tonight.

But that also could have been conclusively resolved by the School Board having a referendum.

3. Joint Water Authority - Everyone was expecting a plan to take water to Zion Crossroad. But at the last minute, January 26, 2009 to be specific, the Board springs the concept of a Joint Water Authority.

Whether or not water for Zion Crossroads is a good idea or not is not the controversy. The main concern was the doing of the project with a joint water authority.

Again this could have all been resolved with a simple referendum.

But these three examples show clearly that our Boards, both the Supervisors and School Boards, do not want to hear from the public. They just want to put on a show that they want to hear.

They want a three step deal:

1. Decide in advance what is to be done. Have the resolutions all typed up ready to pass.

2. Have the public speak like trained parrots. They can say anything they want.

3. Ignore the public and vote the motion.

But the Joint Water Authority is not a done deal. You may push through financing but this deal is still in the Court.

And the Board is clearly losing. The case is at the Virginia Supreme Court and the best defense the Board has is the two items filed this week by the Boards' attorneys:

1. I do not have standing. I am just a mere citizen and thus do not have the right to bring suit.

2. Now that the charter was issued, it cannot be undone.

This is their only argument. If I can overcome these two specific points, the public win and we get our referendum.

So the first point is quite simple. If I do not have standing, nobody does. I not only signed both petitions, but I designed the form and then filed it with the Court. It was my name on the Court Order that was issued on April 16, 2009.

As for the second point, the law clearly says that the Virginia Supreme Court does have the authority to undo the issuance of the charter. The 1993 VA Supreme Court case gives specific directions as to the timing and the procedure. That procedure was followed and thus the Court has no choice but to void the charter.