One benefit of moving the Town of Christiansburg, Virginia elections from May to November is that it will require an update to the Town Charter. This provides town government with a great opportunity to update some other things as well.
For example, in the Town Council Meeting Minutes for 2003 the following can be found from the November 4, 2003 Minutes’s Town Manager Report Section:
MANAGER TERPENNY asked for Council approval to ask Delegate Nutter to sponsor a Charter amendment allowing Town purchases to follow State Code guidelines. He explained that Town Charter has never been changed egarding Town purchases and is currently way below public procurement laws. Currently, Town Charter requires bidding for purchases over three thousand dollars ($3,000.00); State law requires bidding for purchases over fifty thousand dollars ($50,000.00). Councilman Barber made a motion to allow Manager Terpenny to proceed with the request for sponsorship of a Charter amendment allowing Town purchases to follow State Code guidelines, which was seconded by Councilwoman Carter. Council voted as follows: AYES: Ashworth, Ballengee, Barber, Carter, Lester, and Weaver. NAYS: None.
Unfortunately, we are now almost 6 years after this issue was reported to Town Council and Town Council voted to approve the Charter change and no such change has occurred. I did check the Legislative Information System data for changes in Charter throughout the State and this change did not appear in list of passed, failed, or in any pending/committee lists. Unless, of course, some reason was found to indicate State officials did not think this was a good idea. (No evidence of that was found either.)
In other words, it appears that a problem was identified, a solution was found, and the ball was dropped. No further reports were documented in the Meeting Minutes to indicate if Del. Nutter had been contacted or not. One would have to assume, based upon any lack of updates to this, that it was at the Town level that communications fell apart.
If the referendum to move the vote is passed, the Town will need to update the Town Charter to reflect the new date and starting dates for candidates. This would be a good time to make an effort to go through the Town Charter looking for other issues that should be addressed and making sure that all needed updates are made. I certainly hope that the town would not plan on take 6 or more years to update the Charter for the new election date.
If the referendum fails, maybe it is still a good time to look at fixing issues that were identified 6 years ago! Either way, there needs to be some method for making sure that things are followed through on after they are presented to and voted upon by Council. Believe me, there are plenty of other such “ball dropping” events filed throughout the Minutes. But, don’t take my word for it, look for yourself …. at least until I finish my report:)
