I certainly applaud the efforts of our fire and rescue person, and all of those people who were out night and day trying to deal with issues involved in keeping roads open. Given the resources and structure in place, they performed heroically. Those people on the front line are not the decision-makers when it comes to policies for handling emergencies. That honor ultimatel falls squarely upon the shoulders of the Mayor, Town Council, and Town Manager. Read the rest of this entry »
A 12/21/09 Article on Benzinga Snowstorm Drives Up Internet Sales, by N.J. Beachum, just begins to look at what may well be one of the biggest contributors to falling revenue at State and Local levels.
The article notes that the recent snowstorm created a large increase in internet sales and a decline in retail establishments.
In the Roanoke Times you will find: Virginia’s looming budget crisis, 10/21/09, by Dan B. Fleming. This article supports looking at internet sales tax as a way to curtail some of falling revenue of the State.
In the Bangor Daily News, on 12/21/09, Maine losing millions in uncollected taxes on Internet sales, by Mal Leary, shows where even with states with laws which cover some of those sales, the money was never collected. The article goes on to suggest that sales tax losses from “online sales” will continue to grow. In paragraph six, a study is cited indicating that web-based companies not collecting the tax will result in a revenue loss of $21,000,000 this year and the 2010 prediction for loss is $28,000,000.
I am not talking about a loss of sales resulting in loss of tax revenue, although that is certainly happening in this economy. I am talking about the loss of revenue from the sales that are made through the internet from companies that are not located in Virginia or in a specific jurisdiction.
Some examples to think about would be if you are making an out of state purchase, any sales tax collected (if there is any) goes to that other state. If you live in Virginia but purchase items online from a County different from the one where you live, the sales tax goes to the State with a percentage of that tax money coming back to the point where the sale was made, the other County.
Now, if you shop locally the sales tax money that is generated goes to the state with a percentage of the money coming back to the County, City and/or Town where you live.
Before you complain too loudly about possible tax increases or the reduction in services in your area, take a moment to look at where you do your shopping. If you shop locally, then good for you, you are helping your local jurisdictions and the state to provide needed services. If you are doing a lot of shopping online, you are either paying no taxes or helping other States and local jurisdictions to provide services to their citizens.
An overview of this process can be found at NOLO Legal encyclopedia.
As long ago as 7/1/05, The Washington Post, States Move Forward on Internet Sales Tax, by Brian Krebs notes that a 2004 Study by the National Governors Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures reported losses of tax revenues in the range of $15.5 to $16.1 billion dollars. (Wanna talk about a way to fund health care reform???)
Shopping locally means this money stays right here where you live! Shopping locally means that stores remain open, sales increase, order volumes increase, and prices for goods are more consumer friendly. Believe me, on a per item basis, it costs a good deal more to order 10 or 100 of something than it does 1000 of the same item. Consumers are forced to pick up the difference, or at best split that cost with the retailer in order to allow the retailer to continue to function. Shopping locally also means that local small businesses can remain in business. The big box stores have created tough competition for the smaller retailer. Add to that the ‘ease’ of online shopping and you have all but pulled the plug on small businesses. Shopping locally also means that people have more job opportunities, new small businesses have a chance to develop, tax revenues increase, services increase, and who knows, maybe even rest areas can be kept open:)
Just something to think about before you place that next online order for something that could be available right here in our area. And, if local retailers do not carry the items/brands that you want, ask them, they may be willing to get the item/brand for you. Wades Supermaket has a history of doing just exactly that…which is why I shop at Wades whenever possible.
The Virginia retail sales and use tax requires that consumers use tax is to be paid if the individual makes more than $100 in purchases during a year without paying taxes on them. How many people do you know keep track of all of their internet purchases for this? (An excellent argument for using a good CPA!) This also applies to businesses, by the way. And covers not only the Internet but mail-order catalogs and cable television shopping channels. (Since this applies only to those items purchases by Virginia residents for use in Virginia, all of those purchases which are sent to family/friends in other areas is exempt. Again raising the issue of where does the money go.)
Pretty as it may well be now, all of that snow is eventually going to melt. That means storm water issues may again come to the forefront in a lot of Christiansburg citizen’s minds. The potential for problems is compounded by the fact that prior to the snow, the ground was pretty much saturated all ready. This means less absorption and more run off. This means that any sites where storm water management techniques were not adequate previously are likely to become even worse. The rate at which the snow melts will be of extreme importance in watching out for problems.
On another note, storm water does eventually end up in creeks and streams. How do the material applied to the road to clear them affect these? I’ll refer you to a group that knows a lot more about snow than I do. The University of Michigan has a nice Occupational Saftey and Environmental Health: Storm Water website that provides a lot of information, including best management practices. Interesting read while you’re snowed in! Do keep an eye out for those storm water drains near you that are now covered in snow and ice. If there are any items buried within that snow that can fill or block that drain, problems are likely to arise!
In the meantime, a few prayers that the snow melts very, very slowly might be in order. Me? I’m going to start building a boat at the Depot and have it ready. If we’ve got flooding problems already and snow falling in record levels, the effects of the annual Spring melt should be interesting. Enjoy the snow but be ready to deal with the side effects.
According to the State Code: found on LIS (see below) terms of existing Town Council Members or Mayor are not to be shortened except as noted in Section D below which states:
This shortening of some people’s terms (those who were elected in May of 2008) will mean that those people will need to run again and be elected in the November election.
There is one apparent hitch in this ‘get-along’ in that the shortening is restricted to 6 months. Given that the Town of Christiansburg elected officials don’t take office until September (rather than in July as other jurisdictions do) it appears there will need to be some overlap.
Is it possible that for a 2 month period we could have more than 6 Town Council Members? Suppose the 3 incumbents ran in November and were defeated, could we possibly have a situation where for 2 months we would have 9 Town Council Members?
What a mess? Well, the Town of Christiansburg set their starting dates in September while State Code says they state in July (§ 24.2-222. Election and terms of mayor and council for cities and towns. Apparently, this date was established in the 1954 Charter for the Town of Christiansburg. Since one of those council members affected has put forth that he will be seeking legal recourse to the shortening of his term, it may be that things will get interesting…again.
(Town Council Videos of this meeting should be available later today at myvaresouces.com.)
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§ 24.2-222.1. Alternative election of mayor and council at November general election in cities and towns.
A. Notwithstanding the provisions of § 24.2-222, the council of a city or town may provide by ordinance that the mayor, if an elected mayor is provided for by charter, and council shall be elected at the November general election date of any cycle as designated in the ordinance, for terms to commence January 1. No such ordinance shall be adopted between January 1 and the May general election date of the year in which city or town elections regularly are scheduled to be held therein.
B. Alternatively, the registered voters of a city or town may file a petition with the circuit court of the city or of the county within which the town is located asking that a referendum be held on the question of whether the city or town should elect the mayor, if an elected mayor is provided for by charter, and council members at the November general election date of any cycle as designated in the petition. The petition shall be signed by registered voters equal in number to at least ten percent of the number registered in the city or town on the January 1 preceding the filing.
The court, pursuant to § 24.2-684, shall order the election officials on a day fixed in the order to conduct a referendum on the question, provided that no such referendum shall be scheduled between January 1 and the May general election date of the year in which city or town elections regularly are scheduled to be held therein. The clerk of the court shall publish notice of the referendum once a week for the three consecutive weeks prior to the referendum in a newspaper having general circulation in the city or town, and shall post a copy of the notice at the door of the courthouse of the city or county within which the town is located. The question on the ballot shall be:
“Shall the (city or town) change the election date of the mayor (if so provided by charter) and members of council from the May general election to the November general election (in even-numbered or odd-numbered years or as otherwise designated in the petition)?”
If members of the school board in the city or town are elected by the voters, the ballot question also shall state that the change in election date applies to the election of school board members.
The referendum shall be held and the results certified as provided in § 24.2-684. If a majority of the voters voting in the referendum vote in favor of the change, the mayor and council thereafter shall be elected at the November general election date for terms to commence January 1.
C. Except as provided in subsection D, no term of a mayor or member of council shall be shortened in implementing the change to the November election date. Mayors and members of council who were elected at a May general election and whose terms are to expire as of June 30 shall continue in office until their successors have been elected at the November general election and have been qualified to serve.
D. In any city or town that elects its council biennially or quadrennially and that changes to the November general election date in odd-numbered years from the May general election date in even-numbered years, mayors and members of council who were elected at a May general election shall have their term of office shortened by six months but shall continue in office until their successors have been elected at the November general election and have been qualified to serve.
(2000, c. 1045; 2002, c. 30.)
Money speaks! Campaign ads, political party positions, financial help, health care debate, and even local and state elections can be greatly distorted by the rhetoric that money can buy!
Determining what it says and who it says it to is a fine art for those who want to know what their money is really saying.
The loudest voices are usually related to small numbers of people/groups who have a lot of money backing them. Simply turn on the TV and watch the ads that are available. Most of these are not truly informational because they are slanted to vocalize one side of an issue or the other. This is the ploy used by candidates, elected officials, political parties, and special interest groups. Their goal is spread the word…their word to every ear that they can. They trust that people will accept what is said because of who they have doing the talking or by some logo or name affiliated with their ’cause’. They trust that people will trust them to give the truth. Well, they do give the truth, but as my mother always said “There are 3 sides to every story. Yours, mine, and the ‘truth’.”
You see, truth is not that easy to identify. What is ‘truth’ to one person can be an absolute lie to another. I personally use some specific subsets of truth when I am looking at a situation. First, I look at ‘reactive truth’. This is where something is going on that has a direct effect on me right now and I have an immediate ‘gut’ reaction to it. In essence, it is emotion driven. Second, there is ‘relative truth’ which is where I calm down a bit and look at what has been said and process that information based on what I have found through life experiences such as listening to others, reading, experiencing, etc. This tends to be more of a cognitive assessment of the truth. Then, lastly, there is a synthesis truth where I look at my emotional reactions and compare them to the data (facts) in an effort to determine whether my reactions are, indeed, based upon facts or whether someone has simply tried to use fear as a tool to shift my thinking and values. All too often, I find that there has been a fairly blatant attempt by someone to do exactly that, frighten me in order to get me to climb onto their ‘bandwagon’.
Examples of how people’s emotions and fear have been used to distort reality in order to serve the needs of the few are rampant throughout the Health Care Debate. They are also freely flowing in the negative campaign ads that we have seen devolve into ‘mud-slinging’ circuses during recent campaigns.
The problem is that these types of tactics work now and will continue to work so long as people make the assumption that those people in power (whether governmental, financial, or other based) are going to look out for the interest of the people. In order to find that out, people need to care enough about what is happening to be willing to look and think for themselves. Whenever you see an ad that automatically makes you think something negative about someone or something simply stop for a few minutes and ask yourself who will benefit if you let yourself respond to the fear or anger that the ad creates. You may well be surprised at what you begin to see. In particular, dig a bit to see whose money is covering the costs of those ads. That, alone, can be very insightful!
Well, the controversy really doesn’t seem to be about cell towers so much as what to do when it doesn’t come out until the Public Hearing that…oops…by the way, where the party wanting to put the cell tower doesn’t have enough space to make it consistent with the Town Code.
Maybe I’m weird (yeah…yeah..yeah…some of you are already convinced of that), but I would have thought that would have been at least vaguely mentioned during the Planning Commission meeting on this, or perhaps even at the time the Conditional Use Permit was applied for? Videos of these meetings are available at myvaresources.com.
At the next Planning Commission Meeting, this should be addressed again (unless the applicant pulls it) and then it would go before the Town Council at their next meeting.
Since the issue in question has to do with the setback requirements needing to be at least the height of the tower according to the Town Code when discussion had indicated that 30′ from street and 45′ from other buildings was adequate for a 150′ tower. (Maybe not when the Code specifies a setback that is at least the height of the tower.)
I figured I would just do a bit of research on the issue. Rather than go into all of the details here, I set up a .pdf file as a primer for anyone interested in learning more. There is a brief introduction, then a history that includes a review of Planning Commission and Town Council Meeting Minutes concerning all discussions involving cell towers. Then, I went into the Comprehensive Plan and the Town Code for specifics. This primer is available at the Special Sudies Page of myvaresources.com just click on the link “Citizen’s Cell Tower Primer”. (Look for more such documents in the future.)
The Town Code section gives all the information needed to devise a checklist to see if all of the necessary steps have been followed.
One solution that was presented by Planning Director, Randy Wingfield, was that the Town could simply change the Code. Huh? Say, do what?
Well, let’s think about that possibility for a moment. What if the Town changed the Code so that a 35′ setback was adequate. How many places are there in Christiansburg where someone owns property that they would like to make some money from. The companies who rent space for those towers pay pretty darned well. Of course, unless they change some other parts of the Code, only Agricultural and Industrial I & II properties would be possible locations. Since most of the Agricultural land has been scarfed up for developments, what little there is left is often surrounded by rather high density housing. As to the Industrial I & II locations, well gosh, they’re surrounded by residential areas too.
How many of you want to have a view that includes a closeup and personal perspective of a cell tower? Right now, they are talking about one property. Any discussion of changing the Town Codes could affect a lot of other properties. What happens to property values around such facilities? What about research concerning health and safety hazards? How will the required safety lighting affect you?
There are a lot of issues to be addressed that are mentioned in the .pdf file I setup. Not the least of these is a commitment to work on a regional approach to the installation of these structures so that there is a minimal negative impact. (A copy of this regional agreement is included in the text.)
Times are hard. People need money, the Town needs money. But we MUST think about the long term impacts of such decision on everyone, not just a few. The potential impact on property values, insurance, health, safety, and well being of citizens must be acknowledged during any decision-making process.
What would you want to see done differently?
What are the primary issues that you see as needing to be addressed?
These could be important questions. Maybe some of those who will be running for Town Council positions will read and head. Remember we have one more May election before the move to November. That could mean one last big push to create change or, one final push to maintain the status quo for a few more years before the November elections have an impact.
What do you want to see happen in your town? I’ll be adding a few ideas of my own over the next few months. AT the same time, I’ll be looking hard at your suggestions, at the town code, the comprehensive plan, meeting minutes since 2001, audio and video recordings (which by the way are finishing loading and should be all up to date by noon today), and all the emails I’ve received from you.
I think it is a good idea to begin discussing issues now to give a better idea of what citizens identify as issues to those who may be running for election.
http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/breaking/228948.html
Maybe they should have gone with a smaller pool and more infrastructure upgrades and repair for the $18+ million.
Are all Montgomery County residents citizens of Christiansburg or Blacksburg? NO!
Are all Christiansburg or Blacksburg residents citizens of Montgomery County? Yes!
The tax revenue to the County go to provide services to ALL citizens of the County whether they live in the County proper, the Town of Christiansburg or the Town of Blacksburg. The taxes revenue to the Town of Blacksburg and/or Christiansburg go to provide services that the Towns provide above and beyond those provided by the County.
A bit simplistic I know, but I hope this gets the idea across. (Following population estimates provided by Google Public Data and Wikipedia)All of the 89,967residents of Montgomery County est. from 2008 , even if they live in Christiansburg or Blacksburg contribute to the tax base of the County through real estate tax or sales tax. This money is used to pay for maintenance of County roads, Schools, General Fire Rescue, Sheriff’s Office, Court, Jail, Garbage, Libraries, Salaries to employees, and a lot of other aspects of just living in the County.
Blacksburg (41,796 **remember there is a large portion of that number who are students as VT has the largest full-time student population in Virginia with over 30,000 full-time students) and Christiansburg (2008 est. of 19,477). The population of the towns provide revenue to cover the cost of such issues as storm water management, water, sewer, garbage, economic development, tourism, town planning, town codes enforcement, salaries to employees, etc.
In order to be fair, you need to remove the 30,000 in student population from the County population and Blacksburg. So population estimates would be something like: County 60,000, Blacksburg 12,000, Christianburg 19,000. Unfortunately, the old census data is way out of date. With the new census data, it will be easier to come up with some more accurate guess-timates of those numbers (if everyone fills out the census forms!). Anybody out there want to challenge the numbers here, feel free just please remember to cite your source. I need to be able to go get those numbers from someone!
Where is all of this going? Well, how about we look at the Old Blacksburg Middle School that is being discussed right now. What are they going to do with the building? This topic has been tossed around long enough it has turned green and upchucked!
For the last 10 years, the Town of Blacksburg has been pushing to have the County give them the property so they can use it as they wish. According to the Roanoke Times Article “Future unclear for old Blacksburg Middle School” people in Blacksburg think it is entirely appropriate for the County to give them property worth $4,400,000.00. Now, this is for property that the taxpayers all over the County paid for so that people in Riner, Elliston, and Shawsville, Christiansburg, Blacksburg (and throughout the County) can say that they paid for part of the building and land.
Now, if the County gives the land and building away, it is a net loss to the County. If the County sells the property, all proceeds are required to go back into the fund for Capital Improvement – stuff like repairing other schools and covering the cost of new schools having to be built as population increases. If you are a taxpayer, you are invested in this process. How do you want your investment returns used? Should they be given away to Blacksburg or should they be sold for the most amount of money? Something in between only makes sense to me if the property becomes commercial and there is a agreement with the Town and County to share the revenues. However, Blacksburg is having a hard time filling spaces these days and that could mean the County would get a portion of nothing equal to nothing!
I think the safest bet is to sell to the highest bidder, then step out of the way and let Blacksburg deal with the purchaser. Of course, that means that Blacksburg can keep the property value dropped as low as possible by not allowing re-zoning.
Maybe you don’t have an opinion right now, but I bet you will have one when property taxes in the County have to go up in order to offset lost revenue from other sources. Who knows, maybe there are a lot of Blacksburg residents who would rather see the property sold with proceeds going back to the County rather than have property taxes at the County level go up.
Guess we’ll have to wait and see. Maybe I need to start attending those Board of Supervisor meetings to see if members are responding to needs of the County or to needs of Blacksburg.
Heck, if Blacksburg wants playing fields, etc. they can pay for them. If Christiansburg can manage to build an Aquatic Center, I’ll bet Blacksburg can manage to maintain a green field for rugby, soccer, dog walking, etc.
One key point I’m hoping to make here is that the population numbers don’t really tell the whole picture. If you’re listening to arguments from either side or somewhere in the middle of all this discussion, be careful to pay attention to which numbers are used. More specifically, the Towns do not ‘own’ the schools. The schools are County property. If the Towns want the benefits of owning such properties, they will have to become Cities and pick up all the costs related to having a school system of their own. EVERY school in Montgomery County is equally important! Every child in Montgomery County is equally important! The decisions made concerning this property will have a long-term impact on the school system and on the children. Hopefully, the right decision will be made.
New River News A Tale of Two Burgs New River Journal Blog Washington Post: The Answer Sheet (Education) Roanoke Times Round Table Blog
