Is it true? Well, one place to start looking is the Virginia Auditor of Public Accounts (APA). A lot of information can be found there if one but takes the time to look. However, I will note that you have to do a bit of reading as well just to understand what things mean. I figured it was about time for someone to take a look at the revenues and expenditures at different government levels to see if there really  is an argument for double taxation.

The APA does an annual report that includes data on revenue and expenses for all of the Counties, Cities, and Towns in Virginia. What I did was to cut and paste the information from Montgomery County, City of Radford, and the Towns of Christiansburg and Blacksburg so that if there is a difference between how tax revenues (and expenditures) are different, it can easily be seen. This file (pdf) is available here: LocalCompare2010. Although it is 30 pages total, use “bookmarks” to go to a specific section. Each section starts with a list of terms used and their definitions. All of the definitions used in Exhibit C including Exhibits C1-C8 can be found in the Exhibit C section. Section D did not provide any definitions in the APA report. For instance:

In Exhibit A – General Government Revenue and Expenditures, you will find that the Per Capita amount of local revenue for Christiansburg is more than twice that of Blacksburg. It is less than the City of Radford, but more than Montgomery County.

Before anyone shouts about VT skewing the numbers, yes it is true that the on-campus students at Virginia Tech do skew the numbers for Blacksburg. I believe that accounts for about 8,000 in population. If you could remove those from the Population you would see a difference in per capita. Some would argue that you have to compare Christianburg only to another town without a University. That is not quite accurate. You would actually have to compare Christiansburg to another jurisdiction within roughly the same proximity of a University the size of VT and of RU, having a similar population, having similar land features and similar weather. In other words, you can’t really do a direct comparison between Christiansburg and/or Blacksburg with anywhere else in the State of Virginia. You can make some assumptions, but nothing is going to be a close enough match. Soil types and slopes have a direct impact on the cost of roads, sidewalks, paths, etc. and on the upkeep of those things. Being more prone to snow and ice because of difference in elevation requires that extra steps be taken to handle those issues. The number of university students and traffic generated by the university’s events and visitors, increase wear and tear on roads, increase rescue calls, increase demands on police departments, etc.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s look a bit at how what you pay in County taxes may just provide for different things than how your local tax money is used. This information can be found in the sections for Exhibit C & subsections of C1 thru C8.

• Judicial Administration: Although Blacksburg had to pay for some Judicial Administration last year, typically Towns do not pay into those funds. That is a service provided only at the County and City level, and all citizens, whether County or Town pay for and utilize those services. The per capita costs of those for Montgomery County were $28.02, for the City of Radford it was $74.35 (see Exhibit C2 for details)
• Education: Again, this is a financial burden upon the Counties and Cities, not upon Towns. The Towns have no costs for education. In Radford the 2010 data shows $6,229,026 in expenses and Montgomery County had $98,824,370. The Towns have no money invested in the schools and they also have virtually no control over the schools. Each Town however can have a tremendous impact on school by the way in which development occurs. Large growth in specific areas can cause overcrowding of schools, require that more schools be built, require that more mobile buildings are required to provide spaces for students, can result in needing more buses or changes in bus routes which increase costs to the County. Cities are self sustaining and their growth decisions are met by their own taxpayers. (see Exhibit C6 for details)
• Treasurer & Commissioner of Revenue: These are positions which Counties and Cities are required to have, not Towns.  The Treasurer’s Office for the City of Radford had expenses of $307,556 while Montgomery County’s expenses were $1,057,518. The City of Radford’s cost for Commission of Revenue was $158,333 while Montgomery Counties was $1,585,966. (see Exhibit C1 for details)
• Exhibit C3 focuses on Public Safety Expenditures and you will see that Correction and Detention (the jail system) falls again upon City and County expenses but are not a function of Town governments.
• Exhibit C3 also gives details showing that the per capita expenses for Christiansburg are far higher than any of the neighboring jurisdictions but runs only slightly above average. Blacksburg, again we can see the skew generated by VT students being counted in the census shows about half of Christiansburg’s. The costs to taxpayer for inspections is also far higher in Christiansburg than in the other jurisdictions. And, the County and City are required to provide “Other Protection” which the Towns do not.
• Exhibit C5 shows that Health and Mental Health & Retardation services are only provided by City and County governments. If either of the two Towns invest anything at all in those areas, it is actually a donation. Yet, by and far, with the population densities of the two Towns, it could well be that the vast majority of people receiving those services live with the boundaries of the Towns.
• In Exhibit C7, note that Christiansburg has expenses for Parks and Recreation that are more than twice the per capita of any of the other jurisdictions and yet only Christiansburg shows no investment in Cultural Enrichment.
• Exhibit E shows that while all jurisdictions are eligible for state and federal grants only Radford and Blacksburg have any showing as sources of funds.

I haven’t covered all of the areas here, but I hope that you will take the time to look at the full comparison report I set up, and perhaps wander over to the APA website to look at the full reports where you can see what other Cities, Towns, and Counties are doing.

Perhaps though, I have included enough information to help people see that County and Town taxes actually cover different things. Most of what town taxes are used for go to provide town residents with services that county residents do not have or to have elective services. After all, a town police department is not a requirement, the Sheriff’s department could handle all law enforcement (and just who would pick up the tab for the extra officers and equipment?). Fire and Rescue do not have to be supported by the Town, but isn’t it nice to have them close and to have the equipment that exceeds minimal standards?

Perhaps there is enough information here to help people see what a move from Town to City status is likely to cost Town taxpayers in the long run. A lot of people want to see things done differently with the schools. Ranting at Town officials about school problems will not help to accomplish that. Take those issues to the County and the County School Board.

Lastly, perhaps it is a bit more clear that there really are no duplicate taxes for Town dwellers. I suppose you could always try to get the Town to give up Town status and just become a part of the County in order to have only 1 tax ticket, but you’d have to be willing to give up a bit of the “comforts” associated with living in a Town.

So now, it’s off to work on other projects for me. It appears that there is a huge issue with poverty in this end of the state that gets overlooked by some of our state and federal lawmakers. Poverty affects all of us because of the impact it has on education, jobs, economic development, tax revenues, etc…etc…etc.

Since I was there, and heard the opening remarks made, I was not too surprised when a decision was not made on who was selected for the position. The Mayor, in a good example of FOIA, announced at the beginning of the meeting, before going into closed session, that the meeting was to work on a contract with the Town Attorney. A draft contract was presented to Council at the previous closed session and there were some questions which some council members wanted answered.

Having dealt with attorneys in one of my former professional lives, I sorta figured out at the beginning that a decision would likely not be reached. Hashing out contracts, dealing with the specifics, quite simply takes time. Given all of the uproar with the last Town Manager contract that the council was presented with (a 3 year contract proposed by the last Town Manager), I certainly have no problem with a time extension to make sure that it is a contract that  is clean, neat, and legal.

I guess the long and the short of it is that I would rather know that Town Council is working through all the details, evaluating all of the pros and cons and coming to what they believe to be the best possible solution for the Town.

There were a couple of interesting notes during the regular meeting. Related to the above topic, one citizen stood up to speak in favor of Interim Town Manager, Barry Helms. At least I think that was what it was for. The statement made included a note that even when Mr. Helms was just the Assn’t. Town Manager, he called Mr. Helms when he had a problem and things got taken care of. The reason I say that I think this was intended to be a statement in support is because if you listen to exactly what was said, it seems that Mr. Helms was taking care of citizens when he was Assn’t. Town Manger. If someone else is selected, Mr. Helms is almost guaranteed to continue in that position if for no other reason than he has extensive knowledge of the town and the issues faced.

Then, on to the chickens! Over the last few months, the Planning Commission has quite thoroughly researched the issues related to the keeping of chickens in town. Trying to come up with a solution that was actually enforceable and fair to all ended up being a much bigger project that I anticipated it would. But, one thing that was briefly discussed at one of the Planning Commission meetings did not come up during the Council meeting. That was the issues that could develop (in my opinion WOULD develop) when you have an ordinance that set a distance for the coops as needing to be 50 feet from neighboring structures.  What if you have a large lot and along with your 15 foot easement you have an additional 30 feet before you get to where your structure is located. Your neighbor puts up a chicken coop within the required setbacks and maintaining that 50 foot distance. One day, you decide that you want to add to your home but now discover that you cannot because there is a chicken coop that would now be too close to your home. Your neighbor refuses to move the chicken coop.  According to the ordinance,  can the Town force the individual to move his coop? What if he moves his coop and then you decide not to expand, could your neighbor sue you for having to move his coop unnecessarily? What if your neighbor doesn’t have enough space in his yard to move his coop to comply with the 50 foot mark? Can you be stopped from adding on to your home because of someone’s chicken coop? What about those situations where someone doesn’t like your chickens and simply adds a few feet of storage to a garage to make sure that someone doesn’t have room for a coop?

The biggest issue with the whole chicken ordinance is that I really believe that there are a few more things in Town that could have been focused on. Taxpayers paid for the time for staff to research and the Planning Commission to work on the chicken ordinance. Why, with only one or two people requesting this was it brought to Town Council to have the Planning Commission look at the issue rather than having those interested in having the chicken go through the process of requesting an ordinance change and paying the fees to cover those costs? In my opinion, regardless of outcome, it should have been handled differently to begin with so that taxpayers didn’t have to pick up the costs of the process.

Back to the closed session: I don’t know what the outcome was of the closed session. As far as I know, the next closed session could be to finalize the contract that Council worked with the Town Attorney on at the last closed session. Maybe they are still discussing who will get the position. Maybe they have already made a decision but are not announcing anything until the contract is finalized and the selected candidate agrees with the contract. I don’t know. I assume Council Members know.

I do appreciate the fact that the Mayor said what he did at the beginning of the session. It was information that was not necessarily protected under FOIA, but could have just been shoved into that gray area where so much use to go as being attached to confidential information. Mayor Ballengee took the time to tell me what he legally could. (I use the word I because I was the audience — I usually am during those closed sessions:)

I’m just gonna sit back and wait, trust Council to make the best decision for the town, and then watch to see that it was the right one. One thing is for sure, while there has been a lot of positive change in the Town, there still remains a great deal of change that needs to be made. Those changes will need to include getting away from this “we don’t do grants” mentality of the last few decades and start looking for ways to find funding sources that are not falling directly on the shoulders of residents. Other jurisdictions use grants to make positive things happen for their jurisdictions. Our own Police Dept. do a fantastic job of getting grant money in that helps keep taxpayer costs low. The Town of Christiansburg needs to follow our Police Dept’s example and get cranking on finding sources of funding.

• News and Announcements keeping citizens informed of what is happening and where so that plans can be made to attend, change existing plans, or simply detour around something.
• A wide variety of forms can be obtained online and filed online.
• There is an Emergency Notification System which citizens can sign up for
• Job notices and applications
• Bid/RFP requests and information
• Town Council & Planning Commission Agendas, Minutes, and Packets
• Videos of Town Council Meetings are now recorded by the Town and posted on the Town website
• Bus Routes for our local bus service
• A calendar listing all events with links to additional information when available
• Economic Development & Tourism
• Aquatic Center and Parks & Recreation information and events

Those are just a few of the many items you will find on the Town’s website.

When I first started myvaresources.com, the website held little more than than the Mayor’s Welcome and a list of Departments with some contacts.

Of course, the website is not the only thing showing the Town of Christiansburg’s strong move towards “Letting in the Sunshine”. Citizen input was encouraged and obtained for the recent budget in a great new approach to budgeting. Also, citizen input was part of the process whereby the selection of a new Town Manager was developed. The Planning Commission was expanded from 5 to 9 people and now includes a citizen comment section as well as allowing citizen comments during specific discussions. (I imagine that has something to do with the much smoother handling of Rezonings and CUPs when they arrive at Town Council.)

BUT!!!! MOST IMPORTANTLY!!!! The newest feature on the Town’s website is ::::drum roll::::::cymbal crash:::::curtain raised can be found by going to “Departments” then “Administration” and then choosing “Public Information” from the drop-down menu. There is now a link for “Requesting Public Records (FOIA). This page provides some important FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) for the public.

• “What records are available to the public?”.
• “What are my rights under FOIA?”
• “What are the Town’s responsibilities in responding to my request?”
• “How do I make a request for a public record?”
• “What information do I need to provide when making a request?”
• “How will I receive the records request?”
• “Will I have to pay for the records?”
• “Can I be denied a request?”
• “Need more information?”
• The Crime Mapping system found on the Police Dept. link allows citizens to stay “in the know” when it comes to crime rates and patterns.

I can guarantee you, I never dreamed I would see this type of information on our Town’s website. This is a significant accomplishment all by itself. Add to that, the fact that it is written in ‘plain text’ that is easily understood rather than a bunch of legalize that would require someone to hire an attorney to translate for them and you have got one awesome package.

I use the 1 year mark because that is when I started seeing things happen but all started months before that by the Town hiring a Finance Director and Public Relations Officer. Both of those positions are new to the Town and both have had a big impact on the inclusion of citizens in government processes. Of course, neither of those two positions would have been created if it hadn’t been for Town Council.

There is really no reason for anyone with computer access (either at home, work, or the public library) not to be able to keep up with things. I hope citizens will take advantage of what is offered and realize that this website is one of the best and most informative in the area.

Good job Town of Christiansburg!

A Capital Improvement Plan (Program), or CIP, is a short-range plan, usually four to ten years, which identifies capital projects and equipment purchases, provides a planning schedule and identifies options for financing the plan. Essentially, the plan provides a link between a municipality, school district, parks and recreation department and/or other local government entity and a comprehensive and strategic plans and the entity’s annual budget.

Take a look at the entire wiki page in order to get more details of what should be included and why. It will make clear the importance of such a document in determining how and when taxpayer money is spent. It also requires that each expenditure is evaluated for possible funding sources (not necessarily taxpayer money) that might just save some revenue for the town (and perhaps prevent tax increases).

Now, if you took the time to look at the Christiansburg CIP, you’ll notice that it doesn’t quite cover the same ground as the wikipedia definition. How does it compare to other jurisdictions? Well, let’s take a look:

• Town of Herndon
• Town of Purcellville
• Town of Blacksburg
• Town of Lovettsville

These are just the first ones to pop up on a google search. Take a few minutes to look at them and compare them to the one for Christiansburg. I know that it takes more work, thought, and planning to do a more comprehensive program, but those details give insight in possible resources that can be used, how to save taxpayer money, how to prioritize projects, and gives elected officials information that is vital to good decision making.

Perhaps it is time for a more progressive approach to managing capital improvements. By the way, I didn’t see all of that exercise equipment for the rec center listed in any of the other capital improvements programs. In fact, given the criteria presented in the Virginia Code, I’m not sure that such items should even be listed in the CIP.

§ 15.2-2239. Local planning commissions to prepare and submit annually capital improvement programs to governing body or official charged with preparation of budget.

A local planning commission may, and at the direction of the governing body shall, prepare and revise annually a capital improvement program based on the comprehensive plan of the locality for a period not to exceed the ensuing five years. The commission shall submit the program annually to the governing body, or to the chief administrative officer or other official charged with preparation of the budget for the locality, at such time as it or he shall direct. The capital improvement program shall include the commission’s recommendations, and estimates of cost of the facilities and life cycle costs, including any road improvement and any transportation improvement the locality chooses to include in its capital improvement plan and as provided for in the comprehensive plan, and the means of financing them, to be undertaken in the ensuing fiscal year and in a period not to exceed the next four years, as the basis of the capital budget for the locality. In the preparation of its capital budget recommendations, the commission shall consult with the chief administrative officer or other executive head of the government of the locality, the heads of departments and interested citizens and organizations and shall hold such public hearings as it deems necessary.

Localities may use value engineering for any capital project. For purposes of this section, “value engineering” has the same meaning as that in § 2.2-1133.

(Code 1950, § 15-966; 1962, c. 407, § 15.1-464; 1975, c. 641; 1976, c. 650; 1996, c. 553; 1997, c. 587; 2006, c. 565; 2011, c. 658.)

Who knows, with this new era of open government and citizen participation that the Town of Christiansburg has adopted, perhaps the Planning Commission will use its authority to hold public meetings on the CIP for citizen input.

If the Town is looking for some cost saving options and doesn’t have the staff to handle such an undertaking, there is a class at VT on Capital Budgeting. Perhaps some students need some extra credit or a project to work on. It would be a way to get a more comprehensive system established. (Just thinking out loud here.)

What if they were done as open meetings? The first applicant goes in and is interviewed. In the audience are friends or family members of the other applicants who sit and listen, take notes, or even (heaven forbid) show up with an audio or video recorder. Information from the interview is then given to the other applicant(s). That creates a potential for a significant disadvantage for that first applicant.

Open meetings are great for most everything, but in this case could be harmful as the potential exists for some applicants to have an advantage over others, or even temper their responses to make a better appearance to Council when that may not be what the applicant really thinks or feels. So, what are the alternatives? 1) open meetings, 2) meetings, or 3) other.

Well the other didn’t get discussed during council meetings because they were running around in my head. Two (2) alternative approaches that combine the necessity of a closed meeting to protect applicants from undue advantages/disadvantages, the Town from being accused of being biased towards one or another simply by virtue of the order in which applicants are interviewed, and does not have a potential for negative impact on ‘contract negotiations’ with the individual finally accepted, with the citizens right to know what government is doing.

Legal issues, such as open government and many others, are all too often considered as simply “black or white” or “right or wrong”. There is a whole heck of a lot of potential in between those two extremes that, while it may not be the perfect solution, more nearly meets the needs of both sides of the argument. So here are a couple of the ideas that I had:

1. The interview process with each applicant can be recorded and when the interviews are completed, citizens can have access, or
2. Each of the applicants can be asked to respond in writing to 3 to 5 questions (limited response length) that Council feels are most important. (The could even elicit questions from citizens.) These could be collected and released to the public after the interviews are completed.

With either of the above 2 alternatives, all of the applicants would have equal access at the same time. Citizens would have at least part of the process in front of them to review the responses of the applicants to select questions.

Neither of those is a perfect solution but it would allow for those parts which should be closed to be closed as long as was necessary, but allowing them to be opened to the public later, when no harm would likely be done.

This would allow citizens to have an idea of the types of people who applied and, if released in time, would allow citizens to give input to council members if they so desired.

Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, it would give citizens some insight as to how council members are performing in their jobs (elections are right around the corner ya know!) This would be particularly true if they were available in audio or video format where council members may be asking questions from their individual perspective. In the written responses, it would at least give votes some insight into what issues council members feel are important to the people.

In the open vs closed scenario, one side will always lose. Being a little creative, thinking outside the box, a solution can be reached where you create a “win-win” situation that might not be perfect, but is always better than having one side that is a clear loser.

As always, these are just my thoughts on the matter. Council is responsible for the ultimate decision on this. I do hope that they will consider alternatives, maybe something entirely different from what I’ve proposed that keeps a fair and even playing field for applicants, council members, and citizens.

Maybe some of you readers have some ideas. I’d love to hear them.

Other issues have examples of how to use spreadsheets to manage data for such things as public input, saving a lot of money. Contributing authors include public employees, contractors, reporters, educators, and citizens so that issues such as open government, plain text writing, public outreach and information, and simply understanding the concept of land use planning are shown from different perspectives. If you’ve ever tried to make sense of the ‘alphabet soup’ of the rfp/rfq process, then there is an article covering that topic, in earlier issues. (Although sold as a journal, copies of individual back issues are also available.)

Described as “Popular Mechanics Meets Planning”, the journal does bring the planning process into a form that makes the process more understandable for citizens. It also helps governments to understand the role of citizens and their input in the process of planning. Where possible, the jargon had been eliminated. Where that could not be done, definitions of those “key words and catching phrases” are provided.

Whether you are a professional in the field of planning, an elected or appointed government official who is involved in planning, or simply a citizen who wants to know what their government is doing, The Community Planner has something to offer you. Perhaps even more importantly though, it helps to start building a communication bridge between government and citizens. Why heck! Even your everyday little gray-haired old lady citizen activist will find a wealth of useful information. (Yepper, I’m talking about myself there.)

This is an excerpt from Volume I Issue 3 of The Community Planner. It is from an article on a citizen’s perspective of open government that I wrote and includes some of the tips and tricks I have learned over the past few years. It also includes some of the “watch out for things” that governments can use to insure they are not being perceived as being secretive.

If your jurisdiction does not have a website, there is a good likelihood that another area in your state does have. Taking the time to look at some of those websites can provide you with invaluable information as to they types of documents that can be available and what information those documents should contain. I will discuss another source for discovering what documents might be available to you in another section.”

To see some of the topics covered here are the cover pages and table of contents for the first 3 issues:

Volume 1 Number 1 – Fall 2010
Volume 1 Number 2 – Winter 2011
Volume 1 Number 3 – Spring 2011

Before I get into talking about some of those issues, let me give you some links to information and to meetings where the Budget Process has been discussed:

• Valerie Tweedie, Chief Financial Officer provided great information at a recent Government 101 presentation.
• The first Finance Committee Meeting was held on 2/28/11.
• Another Finance Committee Meeting was held on 4/15/11.
• Town get overview from Information Officer on Priority Based Budget Process 4/19/11
• …another Finance Committee Meeting was held on 4/22/11.
• First Town Council Work Session on Budget was held on 4/26/11.
  • Power Point presentation from Center for Priority Based Budgeting
  • Complete list of programs and services provided by the town and ranked by quartile.
• Town Council Work Session on Budget was held on 5/4/11.
• Town Council Work Session on budget was held 5/11/11.

Now, for some of the issues that I found:

1. The Aquatic Center (AC) still remains a ‘bone of contention’ with a lot of finger pointing. Anyone who has read my blog articles on the AC knows that my whole problem with the AC was due to the way it was handled, not about whether it should or should not have been built. I simply believe that citizens should have been better informed. For instance, I think it would have been useful for citizens to know that by expanding the facility, there is a strong likelihood that it will costs citizens less than a swimming pool would have cost. Things like recreation centers and swimming pools never pay for themselves. Those are things that taxpayers normally end up contributing to the support of for on-going operation. Although I would have liked for government to have been more open and transparent on this project, the fact remains that the facility that was developed is headed in the direction it was intended, to reduce the costs to citizens had a simple swimming pool been built. In other words, going bigger in this instance is likely to save taxpayer money in the long run.
2. Employee raises: While this is one of the most hotly debated topics, let’s look at the bigger picture. Prices of everything are going up. A cost of living increase might seem to be a drag on the town’s finances. However, given the number of businesses that are closing, the number of empty houses and apartments in the town, and the tightening budgets of all citizens, that little bit of an increase might just mean that employees have enough money to spend locally that a business can keep its doors open, generating tax revenue. It could mean that a business does not have to lay an employee off, adding to tax revenues. Fewer employees with find themselves unable to afford their homes/apartments thus keeping the number of empty residents lower. The number of empty residents can also result in reduced property values in neighborhoods, higher crime rates, and increased incidents of fire and/or theft. All of those together means that a increase to town employees, consistent with cost of living, can have an overall positive impact on town residents, businesses, and taxpayers.
3. Bus Service: You will hear two extremes from Council members on this one. Some want to drop the service because they have only heard bad about it. Some want to keep it because they have only heard good about it. Well, here is something else to consider. The committee formed to develop the bus routes have just now finally come up with a route system that is more likely to meet citizen needs. The constant bickering on the bus service and frequent changing of routes has been a major deterrent. I have heard from a lot of folks who live in Christiansburg but work or go to school in Blacksburg who would love to ride the bus rather than pay for a parking pass. Why don’t they do so? Because of all of the arguments going on about dropping or changing it. We need to make a plan and stick with it in order for those people to be willing to take a chance on not getting a parking pass. Who wants to take a chance on giving up that parking pass in order to ride on a bus that may not exist 3 months from now????!!!!
4. Possibly raising property taxes? Ironically, it is those who have been promoting projects that would have long-term expenses that are the adamantly against raising property taxes. Come on! Give me a break! How can you continue to promote such things as a trail system (which would be paid for in part by grants, etc.) and not take the time to plan ahead and figure out how will those trails be maintained, by whom, at what cost, and WHERE IS THE MONEY COMING FROM!?? You cannot spend and spend and spend. Revenue must be generated to maintain such things and until that detail has been worked out, there should be no such projects.
5. Protect the “Reserves” at all cost. Well, start by telling me how you managed to get those reserves. Or, maybe I should just say that any citizen who has attended meetings and read the minutes over the last 10 years or so and has reviewed the Auditor of Public Accounts files since 1988 (yeah, I’m neurotic) can tell you. It is by not doing things that should have been done, particularly after the taxes were dropped 5 years ago, that there was money to put in reserves. If all of the paving, replacement of water/sewer lines, equipment upgraded, etc. had been done. That “Reserve” package would have been a lot smaller than it is today.

These are just a few of the things that I have noted so far. Please take the time to look at some of the videos available to hear and see those discussions for yourselves. I’m sure that there will be a lot of different opinions out there and Town Council needs to hear them BEFORE or AT the Public Hearing on the Budget May 24th @ 7:30 PM at Town Hall.  You can view a summary of the proposed budget at: http://www.christiansburg.org/index.aspx?nid=455. The proposed budget as a whole can be viewed at: http://www.christiansburg.org/DocumentView.aspx?DID=759. A Public Hearing on the Proposed Fee Increases will be held on May 17th @ 7:30PM at the Aquatic Center.

Remember that you, as citizens, have a voice and can choose to use it if you wish. Contact a Town Council member or showing up at a meeting to speak up is really not that hard to do. Email addresses, mailing addresses, and phone numbers for council members are available on the Town of Christiansburg’s website Council Members page. On that same page is the Town Council Code of Ethics, another good read when you have the time.

During the course of the recent Planning Commission Meeting where the Town Attorney gave the Planning Commission information concerning “Conflict of Interest” and “FOIA” legalities as they pertain to Planning Commission activities, I heard Planning Commissioner Powers suggest that it might be good for the Town to have CUPs posted on the Town website. I already know that the Town depends upon citizens to notify the Town if there are problems with a CUP, but how many citizens know where CUPs exist, much less what the conditions are for the property? At the presentation, it was made clear by the Town Attorney that unless there is something specific in the CUP to make it end at a certain date or attach it to a specific person or group, the CUP goes on essentially forever. Since CUPs are not recorded at the Courthouse with deed information, this creates a situation in which a CUP could be attached to property being considered for purchase or neighboring properties and not be used for years or even decades. Someone moving into a property could wake up one morning and find that they are now living next to a garage instead of a residence because a CUP passed 20 years ago is suddenly being used.

So, with a simple FOIA request, which the Town responded to quickly, I have started putting together all of those CUPs in a searchable format. Since not all of the CUP’s in the CUP Index have been scanned by the Town at this time, and I did ask for electronic format, there are still quite a few missing, I will be loading the ones that I do have and will update the lists with others as they become available. (Watch for updates here for when those are ready for access.) If you are looking for information on property for which there is no copy of the CUP available in this file, contact the Town to obtain a copy. It is your right under FOIA to have access to those.

FOIA (the Freedom of Information Act) is a federal law that makes it mandatory for citizens, reporters, groups to have access to government documents. This expands to the State level as each state maintains its own FOIA.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a key component in keeping Sunshine in government. For citizens, governments and the agencies subject to the FOIA, knowledge is the key. Understanding rights and responsibilities inherent with FOIA is crucial in developing a healthy approach to open government and citizen engagement. FOIA is a ‘living entity’ in that it is subject to change over time as laws are modified.

To learn more about your FOIA rights:

For those of us living in Virginia, we are lucky to have some valuable resources available to help us understand FOIA. The Virginia Coalition for Open Government (VCOG) is one such resource. VCOG offers a wealth of information about FOIA on its website. They also provide opportunities for government and citizens through workshops/seminars hosted throughout the year.

Two such seminars are being held in Roanoke on April 27th, 2011 (VOG hosts FOIA, records-management seminars). The first is a 2 1/2 hr. workshop designed for citizens, bloggers, and reporters, on how to gain access to records using FOIA. The second is a 2 1/2 hr. workshop for government employees on how good records management makes responding to FOIA requests easier. I intend on being at both of these seminars and invite you to join me there. However, I will not be in the audience on the first workshop:) I will actually be one of those serving on the panel. Maybe the fact that I’ve paid over $2000 in fees for FOIA requests over the last few years makes me a bit of an expert (by the way, do you know my definition of ‘expert’? a drip under pressure:).

Maybe my voice will be heard addressing how it was not simply the obtaining of those documents, but the sharing of them with others through a website can be important. Maybe I’ll just sit there quietly and not say a thing (LIKE THAT IS LIKELY TO HAPPEN!!!). I guess you’ll just have to go to see what happens:)

You can register for the workshops at the link I put above for the workshop/seminars (VOG hosts FOIA, records-management seminars). The cost is $20 each or $35 for both. Yeah, I know, times are tough and money is tight. But, I consider this a donation to help VCOG continue the work that they do. They spend a lot of time trying to keep people informed of Bills before State Legislature that impact FOIA. They keep people informed of changes implemented. They provide easy to understand information of how to understand and use FOIA. They provide information about specific questions citizens submit to them.

Whether you are a planning professional, an elected or appointed official, or a citizen who wants to have more information and be an active participant in your government, The Community Planner has something to offer you. It is provided on a CD-Rom so there is plenty of room for templates, worksheets, and examples. These articles are written in plain text and definitions/explanations are provided. A variety of formats are used including document files, spreadsheets, and presentations so that you can simply adapt the samples for your own use. Links are provided to a wide range of websites where additional information can be obtained including, but not limited to, how different different jurisdiction’s laws affect the process. By using your imagination, I feel sure that you can find many ways to use these tools beyond just Planning.

I have been reading documents related to government (particularly those subject to FOIA) for some time now. Without realizing it, I was staring at what might well be the biggest problem with such documents and true transparency. Quite simply it is the way documents are written. They are written in a way that does not serve to educate and empower citizens.

All too often, documents are written in professional language. Engineers write in ‘engineer-ese’, building inspectors write in ‘building inspector-ese’, lawyers write in ‘legal-ese’, etc., etc., ad nauseum. That style of writing works great if the author is writing only for those people who have specific training in the ‘language’ being used. I was fortunate to have had some training in the reading of diagrams, charts, maps, legal documents, and other ‘specialty fields’ over the years.

What finally dawned on me is that there are a lot of citizens who have not had those experiences. Those people can find trying to read and understand documents far more tedious than the writer ever intended. I man surely, no one producing public documents would every intentionally use language that the general public couldn’t understand, would they? In short, documents are frequently written in a egocentric manner that all but ignores the fact that the general public deserves the right to understand what is being done.

Seriously, most people do not really give much thought to how they write documents unless they are documents that they are trying to sell. If public documents were processed in such a way as to generate sales, you better believe they would write them in a manner that could be processed by the largest number of people. The only incentive for governments to insure that documents can be read and understood by citizens is if they truly wish citizens to be informed.

While I was bouncing around on the internet, I ran across a pretty nice website:

Rules for Writing Plain English
How You Can Write Plain Language by Just Following These 39 Steps

William D. Lutz, author of Doublespeak Defined and The New DoublspeakScheduled speaker at our international conference, Nov. 3-6, 2005, in Washington, D.C.

The very first item on this list is what gave me a new awareness of the clear need for Plain Text language to be used in government documents, particularly those which are made available to the public.  “1. Know your reader, and write with your reader’s viewpoint in mind.” If a document is being prepared that is be accessible to the public, shouldn’t that document be written so that the general public can understand it?

Shouldn’t citizens have the right to a clearly written and understandable description of a code change? Shouldn’t citizens have documents related to developments written in such a form that citizens can easily understand them? Shouldn’t Contional/Special Use Permits be written in a language that citizens can see how the proposal will affect them?

Of course, such documents ,while being written for the general public, would also make for easier comprehension by a little sub-group of the general public called “elected officials”. Not all Supervisors/Council Members/Commissioners etc. are engineers or lawyers. Some of them might not even have any college degree at all because they are ‘citizens’ and a lot of citizens do not have degrees. (I have to wonder if decisions made by elected/appointed government bodies might be different if the documents providing them with information was written to be understood equally well by both those groups and their constituents.

This is a concept that should apply at ALL levels of government. Understanding what your elected officials are acting/voting upon at National, State, and Local levels, could make a lot of difference. As it is now, with all of the ‘keywords’, ‘catchy phrases’, and ‘jargon’, it is far too easy to fall into a pattern of having those elected officials tell you, the citizen, what all of that gobbledygook means and why they support or are against something because it is in your best interest. Well, how about they just provide it in a readable form, let me read it, answer my questions, and form my own opinions. Why heck! Sometimes, I might even agree with them:)

For some extra reading, this site contains statistics on reading and literacy that provide a LOT of food for thought:

Reading, Literacy & Education Statistics