This could be a great source for picking up some very special Mother’s Day gifts! You might also want to look at some of the special events for May 12th:)

Bring your bike to the Christiansburg Fix Fest – Christiansburg, VA …

http://nrvnews.com/area/christiansburg/29980-0512-fix-fest.html

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I’ve been supporting this move for some time now. It has become even more important to me now that the Town of Christiansburg is making it’s own videos of meetings. You see, I’ve got this camera that for several years now I’ve been using to record Christiansburg Town Council Meetings. It’s gathering dust. I haven’t figured out how to be 2 places at one time, but I would love to be able to provide for the Montgomery County School Board what I provided for the Town of Christiansburg, citizen recorded public meetings of the School Board posted online to share with the public. The decisions made by the School Board AND their discussions/deliberations are just too darned important not to provide access to citizens. If the Town of Christiansburg moves it’s meetings to another date, it will mean that I lose more nights of prime-time TV (like I have time to watch that anyway), but it would give me a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the School Board and to be able to share that information here.

Then, came an even bigger surprise when Councilmember Cord Hall asked that it be put on the agenda of the next meeting to begin discussions of the Town of Christiansburg moving to City status. Wow! I’ve heard this discussed previously and I had been against such a move. However, now that I’ve had some time to really look at a LOT of budget numbers for a lot of different jurisdictions, I’m no longer sure that this is not the best move that Christiansburg could make. Christiansburg is growing and even in this “down” economy, continues to grow. Christiansburg has a tremendous retail base for which the taxes are now directed to the County School System.

Christiansburg also has superb resources in the Recreation Center and Aquatic Center that could be used with a City School system and we could become the home of future Olympic Champions!!! Christiansburg citizens already take great pride in the schools located within it’s boundary even though those schools are part of the Montgomery County School System. How much greater would that pride be in a situation where they were truly Christiansburg Schools!

Christiansburg citizens would have control over their schools! They would have their own School Board, and we know how to use our votes to get the biggest bang for our voting “buck”. We would have to have our own library. Maybe one with more computers and greater public usage? It would be responsible to the citizens of Christiansburg, not to the whims of the County.

Perhaps more importantly, our elected officials would have more control over services. We’re already “donating” money to social services, the library, and other such services. There is grant money and other resources available to Cities that is not available to Towns.

But, all this really means is that an honest and true cost-benefit analysis would need to be done. It would need to be done without any bias and, for me, that means contacting the Weldon Cooper Center (Economic and Policy Studies section). This is not a decision to be taken lightly, nor is it one to be discounted out of fear of the unknown. I hope Town Council will take a serious look at this, but as far as I can see, with the research that I’ve managed to do, Christiansburg is in the perfect spot to go to City Status. All of those jurisdictions who have dropped or are planning to drop back from City to Town status have not had the retail network that Christiansburg has (with more to come) developed. We’ve got it and we should maximize the use of it by keeping that money here.

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However, given their responsibilities to “serve the public”, communication become the key issue. Remember playing that game when you were a child where you take a group of people and one person starts by whispering something in someone’s ear and then that person passes it to the next person,  and so forth until the final person tells everyone what the “original statement” was? It use to be funny because of the strange distortions that would occur.

It is not so funny when it happens in situations where elected/appointed officials are expected to make decisions and deal with citizen concerns. In fact, it can create a tremendous “bone of contention” creating a lot of animosity, lack of trust, or loss of elections. Communication is THE KEY to good government. EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION is the “GOLDEN KEY to good government”.

So let’s begin by looking at effective communication by using one example. Today’s Roanoke Times had an article about Christiansburg’s new Town Manager.  “Headed in the right Direction by Sarah Cox. Oh? We just got a new one, I didn’t know that they needed another Town Manger. It appears that Randy Wingfield, former Planning Director has replaced Barry Helms as Christiansburg’s new Town Manager. Somehow, I think this will be as much of a surprise to Mr. Helms as it has been to the number of people who set my phone ringing bright and early this morning.

This article does not seem to have made it to the online version or I would send you the link. It can be found in the print version within the section for “Real Estate” in the 4/29/12 Sunday edition of the Roanoke Times.

The subtitle of the article is “new town manager offers positive outlook for Christiansburg”. It goes on to discuss how Mr. Wingfield, as Director of Planning has been instrumental in bringing Christiansburg to what it is today.  Specifically he was instrumental in Christiansburg’s expansion. He feels that “the town’s priorities are in order, including parks and recreation, trails and sidewalks and downtown streetscaping.”

Bringing 14 years of experience to the position is nice, and the article is written such that it appears Mr. Wingfield was instrumental in initiating many of the recent changes that have evolved in the Town. Well, that’s a nice thought, but no evidence exists to support that interpretation. In fact, just the opposite is true.

I cannot help but wonder why it has taken 14 years of such guidance to suddenly begin to see some changes in the last couple of years.  During the course of that 14 years there were numerous discussion by Town Council concerning parks (not sports parks), trails, bikeway, walkways, sidewalks, beautification, and a myriad of other subjects. All of those pretty much died at the talking stage. Fortunately, there were a few things that kept being pushed by certain Council Members and we now have an effective website, we have sidewalks being built that actually connect people with destinations, we have trails being expanded, but, it took the force of council to get them going and it was a long uphill battle. Of course, there was a change in the make up of Town Council and in the Town’s Administration in the last couple of years, so that is one possible reason why these changes center over the last couple of years. Perhaps Mr. Wingfield had all of these goals in mind but was blocked?

Did I mention by the way, that 4 years later I am still waiting for documents for which I submitted a FOIA request? One of the first things that spurred me on in looking at open government was the fact that years of Planning Commission Meeting Minutes were missing from the public eye. There were some notes on meetings, years old, that were handwritten and so illegible as to be useless without Mr. Wingfield being present to translate.

As to priorities concerning parks, I have received so many phone calls and emails over these last few years wanting to know why Christiansburg couldn’t have one decent park that did not involved sports. This quote in the article pretty much sums up his perspective: “Christiansburg’s Aquatic Center which opened in July of 2010, and the Rec Center, which opened in 1997, exemplify recognition of enhancing “the health, fitness, recreational, and competitive needs throughout our region.”

This is where the “communication” thingie comes into play. Backing up to the Aquatic Center, many people understood Aquatic Center to mean a swimming pool. Citizens were pretty darned upset when they saw what they were getting and how it did not match their expectations. Citizens have asked for public parks over and over again, and received sports fields. The core of the matter comes down to how you define the terms. For instance, for some a park means a place to go play ball. (Where I grew up we called those ball fields.) For others, a park means a reasonably undamaged natural environment where people have a chance to go and enjoy bits of nature, picnic, and relax. (Again, in my youth, these meant large natural areas where you could picnic, walk, toss a ball around, etc. but in an unstructured environment.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary online recreation is: “refreshment of strength and spirits after work; also : a means of refreshment or diversion”, and in that sites Learner’s Dictionary: “something people do to relax or have fun : activities done for enjoyment”. Quite simply, ball fields are not all people’s choices for how to accomplish this.

So you get a bunch of different people talking about recreation or parks for recreation and you can see that based upon the individual’s perspective on what IS relaxing, there is a wide range of things that could be considered parks. Historically, Christiansburg has focused on sports facilities rather than other forms of recreation. If you want to play ball or swim, this is where to do it. If you want to be able to take our your camera and photograph wildflowers, birds, and other features of nature, you’re gonna have to leave town for that. If you want to swing a bat at a ball, kick a ball at a goal, or swim laps in a pool, you’re in luck. If you want to take a leisurely stroll in a natural environment that has a place where you can stop and have a picnic, then get in your car and go somewhere.

There have been recent discussion by Town Council concerning a park that would be in a more natural environment and would not include sports. For those people who just need some quiet time or a place to enjoy nature, this could be wonderful. Having areas where families could go on picnics, where groups of parents with small children could meet and let the children play in a safe environment as a group, would provide a wonderful asset to the community.

For now, I guess it will be a matter of “Let’s wait and see” to determine if we are “headed in the right direction” and to see if the right “critter” is in the harness to pull the load needed to get that job done. We will just have to see how Mr. Wingfield’s skills and expertise will be put to use. It will be interesting to see if “progression” or “regression” will become the keyword. Keep your eyes and ears open.

Above all, let your voice be heard. You can contact your Town Council members about your concerns, wants, and wishes. Just make sure that you clearly state what it is that you want.  Take the time to get someone else to look at what you’ve written, see if it means the same thing to them that it does to you. Be as specific as possible. If you specifically want parks with native plants such as wild flowers, then tell them that. Don’t expect them to know what your definition of a park is. If you want sidewalks, tell them specifically where and why you want those sidewalks, or for the other side of the coin, specifically where you do not want sidewalks and why.

Don’t expected elected and appointed officials to be mind readers make it clear.

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The event was held at Lucie Monroe’s at 1600 Roanoke Street in Christiansburg in their back meeting room. It was the perfect space for this event. Both food and conversation were excellent. Thanks to Lucie Monroe’s for providing such a great environment and wonderful food!

A large part of the conversation was devoted to (what else) taxes and school spending. Issues covered what could be cut if a tax increase was not made by the Board of Supervisors. The answer: Anything. Everything is on the table. Teachers, support staff, salaries, equipment, sports programs, you name it and it’s on the table for being cut.

Of course, the central issue is that mandated programs must come first. So, the first thought that I had was that interscholastic sports such as football, baseball, basketball, etc. are not mandated programs. It could well get to the point that those programs could be lost. When cuts have to be made at the Federal level, some of the financial support for programs is lost. That financial responsibility falls to the state. Then, in a political game of “hot potato”, the flow of financial responsibility goes right down the line to the local level. In areas where there is high employment and the pay scale is high and property values are up, this can have a minimal impact. Where property values are low and income levels are also low, this can be devastating.

There is another feature that comes to play in this situation. Elected officials hoping to get re-elected are hesitant to raise taxes so you end up with years of tax increase being postponed and put off. You end up with “patch jobs” being done on schools rather than fully fixing the problems with buildings. You end up where we are today.  If a 1% tax increase been implemented 10 years ago and that 1% be specifically set aside for school maintenance and improvements, we likely would not be looking a a significant increase now. We would not have schools in a state of disrepair. You can only patch something so many times before you ultimately have to do what needs to be done. Waiting 10 or 20 years to fix something completely, often means that the problem has gotten bigger and is going to cost more.

Each year the County does a Capital Improvements Program where various departments submit their request for money to undertake major improvements. The County then prioritizes those requests and distributes what money is available to those requests which rate highest on their priority list. This means that many of the requests from departments such as Schools are not even considered.  The vast majority of requests are postponed.  Each year this has to be re-done with prioritizes being reassigned. Any issue regarding health and safety will automatically get top billing for the few slots available. This is not a random assignment, State Code mandates that health and safety must come first.

There are those who will say that I “ain’t got no dog in that hunt” because I don’t own property or have children in school. That’s true. However, as a business owner, I can virtually guarantee that an increase in property taxes will have a direct impact on me. However, my “dog in the hunt” is this. One of those children being educated today, might well be the doctor that saves my life 10 years from now. One of those children may be the person to come up with a local business that produces 100 jobs for the County. One of them might find a cure for cancer or diabetes, or solve the problem of air pollution in a way that preserves the environment without putting any undo hardship on businesses.

The even “bigger dog in the hunt” is that someone paid taxes that allowed me to get the education that I did, that each of us did. My great grandparents, grandparents, and parents dealt with tax increases to insure that children got a good education. Sometimes those tax increases hit at times that hurt them financially, but they did it. I did it when I did own property and I’ll tighten my belt to deal with the loss of revenue that is likely to occur with my business if/when taxes are increased. I consider it an investment in my future, the future of Montgomery County, and the future of our Country. Our children and their education are our future.

So raise taxes BUT increase accountability! How? By doing what any citizen can do. Go to the Montgomery County Public Schools website (http://www.mcps.org/home), click on the “About Us” button and look at the information that is available. Look at the budget, capital projects, redistricting, testing, and more. Take some ownership in your schools by attending School Board meetings. Use their sight to access Virginia Dept. of Education Resources that are available such as the “Report Cards” for each of the schools in Montgomery County, or the one that your children attend. SOL scores are also available via link. There is some information (i.e., audits) that are not yet available online, but can be requested via Freedom of Information Act. Go to the Auditor of Public Accounts website and look at the 2011 Comparative Report of Local Government. Page C6 of the spreadsheet will give you information on Education. You can look at Montgomery County and/or compare it to other areas. You can use this to show you where the money was spent AND, the section showing the source of funds for expenditures! That was a real eye opener.

There is a great deal of information about our schools that anyone can find, if they but take the time. Take a close look at the Percent of Average columns as a way of seeing how our expenses compare to those of other areas. Most of all, get out to a School Board meeting, you elected these people, you should take the time to see what you’re getting. Who has done their homework? Who is trying to come up with solutions? Nothing can hurt out schools like apathy on the part of citizens.

Well, that incredible dessert is settling in and demanding some downtime. For those who didn’t make the meeting, you missed great food and great discussion. Thanks again to Lucie Monroe’s!! (Those gluten-free donuts are absolutely wonderful even though I don’t need gluten-free!)

Keep your eyes and ears open for information about the Montgomery County Educational Foundation. There is a lot of new and positive energy being poured into it and we could all reap the benefits from some of the work that they will be doing.

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Several times during the discussion “stormwater” was mentioned, including comments made about the possibility of the Town needing to look at a stormwater management plan in the near future.

Now, those who know me, know that stormwater always sets off alarms for me. The Town of Christiansburg has not had the best record on stormwater in the past, but it is clearly becoming something that is finally being addressed.

Historically, the Town has done “patchwork fixes” to deal with stormwater issues. It now looks like they are making an effort to start addressing the major issue that the existing system is inadequate for protecting the safety and security of citizens.

The issue is not just about Christiansburg citizens. Of course, we’ve had the flooding issues in various areas around town. Personally, I think the Town staff is doing a great job of trying to fix problems as they arise. Now, the Town Council has an opportunity to start addressing the issue with an eye to the future rather than trying to do a patch to prevent yesterday’s flooding from happening tomorrow.

I wonder if some of the impetus of this might be related to the impact stormwater has on local waterways. You can find some interesting information on the DEQ’s Draft 2012 Impaired Water report Factsheet for Montgomery County concerning e-coli. Interesting reading her for those who are concerned about the environment.

In fact, you might be interested in looking at the entire Draft 2012 305(b)/303(d) Water Quality Assessment Integrated Report to see how you might be affected. There is a series of maps that help put things in perspective as to what happens when you don’t take care of problems locally and how they create even bigger problems for other people. It’s a lot like dumping your trash in someone else’s yard. Then they dump their trash and your trash in the next person’s yard. (See the map including Montgomery County here.)

Unfortunately, rapid development without doing proactive stormwater management means that taxpayers will ultimately pick up the bill. It is nice to see the Town of Christiansburg finally being proactive in managing existing stormwater and in taking a look at how new development will impact existing conditions.

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It is a user friendly internet version of the Virgina State Codes that is absolutely wonderful!

The name of the site is Virginia Decoded and I’m will be spending a lot of time there!

Mr. Jaquith puts the web version in a common sense application that makes finding what you need far easier than searching through the State’s database.

My deepest gratitude to a gentleman who has done so much to help citizens get the transparency and openness that they deserve. I hope to have a chance to meet my Jaquith one of these days. He is one of my heroes!

Check it out!

Of course, I gotta wonder why the State couldn’t have done something user friendly long ago.

Sorry to have so long between posts but I’ve got several irons in the fire right now, some of which you’ll be hearing about here in the near future:) My mom always said that I was most dangerous when I was quiet:)

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Yet there are two celebrations which are particularly important to me: Sunshine Week (March 11-17) and National FOI – Freedom of Information – Day (March 16).(By the way, there is an International FOI/Right to Know Day on Sept. 28).

While I have seen a lot of information about FOI on the national level. There certainly has not been much discussion at the State or Local government levels here. Perhaps a large part of that is that there have not been as many highly controversial Legislative activities involving FOI this year. They seem to be a bit preoccupied in Richmond this year on topics like vaginal probes. In some ways, that might be a good thing as when FOI is a hot topic it is because someone is pushing to remove citizen access to information.

So, that leaves me with the local level to explore. I missed the last Christiansburg Town Council Meeting (I think that makes a total of 3 misses in 4 years) but I had an important date with this darned flu bug going around and I decided to be selfish and not share it with others. Fortunately, the Town of Christiansburg website has a video of that meeting available for citizens to view. In the March 6th Agenda Packet, there is a copy of the Town of Christiansburg Strategic Communications Plan. At the early part of the meeting, Information Officer, Becky Wilburn gives a presentation.

My perceptions concerning open government is Christiansburg, VA are based upon several years of attending public meetings, making FOI requests, and learning all that I could about a citizen’s right to know about what their government does. At the beginning of that process, open government in Christiansburg was, in my opinion, abysmal! Citizen participation was not encouraged. I hit brick walls when requesting information. Elected officials had little understanding of citizen and their own rights under the Freedom of Information Act. The website the Town had at that time contained  enough information that it could easily have been depicted as a two-sided sign, one side of which said “welcome to citizen information” and the other side saying “leaving citizen information”. While Town Council meeting minutes were available, the minutes of the Planning Commission were virtually non-existent. Public input was not something that was actively pursued, rather it was a matter of public notices being posted behind potted plants or out of the way boards in a couple of public buildings.

“Business as usual” was already being challenged by the Roanoke Times before I started doing anything with FOI/open government. Slowly, I saw things start to shift and that shift gained momentum, al beit slowly, for a couple of years. Then, 2 years ago, the decision was made to hire an information officer. Enter Becky Wilburn. Suddenly, rather than “slogging through knee deep mud” to make progress, I saw the Town hit the “Autoban in a Jaguar!”

Becky Wilburn has been the driving force in accomplishing a tremendous change towards Open Government in Christiansburg. However, she could not have done this alone. Town Council and Town Manager Barry Helms had to make it possible and they did!!

Christiansburg now has a vibrant and informative website that continues to grow. Requests for information are quickly and efficiently handled and that process is made easier by the webpage that tells people exactly how to go through that process. Public input is actively sought via surveys included with utility bills from the town and through public input meetings.The video that I linked to here is but one of many stored on the website available for citizens to view. If you can’t make a Town Council Meeting, you can usually see it on your computer within a couple of days of the actual meeting! Agenda, Agenda Packets, and Meeting Minutes are for you to view. It only takes a click to sign up for email notifications to keep you informed of town events/meetings. There is now an Emergency Notification System that you can sign up for to provide you with important alerts. Oh, and did I mention that the Town Code and Comprehensive Plan are available online now.

There have been some big changes but, as noted in the video, both Town Council and our Information Officer are aware it is a work in progress. There is more that can be done AND movement is being made in that direction. However, it is important to note that there has been tremendous change in open government in Christiansburg.

All of this work requires one other element to be truly effective. It requires citizens learning about their government and taking the time to be involved. It is the citizen’s government and the citizen’s town! It takes people choosing to be involves and to have a voice in government. That voice needs to be heard when members of the public feel strongly about something town government is doing. It should not be a voice raised only in argument or conflict, but should be a voice that acknowledges good work as well.

So for my part in things, my thanks to the elected officials, management, and staff of the Town of Christiansburg for making such significant improvements in transparency, open government, and citizen participation.

It is, indeed, a Happy Sunshine Week!

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Women’s History Month (Library of Congress) 2012

The VA General Assembly delivered HB462 on the first day of Women’s History month. Although a step  backwards in time, the history of women fighting for and getting their rights in the United States and around the world is still a powerful thing to behold. If you think the past was good stuff, just wait until you see the future! We will not take the rights we have for granted.

The League of Women Voters was then and remains a force! But now, they go beyond simply the right for women to vote. They are male and female, young and old, all races, all ethnic groups, and they continue to carry the battle forward. They are studying important issues at local, state, national, and international levels and are speaking with one voice.

League of Women Voters (United States) http://lwv.org/

League of Women Voters of Virginia http://lwv-va.org/

League of Women Voters of Montgomery County, VA http://lwvmcva.org/

The National Women’s History Project http://www.nwhp.org/

Some video reminders of where we’ve been:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ATz4dVAjuI The Journey of Women’s Rights: 1911-2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=fvwp&v=e1cQaLO_ukc The Progression of Women’s Rights in America

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=Lbhs6pIaVDI The Women’s Liberation Movement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnL-vZk1zf4&feature=related Taboos For Women in the 19th Century

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teVuLeV6Ex4&feature=related The Women’s Suffrage Movement

Would you rather read than watch? Here are some good links:

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/womenshistorymonth/Womens_History_Month.htm Women’s History Month

We’ve come a long way down an even longer road, let’s keep moving in the right direction!

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