While I was doing this, I found something kind of interesting:

What this means to me is that members of Town Council have a right and a responsibility to ‘police their own’. I have found nothing in the Town Council Minutes since July 2001 to indicate that this process has ever been utilize, but it is available. Why heck, if applied it could generate funds for the town, sort of a ‘user’s fee’:)

Anyway, the newer ‘bookmarked’ version of the Town Charter will be online soon at myvaresources.com. I’ll post an announcement here, on facebook, and send out the usual email notices when it is completed.

What he said!!! Council stalls plan to add to bus service. In this Roanoke Times article, Lerone Graham hit the proverbial nail on the head. When I left Town Council meeting Tuesday night, I was livid. I could not believe that 2 of the Town Council members and the Mayor were trying to shut down negotiations on extending bus service when they have had weeks to study this issue and have their questions answered. Now, they suddenly want more questions answered, they want more information. Well, it is pretty clear to me that either they haven’t a clue as to how grants and such work, or they are simply postponing until the deadline is close enough that they can then blame it on someone else. These additional questions have been bantered around with citizens but NOT to the people with the answers. A great example of smoke and mirrors government.

What the article does not go into is that these very council members and the mayor were very active participants in planning commission recommendations to the town council concerning the ongoing unplanned growth that is consuming the Town of Christiansburg like a cancer. Items like the Aquatic Center and even a Civic Center were discussed by the Planning Commission and included in the Comprehensive Plan. However, look for areas where traffic concerns, walkways, sidewalks, accessibility by citizens to shopping, healthcare, etc. (i.e., through a bus service), small neighborhood parks suitable for families and neighborhoods to use (many of the ones the Town claims are actually the retention pond areas of developments…isn’t that sweet of them!) and other issues which have a direct impact on daily quality of life.

A tremendous amount of energy has gone into finding ways to take money from the Tourism Development Committee so that Christiansburg can do its own promotions for tourist, yet they can’t take the time to research and investigate what it is that would make the lives of citizens better.

As one planning commissioner recently noted: bringing in businesses increases taxes and therefore is good. Duh!  Bringing in businesses without proper planning, assessing the impact on neighborhoods, traffic, law enforcement, fire department, rescue services, roads needing to be built, other infrastructure being over stressed or needing to be expanded, all of those take up more tax money than that business is going to generate.

It is time for elected and appointed officials to get a clue! YOU WORK FOR US!

Kudos to Michael Barber, Brad Stipes, and Henry Showalter. All of them showed that they had taken the time to do some of the homework and they supported having the means to support the bus routes ready should a decision be made to do so. The way that Ernie Wade, Jim VanHoozier, and Mayor Ballengee want to do it means that it would be another year or more before grants could be reapplied for…given that the town didn’t have to pay for those grants, one can only wonder if that opportunity will even exist next year. Other people and agencies are not going to keep doing the town’s work for them.

Chritiansburg doesn’t do grants because they do not have the staff or the expertise. Instead they sit back and wait for someone else to come up with grants …. maybe that’s what “wait and see” is really all about….”let’s wait and see if someone else will do it for us, that way we don’t have to do anything except show up at meetings.”

We need Town Council members to start looking out for citizens, or we need citizens to start looking out for new Town Council members. Wonder which one it will be.

The Town of Christiansburg wants to take a good portion of that money back and start from scratch in creating their own tourism program. Well, look at the reality of what such an undertaking requires and what the Town has done thus far (see the tourism study by me report):

• The Town of Christiansburg has done an extremely poor job of promoting this excellent source of revenue over the years (except for parks and rec. department which has had Art Price working hard for sporting events).
• The Town of Christiansburg has no plan for how that money is to be used.
• The Town of Christiansburg has no staff with the background experience and training necessary to support such efforts.

My personal opinion would be that rather than start from scratch on another unplanned project (Aquatic Center comes to mind) that the Town leave things alone for now and takes some time to study the situation and begin doing some of the small things that they ARE capable of doing right now. This will allow them time to work out issues, discover problems, and find solutions BEFORE they jump off that diving board (yes, I mean make sure there is water in the pool before you jump). We do not need ‘knee-jerk’ reactions without proper planning and coordinating to serve as another sink-hole for public funds.

A program for promotion of tourism does not develop overnight. It will take several years and a lot of work before the Town would show it is having an effect. Multiple free sources for promoting events or themed areas are already available and the Town has not made use of them. The Town has had a website for more than 10 years that did not help promote tourism. Why on earth would they expect people to believe they are ready to do so now?

The TDC has been working on this, knowing that it would take time to get the ball rolling and yet they already present sufficient facts in their reports to indicate to me that they are making progress.

So, let’s cut off money going to something that is working (albeit slowly – because it takes time to build a reputation). The Town needs to be making competent use of the resources it already has before it starts demanding more. What is there on the NEW and better website to promote tourism? Why hasn’t the town working on getting signage established to help people find things in Christiansburg? Maybe that is what some of that big chunk of money in reserves should be used for. You have to invest in order to obtain a return. When you have a failure to invest the time and energy into a garden you already have to be able to harvest from it, why in the world would you try to get someone else to donate their time and money to till a bigger garden for you.

Hitting businesses with more and more taxes, then turning around, hat in hand, begging for more money just isn’t going to work in today’s economy. It’s time to deal with reality and take active steps rather than flapping lips to make things happen.

The League of Women Voters of Montgomery County, VA invites you to attend a panel discussion on re-visioning of Christiansburg and Blackburg Downtown areas:

Although called the League of Women Voters, this organization changed its bylaws to include men in 1974. To find out a little bit about the LWV’s you can check out some of these sites:

The National History of the League of Women Voters

The League of Women Voters of the United States

The League of Women Voters of Virginia

The League of Women Voters of Montgomery County Virginia

This will be a great opportunity to find out about some of the ways in which these two downtown areas can be enriched. Who knows, maybe you are the one person who comes up with the perfect idea for either or both downtowns? Maybe it is simply that you will ask a question that generates ideas. You will not know if you do not show!!!

Hope to see you there.

By Carol Lindstrom On March 28 at 11:57 AM

I do so love Wikipedia:

Based upon that definition, it is clear that there are two key components of stormwater, quantity and quality. A large quantity of reasonably clean stormwater or a small quantity of polluted stormwater can each do a tremendous amount of damage. Clearly, it is as important to be able to anticipate problems with both quantity and quality in land use decisions.

Every square inch of asphalt or concrete represents the loss of pervious surfaces that will allow rainfall to be absorbed into the ground. This means that more water runs off of that surface, adding to totals in other areas. If the rainfall is fairly light, the additional water may well be absorbed by surrounding soil. In situations where the rainfall is heavy , the soil cannot absorb it quickly enough, and it simply cascades down slope until it reaches the lowest possible point, where it sits until it can be absorbed. That spot where the water sits could be your backyard, a man-made retention pond or lake, a ditch, or it could run into a stormwater drain, a creek (or other natural water source), etc.

Most people will notice if there are a couple of inches of water hanging out on a water-type vacation in their backyard. Some will even notice that levels in local waterways seem to be elevated or the water is moving a bit faster than usual.What goes unnoticed by many is what that water may have picked up in its travels and the slow erosion of soil that can occur over time.

Whatever heavy metals (zinc from parking lots and roadways), chemicals, bacteria, organic fertilizers (poop to many of us), petroleum-based products, bits of soil, etc. that the water passes over in it travels can be picked up and carried by the water. All of those little bits and pieces hold a ‘meet and greet’ where ever  the water pools. Some of it gets sidetracked along the way, leaving small samples along the entire course of the water. But, the bulk is carried to that backyard, ditch, creek, pond, etc.

Unless the area where the runoff is deposited is a moving body of water, the various items picked up will accumulate over time, sometimes growing to levels that create a hazard to various lifeforms including humans. The areas where filtration down into the soil is particularly slow, you have the added bonus of providing a breeding ground for mosquitos which can, an often do, carry diseases which can be transmitted to humans and animals. As solids settle to the bottom, the area where the water stands become larger in surface. (If you want to test that theory, take a small bowl of water, fill it to the brim, then add a handful of sand to it. Please be sure you do not try this around electrical appliances:)

If the recipient of that runoff water happens to be a moving body of water, only the heaviest of particles will settle out in the early stages. It will not be until the size of the stream increases and the flow slows down some that more of the particles will filter out. This could mean that those same types of deposits settling in someone backyard could show up hundreds of feet or miles away. Those deposits, along with the deposits from other steams, come together and become part of some of our major food source systems: the water is used for irrigation,  provides habitat for fish and seafood, and  enters the drinking water is provided to homes.

Maybe all of this sounds a bit off topic coming from someone who usually comments on local government and laws. Well, it seems to me that stormwater quality and quantity should be a top issue for our local government. Land use decisions made by our local officials can have far reaching affects. It is important to see that people’s backyards are not flooded. It is also important to make sure that the water flowing from areas of impervious surfaces is as safe as possible. In the long-range view, both quality and quantity of stormwater are important to our futures and for generations to come. There is no reason why we have to accept the minimum state standards. We can and should do more.

No matter how much ‘green space’ we have, if we do not make efforts to effectively monitor and manage stormwater run-off and improve stormwater protection methods, those green spaces will simply become repositories for all of those chemicals, biological organizisms, etc. and simply become toxic areas.

As usual, these are just the opinions I arrived at after doing a lot of reading. I’m sure there are plenty of readers out there who know more about the subject than I do. These may seem like pretty small things when compared to the problems note in a recent Roanoke Times article about the Radford Arsenal’s claim to fame as the largest polluter in the state for the second year in a row. Despite the fact that the pollution levels are well below the allowed criteria, it is noted in the article that those responsible at the Arsenal are serious about taking steps to reduce it even more. Perhaps we, as individuals and as a Town, could try to do the same thing and no longer accept the minimal state standards as the standards for Christiansburg. The Town can adopt more stringent guidelines for stormwater management. We can learn more about the chemicals we use on our lawns and gardens, how we dispose of chemicals (gasoline, diesel fuel, paints, etc.), and maybe even where brick and mulch patio area might work as well as solid concrete.

oh…shoot…so many things to learn about..and so little time…. If the Town had higher standards and each of us did one thing to help to either prevent stormwater runoff or improve the quality of stormwater escaping from our properties and neighborhoods, it could make a big difference for us, our children, and our grandchildren.

Some informative links (I do not necessarily agree with everything contained in these documents, but that are good starting points for building the foundation of knowledge required to understand stormwater issues. There are a lot of other sources of information at your fingertips using Google.):
Stormwater Pollution Workbook
Natural Resources Defense Council
EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Stormwater site
Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plans
DCR’s Virginia Stormwater Management Program

By Carol Lindstrom On March 26 at 1:35 AM