But, what does it take to get people to be on board. The Mayor clearly displayed a big part of the problem at the Feb. 2, 2010 Town Council Meeting. Two issues were raised by Council Members: 1) requiring sidewalks in residential areas and 2) addressing code issues concerning the amount of green space required by code. The Mayor is the one person who chooses what goes on the agenda and what items are discussed/voted on at the Town Council Meetings. If you have an issue that has not come up at meetings, that is the place to start asking why, the Mayor’s office.

Both of these were referred to the Planning Commission for review, with a directive that the Planning Commission would give a recommendation in 3 months (hmmm…just in time for the election? or just after the election?)

In the second of these, it was clear that more research was required in order to develop a cohesive, enforceable code. However, in the first issue, sidewalks, 3 of the 5 Town Council members expressed that it was time to require sidewalks in developments. (The 3 strong supporters of this were Stipes, Showalter, and Barber. Only Stipes is up for re-election in May.) The Mayor’s response? “It would raise the price of properties.” Uh…Duh…Hello! Yes, it might increase the value of those properties where the sidewalks were located. It might make neighborhoods pedestrian friendly. It might provide a safe place for our older residents to get walking exercies or for children to go visit a neighbor without having to either cross other people’s yards or walk in the street.It might increase the value of properties. In increasing property values, it might increase revenue for the town. A majority of the Council Members present clearly wanted this done. Rather than calling for a consenus to have the Town Manager/Town Attorney to start working on a code amendment, it was instead sent to the Planning Commission for review.

The Planning Commission, when discussing both of these issues will either be short one person in the discussion and voting as one member works in a field directly affected by the code change. (This is called Conflict of Interest in State Code.) Add this to the fact that the Town has not filled the existing Planning Commission vacancy and you have 5 people instead of the historical standard of 7 looking at what needs to be done in order to include these in code.

Any such changes in code will require a public hearing, but much of the groundwork will be laid during Planning Commission meetings which are held at times when few people can attend. If you are able to do so, I recommend that you keep an eye on the PC agendas on the towns website and try to make those meetings where these items are worked on. In listening to the discussions, you are likely to find that you have questions that need to be brought to Council members decisions. You do not have to wait for a public hearing to let your ‘voice’ be heard. You can call, write, email, or catch them on the walking trails by the Rec Center in the early morning hours or on the golf courses in the area. Heck! I’ve even cornered some of them in the local grocery stores (when they didn’t see me first:) Just kidding!

The two important issues are: 1) should sidewalks be required in new residential developments? And, 2) should the Town go to the state code allowed maximum of 10% green space for developments (above 10% is allowed but the Town would be required to pay for it)? Another part of #2 is should that code make it clear that those retention ponds and other UNUSABLE areas of the property should NOT be allowed to count as green space. Green space is where you children should have space to play or where communities could set up picnic areas. It should not be a mosquito breeding, snake harboring, fenced in area that is NOT accessible to citizens.

Any attempt to stop either of these should not be made under a false argument of ‘it would increase the price of lots’. That price increase would be up to the developer. The developer would be the one to pay for the sidewalks. If sidewalks increase the value of the property, that is not necessarily a bad thing. The Town should not have to use taxpayer money to come back into an area years later to put in sidewalks because citizens are upset. The cost should be carried by the developers or the ones benefiting from the sidewalks NOT by all citizens.

• Citizens in areas where flooding has been a long term problem still waiting to see some progress.
• Citizens’ hopes of having a farmer’s market downtown.
• Citizens’ hopes of getting traffic problems fixed.
• Citizen’s hopes of getting sidewalks to connect neighborhood and provide a safe place for children and adults to walk.
• Citizen’s hopes of having more small neighborhood parks.

This list could go on for awhile (the master list based upon the minutes of meeting since 2001 certainly does).

The problem is that while Town Council has ‘suddenly’ (so close to election time) decided to start doing things that they have decided are important to citizens, without citizen input, they may have picked the wrong things to focus on.

Do they really expect people to believe that this nicer things found in the Vision 2020 are going to be a reality in the near future when infrastructure is crumbling, vehicles are dying on the road, and a tax increase looms in the future?

Unfortunately, it look like Town Council is out of touch with reality. Of course, the ‘Town Manager’ sits there as someone for them to blame things on if things don’t turn out quite right…but, they are the ones who give the Town Manger direction. He works for them, not the other way around. Either Town Council members are unaware of the problems in the community or they think that if they ignore them, nobody else will notice them.

An ostrich sticking it’s head in the ground won’t see the danger coming, but it will taste just as good to the lions regardless of where its head is located.

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!

That is a very good question and one that has been answered quite well by the Virginia Coalition for Open Government on a Blog article by Megan Rhyne “Secret lawsuit settlement amounts“. This same blog article was edited and appeared on the May 31, 2009 edition of the Roanoke Times “The public doesn’t know the price it paid“.

What does this mean for citizens? Ultimately, it means that your tax money is used to pay for the insurance that pays settlements in legal cases. Will you know how much or to whom the amount goes to? Not very likley. Will you receive a report of the affect these lawsuits will have on the insurance premiums in the future? What will be the long term financial affect to the taxpayer? There have been multiple instances where law suits have been applied against the Town of Christiansburg. These are almost always settled and with that settlement the records are sealed meaning that you, the taxpayer, have no access to that information.

Now, legal records do not seal themselves. Only a Judge can order the sealing of such records and the Judge has to be asked to do so. That means either the individual/group suing the Town or the Town’s representative MUST ask that those records be sealed.

In other jurisdictions, the facts are known by the elected officials. Christiansburg, however, seems to handle this a bit differently. Only the Town Manager is allowed to know. Town Council Members that were asked advised that they did not know and had been told they could not be given that information.

Some have suggested that it is the Town Attorney that is adding the factor of ‘silence’ to the equation. However, an attorney can advise a client, but it is ultimately the client (in Christiansburg’s case the Town Manager) who prompts the attorney to make a request to the Judge to seal the records. Somehow or other, the wording must be getting included in those orders that either none or only some of the Town Council members are being informed.

Our government has a responsibility to manage the town’s money. We as citizens have the right to see how well they perform that function. As the article referenced above notes, there are certainly some things within a law suit that should be kept confidential, but the amount of settlement hardly seems to be one of them. And, if Town Council members are kept out of the ‘knowledge loop’, how can they be expected to evaluate the situation and make sure it doesn’t happen again. In the recent past, one Town Council member responded to an issue by simply saying…”so sue us”. That’s easy to say when it is not your money or reputation that is one the line but rather the town’s. Just how many law suits have been filed against the Town of Christiansburg in the last 20 years. How many of those cases were settled and an order to seal the records issued by the Court? No. I don’t have the full answer to those questions. Yet:)

If you think taxpayers and Town Council members should be aware of the amount of settlements paid and how it can, will, or has affected insurance rates, please take the time to contact you Delegates and State Senators and let them know. You can find contact information at the Virginia General Assembly homepage.