If you have been to any of the Town meetings or listened to the videos, you will have heard reference to the “Future Land Use Map” for decision-making on rezoning issues.

One thing seems to keep getting missed in all of those discussions. The simple word “Future”. As a tool, the future land use map represents future growth for the town as it is needed. IT DOES NOT MEAN THE LAND HAS TO BE DEVELOPED TODAY. The Comprehensive Plan and this map, that is a piece of it, are a way of preparing for the future.

When faced with a decision on whether or not to rezone those areas designated for change in the future land use map, the Planning Commission and Town Council should perhaps look to the future as well as the present. Just because a piece of land is set for residential in the future does NOT mean that it is ‘right’ for that use today.

Some of the questions that I would like to see answered before such rezoning decisions are made are:

1. Is more development currently needed?
2. Is the infrastructure in place to support development at the proposed area?

In number 1, some additional things to look at would be what type of housing if proposed and what is the demand for that housing now? Simply building a bunch of homes that sit empty or become rentals just doesn’t meet with my understanding of residential development. If you want to put up student rental housing, then do that but do it openly and honestly. Say that is your intention. Otherwise, if there are tons of homes in the proposed price range sitting empty in town already, then why push to build more?

Number 2 above brings us to many of the issues and complaints that have been brought forth in recent years. Making decisions based upon what VDoT or any other group may do in the near future is pure gambling. Development decision have previously been made with the understanding that ‘X & such’ road would be widened or extended in the near future. Well, 10 years later many people are still waiting for those improvements but the developments have progressed and problems have arisen.

Number 2 also points to the area of making sure that sufficient services (water, sewer, garbage, etc.) already exist OR the funding for improvements are available and earmarked specifically for that use. Making plans to add or enhance services is pretty meaningless if the money required is either not available or is redirected to some other project and the projects needed to support new development are pushed aside for some future date when resources MAY be available.

Let me reiterate that fact that FUTURE LAND USE does not mean that the changes have to occur today, tomorrow, or next week. It must be carefully balanced against the needs of the Town to accommodate growth AND the ability of the Town to support such growth.

I think it is time for the question to change from “Does the rezoning match the Future Land Use Map?” to add to that “Does the need exist today to warrant making the change and can the town effectively respond to the needs generated by such a change. While the change in zoning may be right, it may not be right for today.

From: Randy Wingfield
Sent: Tuesday, July 20, 2010 1:44 PM
To: Ann Carter; Bradford Stipes; Earnest Wade;
Henry Showalter; Jim VanHoozier; Mike Barber;
Richard Ballengee; Lance Terpenny; Barry Helms
Cc: Ann Carter; Craig Moore; Kevin Conner;
Mike Byrd; Steve Huppert; wbooth; Nichole Hair
Subject: Ivy Ridge Connectivity Index/Sage Lane Connection

VDOT uses a connectivity index for approval of
subdivision with new streets as part of their
secondary street acceptance requirements.
This index uses street segments divided by
intersections (cul-de-sacs are included as intersections)
to come up with the index number.  Christiansburg is
classified by VDOT as a Compact area which would require
a connectivity index of at least 1.6, however this
requirement does not apply within Christiansburg as we
maintain our own streets, I am just providing this for
your reference.  To simplify it, the higher the
connectivity index, the better.  The connectivity
index cannot mathematically be lower than 1.

 I ran the same connectivity index for Ivy Ridge
and came up with the following numbers:

For the development as shown on the Ivy Ridge
Conceptual Plan dated 5-10-10 with a connection made
to Sage Lane = 13 segments / 7 intersections
(including cul-de-sacs) = 1.86 connectivity index

For the development as shown on the Ivy Ridge Conceptual
Plan dated 5-10-10 with no connection made to
Sage Lane = 10 segments / 6 intersections
 (including cul-de-sacs) = 1.67 connectivity index

The Town Administration, Planning, and Engineering
staff feel as though the connection to Sage Lane
should be made because of general connectivity and
for emergency access reasons.  Police Chief Mark Sisson,
Fire Chief Billy Hanks, and Rescue Squad Captain
Kelly Walters concur that the connections to Sage Lane
is desirable for these reasons.

There is an existing stub out at the end of
New Village Drive which could be utilized for access
through the Shaffer land via the stub out of Albert Lane
shown on the concept drawing.  This connection would
provide an additional connection through New River Village
 to the proposed development if it were constructed.

Town staff will require the connection if Town Council
desires it, but will not require the connection if that
is the desire of Town Council.

Randy Wingfield
Planning Director/Zoning Administrator
Town of Christiansburg
100 E. Main Street
Christiansburg, VA 24073
phone: (540) 382-6120 x 119
fax: (540) 381-7238

Since Mr. Wingfield has provided his phone number, feel free to let him know how you feel about this. Feel free to call all of those members of Council and ask who authorized this.

Smoke and mirrors. That is how magicians encourage your eyes to be deceived and convince your brain that what you imagine is reality.

Smoke and mirrors 1: Town Council goes through the motions of producing a budget and passing tax increases. OOPS! The eye was not deceived on this one. The vote to increase taxes did not meet the legal criteria for a vote. A state code required a 2/3 majority, but what the town had was had was a tie broken by the Mayor. Back to the wood pile.

Smoke and mirrors 2: Town Council goes through the motion of dealing with budget cuts. Yada-yada-yada…all talk and no action. Ideas were put forward, shot down, revitalized, and then left laying on the table to die of neglect. Oh, wait, there was something about revisiting them in the future. That came about the same time that the Mayor acknowledged that a 5% increase in real estate tax would be needed next year to deal with the rapidly dwindling ‘reserves’ that are being used to offset the deficit. Hold your breath until you see those budget cuts on the table again before the next budget meetings in say…June of next year.

Smoke and mirrors 3: Town Manager wants a 3 plus year contract and the Mayor calls for action on it. Outraged citizens and a little thing called State Law put a crimp in that siphon hose.

Smoke and mirrors 4: Town Manager is asked to resign because they have no faith in his continuing in the position. Okay, that’s kinda hinky wording and sounds a lot like legalese for you want to resign but if you do, you will not get the benefits you want, so we’ll give the appearance of ‘terminating’ you without really ‘terminating’ you so that you get all of your benefits. Actually, it sounds a lot more like there was concern on someone’s part that something was going to happen that would mean the Town Manager’s contract might not be renewed … something like new members of council or possible investigations from outside sources? Maybe a few new lawsuits? I’d bet the Town Council Members who think that they know what has been going on really don’t know more than about 10% of the real facts.

Smoke and mirrors 5: Sage Lane revisited. If it isn’t bad enough to have elected officials paying with fire to create all that smoke. We have to have developers, planning department staff, and planning commissioners contributing some diesel fuel so that the smoke is particularly dense. (By the way you can see the videos of this discussion, copies of documents — including the deed discussed for the right-of-way on Albert Lane at: 07_12_2010 Planning Commission Meeting

At the beginning we get a bunch of rhetoric about VDoT critera (with a mention or two, very causually, of how VDoT criteria is not applicable to Town Roads). Suddenly, Planning Commissioners are focused on VDoT standards. Fortunately, a Sage Lane resident caught the drift and asked for clarification which ultimately indicated that the Sage Lane Road would not be needed in order to meet even VDoT standards (which are not required). Then we get all of this focus on the Sage Lane Rd. being necessary for emergencies. Nothing is said to indicate that the developer simply wants a road there. No…it’s all about safety and emergency access, until someone in the audience pointed out that it is not necessary to have a road in order to have access. Then, the topic shifts to the necessity of the agreements and proffers being vague because of an ordinance change concerning sidewalks. Duh…..this application must be based on current ordinances, you do not base plans on ordinances that might be enacted at some time in the future! What is submitted and approved now would be binding and future changes would not have an affect. Furthermore, the proposed changes would only affect certain types of developments (which currently do not exist in the Town) and would be optional. (This is a whole different smoke and mirrors scam where the Town pretends to be addressing citizen issues while writing ordinances in such as way as to be useless unless the developer wants to do things a certain way.)

Whenever you go to any of these meetings, listen well to what is actually being said. All too often, in the rush of things, the human ear hears what it wants to hear, not what is actually being said. Carefully choosing words can result in statements that appear to say one thing while in actuality say something entirely different. Thank goodness I can watch these videos over and over again to see the gaps.

Yep! The EPA might have to come visit Christiansburg because of all that smoke in the air. On the other hand, if the smoke continues to billow, there is a growing number of citizens with damp pieces of fabric (aka wet blankets) who will find the smoke useful in sending messages to other areas of the State.

Here are a few observations/questions about why this and many other development issues have come up.

1. Poor to non-existent planning.
2. Council not being fully informed before making decisions.
3. Planning Commission not being fully informed before making recommendations.
4. Planning Dept. staff not knowing what information the Planning Commission and/or Town Council need to know in order to make informed decisions.
5. Planning Commission and/or Town Council not wanting to know the information required to make informed decisions.
6. Someone dictating what the Planning Dept. staff is allowed to present to the Town Council and/or Planning Commission, created a very skewed view of things.

At the July 12th Planning Commission Meeting, I reviewed what the Town is calling Staff Analysis packages. These are the packets of information that are provided to Planning Commission and then to Town Council in order for those elected and appointed officials to know the impact on rezoning/development on the Town as a whole and on neighborhoods specifically. It was all I could do to keep from laughing hysterically.

Take a look for yourself. Then take a look at samples I got from other jurisdictions for a comparison.

1. Christiansburg Staff Analysis
2. Examples from other jurisdictions:  Sample 1 Sample 2

You will quickly note that the information that is provided to Commissioners and Council is far more extensive in other jurisdictions.

When I asked Planning Director Wingfield why there was so little information, he responded that he had been told by the Town Manager what was to be given in the report and that the Town Council has said what it is that they wanted.

This sets up two distinctive scenarios: 1) the Town Manager has been controlling what the appointed and elected officials see in relation to any proposed development or rezoning, and 2) the Council members are expected to know what it is that is available for them to ask for and that they have the knowledge/training to know what is important.

I believe that it is part of most programs offering Planning Degrees for students to learn what should be included in such documents. Also, I do not believe that we have any elected or appointed personnel who have degrees in planning. This makes it a lot like going to a proctologist for a toothache! Hello….get a clue…people who are trained to do something, have been examined for their knowledge on that something, might…just might have a tad bit more knowledge than those who do not. In fact, if I am not mistaken, isn’t that why the Town of Christiansburg pays the money that they do for Planners, because of their knowledge.

Talk about waste of taxpayer money. If you are not going to let someone do what they are trained to do then why have people with the training?

If you don’t have people trained making assessments and giving advice, then don’t be surprised when you have problems with whatever area they are working in….i.e., traffic, stormwater, legal issues, etc. You can expect to see problems and LAWSUITS when professional staff members are restricted or incapable of doing the very jobs that they were hired to do.

More on Sage Lane to come, particularly how easily the ‘emergency access’ can be dealt with WITHOUT having to have a ‘road’ there to create traffic issues.

As a side note, Mr. Huppert noted that he was now seeing people out working on sidewalks and that maybe the focus of the Planning Commission on sidewalks contributed to that behavior. Personally, I doubt it. I think it is far more likely that increased activities on sidewalks, groundskeeping, road repair,  landscaping, street cleaning, and other such area, is more likely a function of the fact that with the Aquatic Center finally ‘finished’, all of those town workers were were diverted from their normal jobs to work on the Aquatic Center suddenly find themselves being allowed to work on the routine daily issues of a town.

The Aquatic Center cost town taxpayers a lot more than just the money for the building. Diverting Town staff from their regular duties to work on the Aquatic Center meant that things did not get done! Even the Town Manager has acknowledged that to cut any personnel would mean having to cut services. It should come as no surprise to citizens that basic services were dropped in order to have people work on the Aquatic Center. Town Council has asked for an accounting of the number of town staff hours involved in the development of the Aquatic Center several times in the past and only vague responses have been received.

Maybe the only way that Council could find out the answer to that question would be to ask the workers themselves. Cutting services to taxpayers is not the right way to get the work done at the Aquatic Center. Reportedly, town staff was used to save money. Perhaps this also contributed to the multiple DCR violations on the site for erosion and sediment control as well.

This rather makes it appear that the Town Charter and/or Code would have had to have been changed before said 3 year contract could have gone into effect. The other localities that I found to have gone with a longer contract for Town Manager, have specifically generated ordinances/charter changes in order to support those. My guess is that the reason for that was this state code.

So, should the town council have been looking at such a contract without having first established that there was such a need as to warrant Charter and/or Code changes. I never heard of any discussions concerning those changes except for some mumblings on how they could enter into the contract first, then change the  Charter/Code afterwards. Maybe there are some lawyers out there who have a better understand of the intent of this State Code and would care to comment.

Is it possible that the 3 year contract was merely a ‘smoke screen’ simply to get people riled up so that they wouldn’t see what was really going on. If so, then you have to wonder who the ‘they’ is in this situation. Certainly with Showalter and Carter being the last to find out anything, they are ruled out.

Of course, the town attorney was in the meetings so if this was actually an issue, one would expect it to have been raised.

Fortunately, the State Code also makes sure that the public will know the full extent of the severance packages of any individuals to which they have or shall be awarded. If it is consistent with the document read by Mr. Barber, there are some pretty vague places that I hope will be clarified before the deal is finalized.

§ 15.2-1510.1. Public announcement of severance packages for certain officials.

Severance benefits provided to any departing official appointed by a local governing body or school board shall be publicly announced by the local governing body or school board, respectively, prior to such departure.

(2006, c. 254; 2007, c. 257.)

It sounds like the details should be pretty specific to me, but I am sure that someone can argue that the Letter of the Law was met in Mr. Barbers statement. However, I wonder if it will truly meet the Spirit of the Law. After all, it is the citizen’s money being used for any such severance benefits.

Here’s what the Town Charter says:

1) He has 10 days in which to deliver all property, books and papers:

§ 2.1 2. Surrender of Papers and Property.–If any person, having been an officer of said town, shall not within ten days after he shall have vacated or been removed from office, and upon notification of request of the council within such time as it may allow, deliver to his successor in office all property, books and papers belonging to the town or appertaining to such office, in possession or under his control, he shall forfeit and pay to the town a sum not exceeding five hundred dollars, to be sued for and recovered with costs; and all books, records and documents used in any office by virtue of any provision of this act, or of any ordinances or order of the town council, or any superior officer of said town, shall be deemed the property of said town and appertaining to said office, and the chief officer thereof shall be held responsible therefor. (1954, c. 240)
2) This raises the big question of who his ‘successor’ is going to be if the job has not been advertised and the position filled by that time. The Town Charter again comes to the rescue:

§ 2.14. Duties of Mayor.–The mayor shall preside at the meetings of the council, voting only in case of a tie, and perform such other duties as may be prescribed by this charter and by general law and such as may be imposed by the council consistent with his office. He shall perform the duties of the town manager during the absence of the town manager or while the office of town manager is vacant. He shall have power to investigate the acts of the various town officers, members of the police, fire and public works departments and all other departments of the town government, whether elected or appointed. The mayor shall have and exercise all power and authority conferred by general law on mayors of towns and not inconsistent with this charter; and shall, from time to time, recommend to the council such measures which he may deem needful for the welfare of the town. (1 954, c. 240; 1968, c. 173)
Clearly, it will be Mayor Ballengee who is taking over the Town Manager’s roles until such time as the position is filled. Christiansburg is lucky to have an Assistant Town Manager, Barry Helms, who is very experienced to be the ‘right-hand’ of the Mayor.

This should make for a fairly smooth transition period, providing ample time for the Town Council to begin development of a job description, job advertising, and the interviews required to find the ‘right person’.

Perhaps the Council will even choose to add some citizens to the review committee as they did with the position of Police Chief. Or, if they choose to handle it like the Rescue Squad, let the members (citizens) elect the person they want to fill the position:) (Wouldn’t that be a hoot!)

Time will tell, and I’ll be watching to see what is done. I am sure it will be an interesting process however it is done.

An additional side note to this is also found in the Town Charter:

§ 2.06. Compensation.–The council shall by ordinance or resolution fix the salaries of all officers and employees of the town elected or appointed by it, or appointed by its authority and may so far as is not inconsistent with the provisions of the charter, define the powers and prescribe the duties of all such officers and employees. To effectuate the powers conferred by general laws as well as the powers herein specifically granted, the council may employ all such persons as may be necessary. (1 954, c. 240)
and in the Town Code:

Sec. 2-3. Record book for ordinances and resolutions–To be kept by Clerk of Council.

The Clerk of the Council shall enter in a well-bound book copies of all ordinances and resolutions passed by the Council. The book in which such ordinances and resolutions are thus entered shall be known as the “Ordinances and Resolutions of the Town of Christiansburg.” The Clerk of the Council shall index such book. (Code 1972, § 2-3)

Over the years, the Town Council has slowly (sometimes not so slowly) diverted almost all of its duties over to the Town Manager. We essentially have a ‘show’ council with the Town Manager making virtually all decisions, establishing contracts (i.e. the Aquatic Center), and choosing which laws and ordinance to enforce and when to enforce them (i.e., multiple violations of Erosion and Sediment Control on Town owned property as well as privately owned). The contract is established to maintain it this way, prohibiting the Council from taking back any of that responsibility. Nuff said by me. Please take the survey. It is short, quick and easy. Your input matters.

Town Manager Contract Survey

Radford and Christiansburg have very different contract issues for very different reasons.

Radford officials have at the front of their concerns list making sure that citizens are protected by insuring that the position of town attorney is being put out for bid and a new contract developed. An interesting aside to this is “who is writing the contract?” The rfp and contract do not, in any way, exclude the current town attorney from competing for, and winning said contract. It is a far and open process. Radford is simply joining the growing number of jurisdictions who are moving to a dedicated attorney.

Christiansburg, on the other hand, is involved with allowing the Town Manager to compile a contract for him that is in his best interest. The sample document used by the Town Manager is one that is provided at a website that focuses on the needs of those appointed officials, regardless of whether or not it is in the best interest of the Town.

While the contract itself has not become public knowledge, the sample contract used for the C’burg Town Manager contract is available online. Clearly, this is a document written to protect the Town Manager NOT the town. It will be interesting to see if the town attorney suggests modifications that support the interests the town or those of the Manager. It will also be interesting to see which of the ‘elected officials’ are supporting the town’s interest and which support the manager’s interest.

Given the Town of Christiansburg’s history of getting into contracts, discovering that mistakes were made, and then struggling to get out of those contracts (Tourism Development, Blacksburg Transit). It would be silly for them to enter into ANY contract that lasted for more than one year.

As to the Town Manager’s dedication to the citizens of the Town, all one needs to do is to read the original contract he set up with VT for the Aquatic Center, then read the one that was finalized after citizen uproar forced a re-evaluation. The version here shows the changes made in red. Please note that the Town Manger was essentially the only one working up this contract with the Town Attorney reviewing it. He was all but giving the Aquatic Center to VT.

So, in light of the compared progressive and regressive actions of the two jurisdictions, I have a survey that people can take to evaluate the performance of Mayor, Council, and Town Manager in 4 areas:

Your participation will be greatly appreciated.

Christiansburg council discusses contract for manager – Roanoke.com

Why rush a contract? – Roanoke.com

It appears that someone outside of town government has received a copy of that document. Since it wasn’t me, I had to resort to a more inquisitive approach to try to determine what might be up.

Starting with the assumption that the Town Manager is not an Attorney as well as an Engineer, I went back through the data on the ‘pay the bills’ sheets looking for any organizations that the Town might be paying membership fees to that would offer this type of document.

My first look was to the VML site where I found nothing. After a few more trial and error episodes, I finally landed at the ICMA site online where they have a sample government document “Model Employment Agreement that is a downloadable pdf format. Since I did a fairly extensive search and this is the only model I have found, I feel it is safe to assume that this model document is likely to have formed the basis for the Town Manager’s contract. You can view the document as a pdf here or simply click on the link on the ICMA page above. (Please note that this particular document was generated in 2003 and there is no evidence to indicate updates have occurred. This could mean that parts of the document are no longer consistent with State Codes.)

You will find a lot of blank spots on this document which would be where the specifics of a given contract were denoted such as the length of time that the document is in effect. That could be 3 months, 1 year, 3 years, 10 years, etc.

Page 1 of the document (page 3 of the pdf), under Section 3: Compensation subsection C provides information on an annual basis to increase compensation with 4 options available. All of the options address pay increases or bonuses (read the document for more details).

Oops! Sorry got ahead of myself. Start with the Table of Contents. Here is where you can get an overview of everything covered in the document. For example:

• Section 6 Automobile

• Section 7 Retirement

• Section 8 General Business Expenses

• Section 9 Termination

• Section 10 Severance

• Section 11 Resignation

• Section 12 Performance Evaluation

• Section 13 Hours of Work

• Section 14 Outside Activities

• Section 15 Moving and Relocation Expenses

• Section 16 Home Sale and Purchase Expenses

I included those examples because if a precedent is set whereby such a contract is used in the future for the hiring of any new Town Manager, Section 15 and 16 could be particularly important.

Section 9 includes a lot of Termination related details such as #2:

2. If the Employer, citizens or legislature acts to amend any provisions of the [charter, code, enabling legislation] pertaining to the role, powers, duties, authority, responsibilities of the Employee’s position that substantially changes the form of government, the Employee shall have the right to declare that such amendments constitute termination.

So, not only the Town, but the citizens and EVEN THE STATE OF VIRGINIA are limited in making any legitimate changes to the Town Managers functions without the Town Manager being able to decide he has thus been terminated and is entitled to all benefits under the terms of termination.

No reduction in pay can occur unless it is applied equally to all department heads. (How does that encourage good performance?) There are several options listed there which all have the Town as the short end of the financial stick. However, Section 11 gives the Town Manager the right to resign any time he wants without having the town for any inconvenience or extra expense the town incurs due to his actions.

Section 10: Severance, recommends a minimum of one years salary at current pay to be paid in a lump sum. (Glance back at termination section to see that virtually any reason for the Town Manager leaving his position, including breach of contract by either party, warrants this severance pay.)

Section 17: Indemnification, even requires that the Town go beyond the applicable Federal, State, and Local Law to provide legal coverage for the Town manager “against any tort, professional liability claim or demand or other legal action, whether groundless or otherwise, arising out of an alleged act or omission occurring the the performance of Employee’s duties”… This even includes independent legal council for the Town Manager at the Town’s expense.

Please read this document. If you have any information as to how accurately this reflects the contract that the Town Council is currently working on, I would love to hear about it.

I cannot believe that this sort of manipulation is under consideration by our Council. At first, I was irate about the timing. Now, I am just disgusted in general.

I want to know what Town Council members knew about this before it was presented by the Mayor in those nice little manilla envelopes. I want to know what Council members may have even provided feedback in setting up the final copy that includes all of the dates and rates.

If Town Council and the Town Manager had any hopes of restoring trust with citizens, this should just about ‘sink that ship’. But, obviously, it is business as usual with no respect for citizens.

This just totally STINKS!!! Read it and form your own opinion.

CMA site online where they have a sample government document “Model Employment Agreement

As to a roughly 3 year contract, there are citizens who have complained to the Town Manager about problems for years without the problem ever being addressed. Maybe that contract should include something whereby he is responsible for paying for the damages to property from sewer and stormwater, for devaluation of homes because of that and because of poor decisions made (i.e., Aquatic Center expansion). Maybe he needs to cover the costs for every time DCR has had to come in and enforce the very laws that the Town is suppose to be enforcing concerning Erosion and Sediment Control.

Maybe, just maybe, if the Council and Town Manager had paid a bit more attention to what citizens wanted instead of what they wanted, citizens would be a bit more agreeable to this contract.

Now, I am sure that all of you have probably seen more campaign information this year than ever before. What does this tell you? Well, obviously there are people who really, really want to win. Maybe they want to win badly enough to spend lots of someones money on ‘advertising’.

What it tells me is that there are those who are scared, for perhaps the first time, that the status quo will not be maintained. Or, maybe there is concern that if new eyes come into local government, things will become public that have not become public before. After all, Christiansburg only discovered the Freedom of Information Act about 3 years ago (although it has been around for about 40 years now).

Now, how are they treating their opponents. There are a lot of distortions and lies going around. Campaign signs have been stolen. All of that seems like a much harder way to prove you are the best candidate than simply showing what you have done.

How people run their campaign can also show you how they are likely to treat people who do not share their goals, values, or beliefs. Are they likely to discuss issues with you logically, offering the data to support their positions, or are they just going to stand in defiance and demand that they have their way?

Is raising or not raising taxes more important that irresponsible spending? Is making promises that are never fulfilled what you want in a candidate? Do you want leadership that takes credit for the work of others and places any blame squarely on anyone else they can find to blame?

Stop and listen to the candidates. Are they answering your questions or are they dodging them. During the candidate forums, I heard a lot of “mistakes were made” comments but I never once heard the comment “I made mistakes, but I have learned from them.” Of course, there is no evidence in the minutes of Planning Commission or Town Council to indicate that mistakes were acknowledged or that steps were taken to prevent those mistakes from happening again. In fact, the minutes show the same mistakes being made over and over again.

***another word from our sponsor FOIA*** If you were present at the Candidate Forum you heard Mayor Ballengee note that he did not know what urban sprawl meant. Well here are a few definitions for future use:

• an unplanned, disorganized growth of housing etc on the edge of a city
• Slang term for the growth of cities in an unplanned and often wasteful manner.
• the unplanned uncontrolled growth of urban areas into the surrounding countryside.
• The unplanned and often haphazard growth of an urban area throughout a larger geographic area.

The Town of Christiansburg, VA page at myvaresources.com has a LOT of documents and audio/video recording links where any citizen can take a look at what government has been doing in Christiansburg for the past decade. You will see from meeting minutes that budgets are discussed early in non-election years and late in election years. You will see a pattern of issues coming up before the election and then not being supported or addressed until time for the next election. In short, you will find all of the political games that you see at the State and National level, right here at your own doorstep.

As always, check out the information for yourself. Sometimes change is about going back to the way that things use to be, where elected officials represented all the citizens not just special interest groups.

You might also want to remember that the same Comprehensive Plan that set the stage for the Aquatic Center includes a goal of having a Civic Center. Is that what’s next on the agenda? Will it happen the same way, behind closed doors without citizens being informed?

Please take the time to do a bit of research on candidates before you cast you vote on May 4th at the Armory.