Then, I started looking a bit deeper. Could it be that the people who are most afraid are the ones who have used this issue for years as a way of getting elected are afraid that if health care reform comes to pass, it will be such a success that they will have to address other things for campaign issues. Darn, that could cause them to have to write new speeches, get new signs, maybe even shake a few more hands. Just something to think about.

The Roanoke Times recently covered a story on the Museum in the old Depot in Cambria. I had been thinking lately of some sort of historical reinactment to do in Cambria as part of a celebration. Thank you Mac Mitchell. You have given me the answer I have sought all this time.

Here’s what we need to do. We start in Riner where we have people bring in turkeys from where ever turkeys come from before they arrive at Kroger. Nope, not the Sarah Palen types of turkey that are headless. I mean, the walking, talking, strutting kind of turkeys….(nope, not elected officials either). Anyway, we get about 200-300 of these turkeys collected and sorta like that “running of the bulls” thing they do in Spain, we do a ‘running of the turkeys’. We bring that herd of turkeys all the way from Riner, through downtown Christiansburg and right up to the Depot as if they were being driven up to load on railcars.  What a sensation! I’ll bet people from miles around would come to watch the event. But, on second thought, maybe it would work better with elected officials. Naw…they’re not as colorful but the noise level would be about the same!

(Just some thoughts while I’m still working on the Water Sewer Ordinance update review:)

Purpose of the meeting will be to review information from Blacksburg Transit on a proposal to extend bus service within the Town of Christiansburg.

Well, it is certainly not at a time that makes it easy for people to attend but the upside is it leaves you plenty of time to call or write your Town Council members, time to write those letters to the editor of the Roanoke Times or the Messenger.

I’ll do my best to record the meeting but storage space and time is becoming cumbersome. I will probably just start putting those parts of the meetings that are most important up online rather than the whole meetings. I will make cd’s available upon request for those who want full copies though. Hope to see you at this meeting.

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.