Revisiting a re-visitation of the Meals Tax increase is on the agenda on the Tuesday, June 8th, Special Meeting of the Christiansburg Town Council. Rather than go through all the gory (although sickly humorous) details of why this is necessary, read the editorial at the Roanoke Times.com: Editorial: Christiansburg’s budget shenanigans. You can always watch the video at MyVAResources.com’s Videos of Public Meetings page, Part 5 on the 6/1/10 Town Council Meeting is the key element. On another note in the same sad song:
After you’ve read and/or seen those, take a look at another Roanoke Times article by Christian Trejbal “The registrar’s office needs a change“. While I do like the people at the Registrar’s Office here a great deal, there have been some issues. Now, exactly how many of those issues are a function of monetary cuts to that department by the County is certainly open for debate. There have been times when they have had to rely on volunteers to help get the jobs done.
What links these two articles together? Why the failure of Christiansburg elected officials to read, comprehend, and follows the rules/laws. Mistakes made during campaigns are extraordinarily similar to those made at the Town Council meeting in that there was a was either ignorance of, or disregard for, the laws of the State of Virginia. Verbal promises are pretty much meaningless when the actions undertaken effectively undermine those promises. Those promises are cheapened even further when there is a disregard for the law. Pretty words from politicians also known as empty rhetoric.
I have heard that some Town Council members feel that they are being pressured because of the way citizens are coming to the meetings and people are being kept informed of what is happening because of blogs and video recordings. The fact that citizens are watching to be sure that their elected officials are deserving of citizen respect and future votes should not be a surprise to Town Council. If there is nothing to hide, and you are following the rules, then all should be fine. It is the right of citizens to watch their government perform, to ask questions, to expect (and where necessary demand) answers. It is the right of citizens to hold elected officials accountable and to point out when elected officials talk a good show but do nothing to see that the issues are dealt with.
For example, during the 6/1/2010 meeting, I asked Town Council again to do something about the Urban flooding being caused in Cambria by the Town’s failure to manage stormwater in the area. Through both act (increasing development with impervious surfaces, failing to anticipate the amount of storm water runoff, and channeling storm water from surround areas directly into the floodplain area rather than insuring it runs into an effective storm water management system) and omission (failure to do anything when FEMA determined flooding was the result of inadequate storm water management, failure to do anything when citizens came forward on multiple occasions over the last several years asking the town to correct the issues) the Town has caused the problems at the area where Cambria and Depot St. intersect. (As an aside here, as one person at the meeting pointed out, there was flooding in Cambria during the 1960′s. It was during a little cloudburst named “Hurricane Camille” and the year was 1969 and a record 27″ of rain fell in the mountains of Virginia. Flash flooding took the lives of 153 people. (I wonder what would happen if that same type of storm hit again today.)
The Mayor’s response was that the Town had sent out an Engineer. The fact that the Town had sent out an Engineer was verified by the Town Manager, and I added the fact that Engineers had been out several times. The sending out of a handful of engineers has been ineffective. The perimeter of a berm necessary to hold water away from the historic depot is approximately 400 feet. If you assume an average of 6′ in height for each engineer, you would need 66.66… engineers to build a berm with and that would only be 1 engineer thickness in height. Given that the thicknesses of engineers varies significantly from engineer to engineer, another 30 or so engineers would be needed to equalize the height of the berm for a total of 100 engineers. At the rate of 3 – 4 engineers annually coming out to look at the problem, acknowledging the problem, and still seeing nothing done about the problem, it would take approximately 25 to 30 years for there to be enough engineers in place to protect the building.
I have written the EPA to ascertain if there would be any problems with the use of engineers as berm material due to the byproducts developed by a well fed and maintained berm of engineers. I have yet to receive a response but I anticipate there would be problems. If not properly fed and maintained, the environmental impact could be far worse. Although I do suppose it is possible to make an argument that in either case, an act of nature could be blamed for the problem thus making it okay with the Town of Christiansburg.
All in all, I’m betting that there could be more effective measures taken to control the runoff than to pay 100 or so engineers to lay down on the job.
This was one of the funniest, most humorous items I have read in weeks. I laughed out loud, long and hard, and will share this perspective with my friends.
I regret that I am not a town resident, but live a few hundred yards outside the town limits. My expressed opinions would carry more weight if I were a resident.
Town residents should be encouraged to attend more council meetings. The workings of the small town decision process is thoroughly intriguing. Residents need to share more in the decision making process, and not assume that a) they are powerless- b) the elected decision makers are experts in all issues- and c)decisions are made with the best interests of all constituents in mind.
“Who shall guard the guardians?”
Watch out for annexation activities or you could find yourself in the middle of all of this mess. Personally, I don’t think the Town of Christiansburg should be allowed to annex anything until they can show that they can do right by what they have! Molly Ivins quotes applying here: 1. (for Town Council) “The first rule of holes: when you’re in one, stop digging. ” 2. (for citizens) “What you need is sustained outrage…there’s far too much unthinking respect given to authority.” She was and always will be one of my heroes. These and other quotes can be found at: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/molly_ivins.htm
This was the best and most humorous article I have read in a while! Go get ‘em! I am not a town resident, but I travel frequently the areas that are mentioned in this article.
The town, or so it appears, is so busy right now with the new sidewalks, the new aquatic center, etc that they cannot find the time to address something that has been going on for years. In 1985, I lived not far from these areas and recognize this has been an on going situation. The Town of Cburg, needs to wise up and elect better and qualified officials for the next council. The “good ole boy” network -whereas people re-elect others just because they have been around the area or they know them, should be history as this situation among other situtions continue to not be addressed by the elected council. Continue on with your pressing issues and make them be held accountable for which they were/are elected to provide to the citizens of Cburg!!
This was the best and most humorous article I have read in a while! Go get ‘em! I am not a town resident, but I travel frequently the areas that are mentioned in this article.
The town, or so it appears, is so busy right now with the new sidewalks, the new aquatic center, etc that they cannot find the time to address something that has been going on for years. In 1985, I lived not far from these areas and recognize this has been an on going situation. The Town of Cburg, needs to wise up and elect better and qualified officials for the next council. The “good ole boy” network -whereas people re-elect others just because they have been around the area or they know them, should be history as this situation among other situations continue to not be addressed by the elected council. Continue on with your pressing issues and make them be held accountable for which they were/are elected to provide to the citizens of Cburg!!
That’s what you are going to get with those professional politicians running the show.
If someone with the “right” last name had a property that was flooding, something would have been done, but alas, you are not on the list !
Oh, I’m sure I’m on a list somewhere, just not the list of citizens most likely to be served.
Annexation is ‘near’….near Riner, for example.
It’s a ‘done deal’ that the Town wants certain areas to add to their tax coffers.
I don’t think they should annex anything else, period. Enough is enough; encroachment, falsehoods, and even actions deemed as intimidation by the Town Manager and his cronies.
“Mud Pike” area has been the talk of the town (that part of town the TC is unaware of — general citizens). You can bet that annexation is high on the agenda because it increases tax revenue without having to increase property taxes. Unfortunately, it also puts a high load on services (both set up for and ongoing maintenance of) on town residents so we head right back into the ‘picking the worst problems to deal with’ rather than an ongoing upgrade to all citizen services.