Depot Dazed

On June 2, 2009, at the Christiansburg Town Council Meeting, a presentation was done by the Christiansburg High School Photography Club. This group had volunteered to generate photographs of Christiansburg for use on the new town website. Unfortunately, these photos have not been displayed on the Town’s website as promised. (more…)

HB619: Erosion and sediment control; may assess civil penalty.

This has just passed the House and as with the Health Care bill, has been defanged there (although maybe not as badly as the Health Care bill). Now, it is up to the Senate. (more…)

Wow…all that wonderful stuff in the Vision 2020…all those great projects happening in some areas of town…All Town Council’s visions (see: ThinkChristiansburg.com). Then, on the other handthere are issues like: (more…)

I kept waiting for someone to bring up a couple of issues about this, but they never did during the Joint Public Hearing held on January 6, 2010. The discussion was concerning the application of fees for those people who wish to pay their town bills using a credit card. (more…)

According to the State Code: found on LIS (see below) terms of existing Town Council Members or Mayor are not to be shortened except as noted in Section D below which states:

This shortening of some people’s terms (those who were elected in May of 2008) will mean that those people will need to run again and be elected in the November election.
There is one apparent hitch in this ‘get-along’ in that the shortening is restricted to 6 months. Given that the Town of Christiansburg elected officials don’t take office until September (rather than in July as other jurisdictions do) it appears there will need to be some overlap.

Is it possible that for a 2 month period we could have more than 6 Town Council Members? Suppose the 3 incumbents ran in November and were defeated, could we possibly have a situation where for 2 months we would have 9 Town Council Members?

What a mess? Well, the Town of Christiansburg set their starting dates in September while State Code says they state in July (§ 24.2-222. Election and terms of mayor and council for cities and towns. Apparently, this date was established in the 1954 Charter for the Town of Christiansburg. Since one of those council members affected has put forth that he will be seeking legal recourse to the shortening of his term, it may be that things will get interesting…again.

(Town Council Videos of this meeting should be available later today at myvaresouces.com.)
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§ 24.2-222.1. Alternative election of mayor and council at November general election in cities and towns.

A. Notwithstanding the provisions of § 24.2-222, the council of a city or town may provide by ordinance that the mayor, if an elected mayor is provided for by charter, and council shall be elected at the November general election date of any cycle as designated in the ordinance, for terms to commence January 1. No such ordinance shall be adopted between January 1 and the May general election date of the year in which city or town elections regularly are scheduled to be held therein.

B. Alternatively, the registered voters of a city or town may file a petition with the circuit court of the city or of the county within which the town is located asking that a referendum be held on the question of whether the city or town should elect the mayor, if an elected mayor is provided for by charter, and council members at the November general election date of any cycle as designated in the petition. The petition shall be signed by registered voters equal in number to at least ten percent of the number registered in the city or town on the January 1 preceding the filing.

The court, pursuant to § 24.2-684, shall order the election officials on a day fixed in the order to conduct a referendum on the question, provided that no such referendum shall be scheduled between January 1 and the May general election date of the year in which city or town elections regularly are scheduled to be held therein. The clerk of the court shall publish notice of the referendum once a week for the three consecutive weeks prior to the referendum in a newspaper having general circulation in the city or town, and shall post a copy of the notice at the door of the courthouse of the city or county within which the town is located. The question on the ballot shall be:

“Shall the (city or town) change the election date of the mayor (if so provided by charter) and members of council from the May general election to the November general election (in even-numbered or odd-numbered years or as otherwise designated in the petition)?”

If members of the school board in the city or town are elected by the voters, the ballot question also shall state that the change in election date applies to the election of school board members.

The referendum shall be held and the results certified as provided in § 24.2-684. If a majority of the voters voting in the referendum vote in favor of the change, the mayor and council thereafter shall be elected at the November general election date for terms to commence January 1.

C. Except as provided in subsection D, no term of a mayor or member of council shall be shortened in implementing the change to the November election date. Mayors and members of council who were elected at a May general election and whose terms are to expire as of June 30 shall continue in office until their successors have been elected at the November general election and have been qualified to serve.

D. In any city or town that elects its council biennially or quadrennially and that changes to the November general election date in odd-numbered years from the May general election date in even-numbered years, mayors and members of council who were elected at a May general election shall have their term of office shortened by six months but shall continue in office until their successors have been elected at the November general election and have been qualified to serve.

(2000, c. 1045; 2002, c. 30.)

What would you want to see done differently?

What are the primary issues that you see as needing to be addressed?

These could be important questions. Maybe some of those who will be running for Town Council positions will read and head. Remember we have one more May election before the move to November. That could mean one last big push to create change or, one final push to maintain the status quo for a few more years before the November elections have an impact.

What do you want to see happen in your town? I’ll be adding a few ideas of my own over the next few months. AT the same time, I’ll be looking hard at your suggestions, at the town code, the comprehensive plan, meeting minutes since 2001, audio and video recordings (which by the way are finishing loading and should be all up to date by noon today), and all the emails I’ve received from you.

I think it is a good idea to begin discussing issues now to give a better idea of what citizens identify as issues to those who may be running for election.

As many of you know, I keep a running lists of questions that people have contacted me about. One of the most common one’s I hear is “How can the Town of Christiansburg get sued so much and then even the Town Council Members cannot find out what the settlement price was?”

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.

In order to find that out, you have to do a lot of work because there is no clear picture presented by the Town of Christiansburg. Trying to figure all of this out from documents that are available is quite a task, but I do love a challenge.

I have been working on such a project for some time now. I have gotten copies of the Capital Improvement Plans, Budgets, “Pay the Bills”, Town Audits, Auditor of Public Accounts Records, and Minutes of Town Council and Planning Commission Meetings.

By the way, at the last Town Council meeting, the Town Manager mentioned that there had been no need to pay extra money for outdated software…..guess he forgot that he was the one who told Town Council that fact and that the meeting was recorded. Age does things to memory.

But, anyway, in doing all of the research I’ve done, I’ve found a few little tidbits to share. They are far too extensive to be put in one blog so look for more in the future as I am finally summarizing data.

One of the first things that happens with deciding how your tax money is spent is that the Department Heads submit requests based on their projected needs. The Town Manager goes through those and trims out what he determines to be the ‘fat’ in the requests. Then the condensed version is submitted to members of the Planning Commission. (Based upon this flowpath, the Planning Commission members are some of the first to know of every major expense — like Aquatic Centers.) The Planning Commission then casts an eye on the proposed expenses, maybe ask a few questions, and it is then passed on to the Town Council.

There are two primary categories of expenditures that they ‘look’ at: General and Enterprise. General expenses deal with those routine services that are not designed to generate revenue or pay for themselves. the Enterprise expenses deal with those areas where the Town expects to receive payment in exchange for the services (i.e., water, sewer, garbage). Both of these have subcatefories: (Note: this denotes money approved. It does not mean that the money was actually spent. It also does not include any extra money the Council may have authorized after the CIP has been adopted.) Finding out what exactly was spent and when is what takes a lot more work to figure out. This is just the starting point.)

The Total $ Authorized includes monies authorized for Equipment, Construction, and Other (usually engineering fees or loan payments).

Note 1: Prior to the 2007-08 Fiscal Year authorization of funds for the Aquatic Center were included in the Parks and Recreation Department subgroup. The Aquatic Center total including those would be $36,573,500.00 in authorized funds. (A difference of $8,742,000.00.) This would also mean that the actual Parks and Recreation total would be: $14,895,500.00.

Note 2: The designation of Planning as a category is somewhat interesting because of the clustering of expenses included there. Downtown construction is a large expense but there is nothing to indicate whether that is related to streets or buildings, it also includes funds used to support the: Free Clinic, Museum, Literacy Volunteers, Trans Dominion Express, NRV Cares, Boys & Girls Club, Smart Way Bus, Round the Mountain, and several other items that are not associated with the “Planning Process” that many people may think of when Planning Department is mentioned. For some reason, the Town of Christiansburg puts its donations into the Planning Department Budget. Most jurisdictions have a separate category for these types of donations.

As noted previously, these are authorized/recommended fundings, not actual expenditures. They do, however, give a good indication of what the priorities of Town government are and, if you go to the actual CIP documents on the website MyVAResources.com (They can be found by going to the Town Council page and scrolling down to the section listing previous years. Then, click on the Town Council link for a year (2001 does not have a CIP because of it was finished and approved before the start of that fiscal year.) I hope to have a separate webpage set up with just those documents available to make it easier to access in a few days. In the meantime, you have to search like I did:) Or, you can use the .pdf file I made of my worksheets to get a better idea of what I am talking about since it provides more details. You’ll find the link on the Special Studies page of the website. The link is titled “Capital improvement Plan Review”.

Now, back to digging through all the information to find out how much was added and how much was spent. I bet this system could be made a bit more transparent with only a little bit of effort.

Councilman Michael Barber made the introduction of the new Finance Officer at the last Town Council meeting. Ms. Tweedie arrived here from her former home in Michigan to be greeted warmly by elected officials, citizens, and the weather:) Mr. Barber took a few moments to discuss her very impressive credentials, then Ms. Tweedie spoke briefly on looking forward to her job here.

When Mr. Barber discussed Ms. Tweedie’s credentials, one particular item caught my attention. Ms. Tweedie is bringing something into Town that could open a whole new world of opportunities for Christiansburg. She has extensive business in the management of grants. This has been an area that has been a major deficit in Town until now.

There are a lot of opportunities available for funding for Town projects that are grant based. Without having someone who is very knowledgable in writing and then managing those grants, the chances of getting those grants is slim.

Mr. Barber and Ms. Carter, on the Finance Committee, did a wonderful job of developiing the criteria for the position and making sure that the person hired had the qualifications to open the door to a brighter future in Chrisitansburg. While having such an experienced and qualified person working with the grant processes certainly does not guarantee that funds will magically become available, it puts Christiansburg in a much more competitive position.

A world of opportunities are on the horizon. Now, THAT IS PROGRESSIVE!

Welcome, and good luck to you Ms. Tweedie. No pressure, but we are counting on you!

By the way people, be patient. Ms. Tweedie will need a little bit of time to become adjusted and to make some adjustments, but I have an idea great things are coming!!!

Mr. Barber and Ms. Carter — great job!!

I finally got a chance to do a bit more work on the ‘myvaresources.com’ citizen webpage (home to all things Christiansburg related to government).

Along with a bit of a face lift (still working), you can find a copy of the proposed Zoning Amendment related to FloodPlain Districts that will be part of the Public Hearing on August 4th Town Council Meeting. There is also a video of the August 3rd Planning Commission Meeting (a good thing to watch if you ever want to apply for one of those positions.

I will keep working on this site and adding to it when I can find time. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of doing this is that I now have 5 web pages to manage (with a possible 6th coming soon) and they all pay the same … nothing. I have to try to earn a living in between the web work. These pages are not perfect and I always welcome suggestions for change. Please remember that I have only been doing this for a year now and have had no training in how to build and maintain websites. I know of a lot of mistakes that I found and corrected. There are probably that many more that I have not noticed yet. But, heck, it’s still not a bad deal since it is done for free:)

Hope to see you at the Town Council Meeting!