Thanks bw, you wrote what I had been thinking and saved me the trouble in regards to posting our own names.  If we have to name ourselves there will be much less involvement on these PT forums.  I think that this has actually been a HEALTHY exchange and I, for one,  wd be a bit hesitant to make some of the comments I have (nothing negative, just statements and agreeing w/ that dastardly DG) for fear of having the wrath of the CA Fan Club descend upon me.  And I would prefer not to have my name (and easily googled address) posted for all the overseas hackers that also visit this site.

In any event, I think if one were to read through all of the multiple posts on this and other discussions about the CA/ BOS matter, most of the negativity and name calling has actually been from the Fan Club itself.  Most of the written attacks have been directed towards the BOS, various posters who have written reasoned and thought provoking observations, and the writer of a certain other newsletter in the county.  For some reason, we have not seen much civility on the part of the individuals writing those negative posts - and for the most part they have not (with a few exceptions) backed up their statements of support with evidence of a history of fiscal responsiblity for our taxpayer dollars by the previous CA.  Conversely, there are other posters here who support the CA’s resignation who HAVE studied this matter and have apparently made repeated statements of concern about the matter for a number of years past.

Bottom line, if you do not disagree with the BOS and you don’t plan to sign a petition to have their heads roll, you may find yourself being picketed - or at least have an editorial written about you in the PT.

Redundant,
Thanks for the reply. If i boil it down I get:

Less people move into empty houses here.
Business won’t want to move here.
Regional Partnerships won’t partner with us.

first off I would argue that the citizens that don’t want to become suburbia or chesterfield would consider all those 3 positive effects.
http://10.200.1.70/admin/
Ignoring that idea and focusing on trying to quantify things, I’d think that the majority of people moving are not even considering the local politics of a destination. If they are going to powhatan there are likely reasons such as getting acreage, rural atmosphere, etc. I find it hard to believe it would be because of their impression of the local politics. Everyone knows that the general public’s impression of politics is pretty low. US Congress approval rating is 18% or some such disaster number.(dont’ quote me on that but it’s low)

Business revocations I think sort of mirror those for people with the addition of business taxes, fees, number of consumers, etc. Sure a compliant administration would help but… compare things to places like California regulations and overbearing regulatory issues. I dont think personal politics and he said/she said stuff is really going to sway their opinion.

Regional Partnerships…. I would think they would be more about the administration and BOS’s actual interaction with other localities. The external optics of an internal issue is more cause for gossip at Regional meetings than any actual exclusion… if you ask me.

Now, if they act as you describe towards our regional partners then yes, it’s going to weaken some regional partnerships. Whether those partnerships where for are things we may not want, such as Bus Services, or Water rights, you’d have to discuss specific partnerships. A bike trail from Chesterfield through Powhatan to Maidens landing, along 711 would be nice, bus service down 711 to Maidens, not so much for the majority if you ask me.

So, while I agree that the negative press might have some impact that some would consider negative, I wouldn’t rate it anywhere near things like murders and gangs, rural character, gun laws, acreage costs. etc.

less people moving here will reduce house prices which will make it more likely for people to move here right? It’s hard to quantify it all and I’m not saying you have to agree with my characterizations above, but you should recognize that one could reasonably believe as I’ve stated above. At that point, we no longer have any definitive and obvious negative effects, merely arguably negative or positive effects.

I’m not saying I need to see 100% negative effects, but something pretty definitive like murders, gangs, etc that most people would agree are negative. Politicians with egos? Really? Is that something new? Forget about the disagreements as to whether their ego is too big or not, just assume you are right and it is…. no one would be surprised.

Secret meetings? I’ve pounded that one about Walton’s secrete Walmart meeting request, no one ever denounced it as a reason that surrounding counties and people would not move here or not work with us. They would do that due to Walton’s condescending arrogant attitude, but not because of the walmart meeting.

I’ll just quit. I’m way over quota on this one.

Thanks for saying I seem educated, it’s probably only because I proofread and try to fix spelling errors at least.

r. michaelson-that’s your name? not your name?  I don’t know you either way so what difference does it make if poster is anonymous?  I only know a small % of the 25,000 plus in the county.  I read the text of the post, not the name.

Have noted since RTD went to facebook that posts are much less interesting and seem be be far fewer in number.  So they cut out a few of the worthless posters but they also lost a lot of good viewpoints, in my humble opinion.  So easy to ignore the posts with definite bias, personal attacks, etc.  And some just add humor that breaks up the norm.  Think you lost some of your point with your salty language.  But that’s your option.  (I do think PT show edit some of the posts, like some of the obvious “hacking” items we have seen lately.

Ponz, you seem like a well educated individual so I am surprised that you can’t think of any negative effects from being a part of a county under the direction of a majority whose egos are bigger than Mt. McKinley, who appear to prefer back door dealing and pressuring to working with people, and who then can’t seem to acknowledge any culpability in this mess they have created.

Why would a new business want to set up shop here and deal with these guys?  Regional partnerships won’t want to be connected to us, new residents won’t want to come here and buy some of the empty houses sitting out there, and the list really could go on. 

If there were some effective counterpoints made, that would be refreshing.  Instead, we see a regurgitation of the same statements over and over again and unfortunately, they are no more effective the 100th time around than they were the first time because they attempt to divert from true analysis of the situation.  I suppose it doesn’t really matter because the new majority keep producing press releases that contain information that contradicts their own previous statements and so they are proving the points all on their own.

Pot Calling the Kettle Black, just proving my point that this forum is not moderated and anyone, using any name they want and not even having to put a REAL email address in the information field can type ANYTHING THEY WANT no matter how and, I quote again, “off the wall, offensive, degrading, and libelous” and it would remain posted.  That does not happen on the RTD website.  One would think since the RTD owns this paper, they would employ the same technology.  The only people that care are you “Keyboard Warriors” who get their lacy panties in a bunch when someone calls them out, and then ensue to acting like teenagers because they can type it out and not have to say it to peoples faces.

what what,

It floors me what people will say and do to CYA. Throwing someone under the bus who has been gone for over a year, assuming nobody knows better.

from the other thread, because it bears repeating:

The responsibility started and stopped with the former CA. She was the boss, furthermore, the former Budget Director was working under her direction and did as they were told. Or are we to understand that we had “rogue” suboordinates ? By the way, who do you think trained her ? Who do you think had the background and experience in finance ? The former CA.

Or are we to assume that the former CA was so inept at management or worried about hurting people’s feelings, that her senior advisors and suboordinates did as they pleased with no correction, regardless of results ? Which is it ?

Your arguments only prove my earlier points. The the CA would not make personnel changes, and/or managed an incompetent shop. It was HER responsibility to make changes as needed to right the ship for the taxpayers. Either she taught her people to do it wrong, or she wouldn’t get the right people in.

From the other post - by “what” - sounds like yet again there is more to this. Surprise surprise. The BOS sure likes to point blame. Mr. Moore was there last year and I agree with this post.

“That is not true. Well, maybe the previous finance director part. I work for the county and a lot of us were upset because the previous finance director only focused on total and when the previous county administrator took the budget over, she did focus on line items. The previous county administrator made it a mandate that the new finance person would focus on line items because the previous county administrator (fixed from other post) worked to better line up the line-items with the departments and she wanted to keep them in line in the future. We tried to do that with the previous finance director and she told us she was too busy. Mrs. Bishop made sure to adjust the line items for the FY12 budget and to give directors a good base and the Board of supervisors. We were always mad the previous finance director got paid so much money and we were not pleased.

We appreciated what the previous county administrator did. She listened to us. I know there were adjustments between departments to make it better, too. Which was also not done by the previous finance person. She was just too “busy” but that is what she was paid to do. To give the county administrator good data and good budgeting. She didn’t.

Oh and by the way, I know the current finance director didn’t even give the previous county administrator my department’s budget information for next year until the director met with them in December. I think that is the process, not sure, but I know she didn’t get budgets until then to even begin evaluating. Maybe that is because the finance person has to evaluate first, don’t know.

One more thing. We all knew that Mr. Moore went through every line item in every budget last year. He asked us lots of questions. If this is such a problem, why did’t he fix it last year. He always brought up line items in the budget meetings. He knew the previous county administrator did her best to clean up the mess that was left for her. And he knows that. I would believe so does tucker too since he was there.”

To “Someone of Powhatan”:

Regarding Jason “No Malpractice Insurance” Moore’s latest pronouncement, what is the status of the County Attorney position?  At one time there was talk about firing both the County Attorney and Bishop.

as for the MPW article in the times dispatch….

What stuck me was when he quoted the Powhatan REpublcian Commitee weebsite posting of Nov 8 or something as if it was somehow responsive to this big incident.

Maybe I read it wrong, but it seemed to be a quick thrown together article, with weak supporting aruguments other than alot of people were unhappy…. I don’t dispute that.( I was impressed with the attendance at the meeting as I posted back then).

I used to write papers in high school like that… think up the thesis of the book report and then skim the book looking for anything i could stretch and mangle into a supporting reason for the thesis of the paper…. without actually having read the book.

I think it was DG below who said MPW never attended any meeting or had a clue.

If you ask me, MPW is a perpetual underdog fighting the “good fight”. The current “fight the power” action is against the new BOS. I dont remember the details, because i didnt’ bother to read hi stuff, but I heard discussions about how the previous BOS wasn’t in his good graces either. In those cases his articles were dismissed as inaccurate and worthless inflammatory garbage.

Redundant,

What are the effects of surrounding counties having a negative opinion of us? Could you name 2 or 3?

I’m trying to think of some potential effect that you describe that I’d care about, but I can’t think of any.

I can think of things like, the walmart will get less business from people not wanting to come into a coutny that makes such bad decisions…. but hey,  less people in line when I check out is a positive thing. Same with traffic on 60 at the lights.

the best effect i can think of is less biking tours down 711 on Saturdays, since the county makes such bad decisions. That would actually, probably save the lives of bicylists!

So… I would say that maybe one of the effects is to save lives?
Of coruse this si sarcastic and you may not appreciate it, but please, name a couple effects involving surrounding counties, of the new BOS decisions so far.

Roger Michaelson,
Do you really think requiring facebook accounts will provide 100% identification of the poster? Only for posters who decide it’s not worth the trouble to create a anonymous facebook account. Basically it’ will raise the bar to posting anonymously, but it won’t stop it.

It would do more to prevent impersonation of aliases… although that hasn’t seemed to be too much problem that I’ve noticed.