Rod Stewart tells us that the ‘First Cut is the Deepest.’ Corey Stewart tells us that cuts will be ‘deep’ and ‘painful’.
The News and Messenger highlighted part of yesterday’s BOCS meeting but concentrated on Chairman Stewart’s State of the County Address. Excerpts include:
As part of his “state of the county address,” Stewart talked of Prince William’s unusual circumstances in comparison with surrounding jurisdictions.
“Last year, when other major localities in the region hoped for the best, we prepared for the worst,” he said.And as a result, Prince William differs from other communities in that budget shortfalls were not felt in this current fiscal year, and taxes are not planned to increase in the coming fiscal year. Still, he said, challenges are coming.
“[Our] work has just begun,” Stewart said, “[and] 2009 will present the toughest fiscal challenge this board or this county has ever faced. Declining home values and
shrinking sales tax and other revenues means a projected shortfall in the next fiscal year of $190 million. This problem is compounded by the substantial cuts expected from the General Assembly.”The work for the upcoming budget season will focus mainly on cuts: “The cuts will be deep. The cuts will be painful. But the cuts mean that … this board shall deliver a tax cut to all of you at home,” he said.
Stewart touted some of the county’s perceived successes of the past year — deporting more than 1,300 illegal aliens; implementing an illegal immigration policy that’s being copied by other communities; building roads in the face of transportation budget shortfalls and cuts; creating a housing assistance program for government employees that “helps reduce the oversupply of unsold homes” and foreclosures.
How can Corey Stewart not think budget shortfalls are not being felt this current year? Has he been in a school? That might be a good place to start.
He announced, with great pride, that there would be not tax increases. Now, does this sound like a smart move to make? Don’t most people want to live in a county where there are services, libraries, police, fire and rescue, parks? Perhaps he does notunderstands what we are facing.
Perhaps he might want to hold off on that promise not to raise taxes. No new taxes bit Daddy Bush in the butt. The same might happen to Daddy Stewart. Why would anyone want a tax break now, when county employees will soon be laid off in droves and services will disappear.
Stewart also labors under the impression that 1,300 illegal criminal aliens were deported. I would feel more confident had he explained that they were picked up by ICE. Actually, we have no idea what happened to them once ICE got them and we certainly have no knowledge that they were deported.
What localities are modeling us? Most localities see that we have the most foreclosures of any jurisdiction in the state and cross their index fingers in that manner that wards off vampires. Who would want to copy us?
Did ADC Superintendent Pete Meletis not tell the BOCS that many of our ‘deportees’ had been re-arrested in Prince William County or Manassas? It makes one wonder what our ‘return rate’ really is. Someone needs to refresh Mr. Stewart’s memory.
Perhaps some of the readers will be willing to comment on the committee report. That seemed like a lot people just wasted their time. Chairman Stewart appeared to be doing a lot of eye rolling.
On a very pleasant note, Brentsville Supervisor Wally Covington was elected Vice Chairman of the BOCS.
Please let us know your impressions of the meeting if you watched, attended, listened on the audio or have inside information.
So much for getting an apology from this incompetent and arrogant blow-hard. Robb Pearson, I don’t know what you were thinking.
Why no tax increases? It’s obvious. By destroying the county’s economy and housing market in his short but disastrous tenure, he’s disappointed everyone except the hard-core no tax, no government, no services, no regulation extremists. If there were tax hikes on top of the economic destruction, slashed services, and plummeting reputation of this county, he’d have lost everyone’s support.
And 1300 does not mean 1300 deported. It means 1300 went into the ICE system and a good many of them came right back here after ICE decided we didn’t want them. We know that because a percentage of those ended up back in the PWC legal system.
This man will not give up until the voters confront him with the reality he refuses to see.
I happened to notice a new sign placed at the corner of Linton Hall and Rt. 28 announcing that the recent construction nearly complete in widening Linton Hall was brought to us by the BOS and Citizens of PWC. The construction has been underway for a year and the sign just appeared yesterday. Anyway, the sign is as misleading as Mr. Stewart. Yes, the County did pay for a portion of the construction on Linton Hall Road-about a mile and a half from the bridge at Broad Run to Route 28. The remaining six miles of Linton Hall was paid for out of state transportation funds.
Tonight I’ll be speaking at the School Board meeting to urge approval of a contract to begin construction on a new high school off Kettle Run Road. The bid for construction came in over $11 million LESS than anticipated yet there is a question about whether this (greatly) needed school will be built. Why? Because there are legitimate concerns about just how much money Corey and the Gang are going to leave for the schools. We have an opportunity to build a school for a lot less than expected (because construction contractors are hurting for work and will to take jobs on more cheaply) but may not because of short-sighted policies. This is a high school that was needed years ago (just visit Brentsville District High some day to see why) and has already been delayed several times for budgetary reasons.
Don’t tell me we aren’t feeling the pain of budget cuts.
Based preliminary proposals, funding for charitable organizations like ACTS and SERVE who provide a safety net for those at risk of losing their homes and those who are homeless, may lose all of their funding. If they do, both will close their doors at the exact point in time when they are most needed.
Don’t tell me we aren’t feeling the pain of budget cuts.
We are losing good teachers, good police officers, and well-trained fire fighters to surrounding jurisdictions because we can’t keep pace with the salaries they are offering.
Don’t tell me we aren’t feeling the pain of budget cuts.
Sorry, Mr. Stewart, we don’t share your slash and burn vision for Prince William County. Next election, though, you’ll share our pain.
Looks like I get the first shot, oh where to begin, how about the now stale blame game. In typical Corey, and for that matter the BOCS in general, fashion blame for the county’s woes are immediately placed on the Feds and Richmond. Curiously, although he blamed them in his oral statement, those comments do not appear in the hard copy available on the website.
Lets take my favorite first, transportation. According to Corey “Transportation is a state responsibility in Virginia, but the state failed to build roads in Northern Virginia.” While there is little to dispute with regard to the veracity of the statement, blaming Richmond solely for our transportation woes is intellectually dishonest in that our woes stem largely from overdeveloping the existent infrastructure. Yes, Prince William builds its own roads as demonstrated by the widening of Minnieville Road and Linton Hall Road, but those widening projects would not have required county funding if this and previous Boards required infrastructure improvements or at least an ironclad committment to them prior to approving every rezoning application that found its way to the Board. The blame for the disaster that is the Linton Hall traffic situation lies squarely with the Board as last time I checked nobody in Richmond approved the massive number of rezonings in the Linton Hall Corridor. Perhaps Corey should look to his left and affix the blame to Covington and Nohe who had a large hand in creating the mess.
Which brings us to the issue of Covington and Nohe, anybody catch Nohe’s comments with regard to the draft Comp Plan changes made by the Planning Commission with regard to the Long Range Land Use chapter. It would appear that Marty is really unhappy that the Centers of Commerce/Community were eliminated in favor of redevelopment of the Route 1 and Yorkshire corridors. By extension, I guess that means Marty is in favor of even more gross overdevelopment placed in a shotgun spread across the county. He must not be paying much attention to the State budget cuts and diminishing Federal transportation dollars, funds that would be necessary to provide the proposed centers with even a snowball’s chance of success. Well, there’s always the money from the NVTA taxes they didn’t support, oops, forgot, the Board took a stance against those and then looked the other way when Marty motioned, seconded and voted for them, I guess its a good thing Bob Marshall saved them from further embarrassment by having the taxing authority invalidated. I could go on and on about Marty but lets give some love to the newly elected vice-chair, Wally “The Fish” Covington. Should be fun watching him when he has to preside over a meeting as he has never met an issue he can’t be on both sides of. Let’s take water to the Rural Crescent for one, Wally voted in favor of an extension for Fireside Church in the Brentsville District and opposed one for a church in the Gainesville District a month later. Here’s an even better one, he refused to move a small rezoning application for a handful of houses citing the overcrowding at Brentsville HS as the primary if not sole reason but has no trouble advocating large scale development with hundreds of units. Yeah folks, the blame lies largely with the Feds and Richmond, not with Corey, Marty, Wally, Kopko, Rector and Granville-Smith.
Turn PW Blue,
Everything you said is dead on. In my opinion, his day of reckoning will come none to soon. He’s obviously still in denial. He thinks 1300 people have been deported. Geez, let’s see, the same 5% are continuing to be re-caught month in month out and nobody wants to acknowledge these people for the most part aren’t going anywhere, anytime soon. Corey can’t believe this garbage that he spews and it’s pretty disingenuous of him to claim these things as fact when he knows it’s not true.
Thank God for Stewart
and he has my support forever – as someone who used to pay little attention to local politics
Rick:
Sorry, but it sounds like you still pay little attention to local politics.
For what do you offer such thanks? What has Corey Stewart presided over?
When he first ran for Chair, he ran on a platform of slow, controlled growth. How’s that worked out for him? When he next ran, he switched gears and became “Mr. Anti-Illegal.” We all see where that has led.
The County’s finances are in shambles. Our housing market is among the most distressed in the region. Growth has only been controlled by the slumping economy, not the actions of Stewart’s Board. Transportation is still a mess. Forbes Magazine ranked the Linton Hall corridor as the *worst* small town to commute from in the country. Dale City ranked 6th on that list. (http://www.insidenova.com/isn/news/local/article/study_linton_hall_dale_city_among_worst_commutes/26047/).
Our schools rank dead last in per pupil spending in the metro Washington region. While that alone is not necessarily a bad thing, the problems with this stat are revealed when we look at what we pay our teachers and how we have kept up with building adequate instructional spaces.
MOM,
I could not add anything more to that statement. How true, we overdevelop ourselves into this mess and we expect the state to bail us out of it? HUH?
I dread this new year with Wally as Vice Chair, I already envision how busy I will be keeping a watchful eye on the Rural Crescent.
Good Luck TPWB! Kettle Run is so desperately needed. Your post was really thoughtful and of course my favorite line:
“Don’t tell me we aren’t feeling the pain of budget cuts.”
“For what do you offer such thanks? What has Corey Stewart presided over?”
Helping to restore some semblance of law and order. Helping to create a climate in which my neighborhood is not full of undocumented people, potential child molesters and rapists, overcrowding and making mucho noise on the other side of my home’s wall and chatting outside my window at all hours and showering on my lawn unnanounced and leering at my daughter.
and so on and so forth
Elena:
You and I probably need to sit down and talk about keeping a “watchful eye on the Rural Crescent” as the newly elected Vice-Chair already has some projects in the works which will seriously threaten the Rural Crescent and make our transportation problems worse, and yes that is actually possible.
Mom & Elena,
I didn’t think either of you took your eyes of the Rurual Crescent. 🙂
I try to keep my eye on it, and I don’t even live there.
I always knew once Fireside got their way, that door had just been opened for any and all that wanted to follow suit. I must ask you both this was the “Rural Crescent” supposed to be forever or temporary? I’ve heard both.
TurnPWBlue,
Great post. I wish you the best of luck. A new high school in the Brenstville is way beyond just overdue.
corr: eyes OFF of the Rural Crescent 🙂
Mom,
hmmm, how do we connect. If you e-mail admin, she can forward it to me and we can connect.
Chris,
Although the RC was meant as a stop gap measure, one can clearly see that its long term benefits should remain in place. As this area contiues to grow, we could either morph into Fairfax or we could create our own niche as the rare county that maintained both, smart development AND conservation of open space that saves US all a huge amount in taxes that must go towards infrastructure to support the development.
Okay. I’m just floored by the level of b.s. from Crackdown Corey.
So, we’re supposed to be glad we spent 14 MILLION taxpayer dollars to give 2 politicians a temporary ego boost and give 1300 parents a tour of our broken immigration system?
I’m not a math person but isn’t that roughly $7 million per egomaniac and $100,000 per round trip tour back to Prince William County?
Does he think we’ve forgotten who last year’s property value collapse, last year’s tax revenue dropoff, last year’s budget shortfall, and last year’s painful cuts to county services and public schools?
We weren’t “preparing for the worst” last year, you shameless spin-liar. We were IN the worst last year, a year earlier than the rest of the region because of your self-glorifying Immigration Resolution! Now that the rest of America is also in economic crisis mode, it makes it all the more regrettable that we wasted so much money playing politics with our county budget and our public safety.
Nonsense
And homes are selling to AMERICANS now, not to ilelgal immigrants based on crazed, phony loans
And most of us know realize and appreciate it.
Actually, that’s $10,769 per round trip, NGL.
Elena,
I’m not saying that “rural crescent” should not remain as such. I think it serves a good purpose, but the original purpose/intent should reamin intact. Long tem benefits are not always considered in this county when it comes to policy, and otherwise.
“morph into Fairfax” I sure hope not. I think we have a very unique county, because of the mountains and the amount of water at the eastern end. PWC should be a role model for others in the area of conservation and smarth growth.
Rick B, after all this time you are still hypnotized by Greg Letiecq? Hasn’t anyone explained to you that skin color is not an indicator of crime tendencies, let alone legal status? Greg only wanted you to believe that, but after all this tome you would think a smart guy like you would understand that eyes can play tricks. A lot of the people who left were law abiding AMERICANS. I knew some of them.
Here is what the police do in Brazil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlDVaEWsmRo
And here is what the police do in the USA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNmcaew0qEU&feature=related
There’s no other word for it. It’s murder.
But I’m sure everyone on this blog will blow it off as a few bad apples and not systematic…even though these kinds of things curiously always seem to be happening to young black and hispanic males.
Rick some of those AMERICAN investors are already renting to some folks who might very well be illegal. How are you going to handle that one?
Mackie:
I think you’ve got your blogs confused. Not sure how many here would blow this off as a few bad apples…
“Rick B, after all this time you are still hypnotized by Greg Letiecq? Hasn’t anyone explained to you that skin color is not an indicator of crime tendencies, let alone legal status? Greg only wanted you to believe that, but after all this tome you would think a smart guy like you would understand that eyes can play tricks.”
I never saw Greg say anything racially based or biased in the many HSM meetings I’ve attended, quite the opposite. Again, you/we need to seperate out the idiosynchratic stuff in his blog from his leadership of HSM. He lead HSM away from racist stuff and steered it well. His blog is a bit crazed at times but so be it.
“A lot of the people who left were law abiding AMERICANS. I knew some of them.”
Did you ask them if they were leaving because they were disgusted with what was happening to their neighborhoods? I know people who left out of fear and anger.
“Rick some of those AMERICAN investors are already renting to some folks who might very well be illegal. How are you going to handle that one?”
Deport the illegals, and maintain zoning laws. Simple.
Rick, we all know deporting ‘illegals’ isn’t going to happen. So, realistically, are you not concerned about absentee landlords? Trust me when I tell you that the people some of them rent to are just as likely to bring down a neighborhood as your ‘illegals.’
i have been there as well as others on this blog. Keep your eyes wide open and your powder dry.
Well the next best thing to automatically deporting them is to let them know that if they drive a car and get stopped, they will be deported. Then they will self-deport.
On absentee landlords well it’s not perfect but right now there are two new renters near me and they are nice families. My fingers will remain crossed.
I am glad your situation is improving Rick. As I have told you many times, I sympathize with you because I have lived in close quarters around bad neighbors and it is no fun, regardless of who they are.
“A lot of the people who left were law abiding AMERICANS.” That’s right – I left my neighborhood because of the three boarding houses on my street and the resulting crime from them (a neighbor witnessed one person from the boarding house next to me break into my house). Two of those boarding houses ended up in foreclosure. The 3rd several times has been reported to the City of Manassas for overcrowding and temporarily cleaned up, only after a few months to go right back to being overcrowded again.
I’m not sure my old neighborhood has improved unfortunately. The boarding house next to me still exists, and now TWO independent real estate agents have said my house is unrentable due to the 24×7 noise that emanates from that boarding house, plus the trash in their back yard and on their deck, etc. etc. Maybe parts of it have improved, but not in the vicinity of my old house.
But I’m also glad Rick’s situation has improved. Maybe my neighborhood is just a little slower. It is in the City of Manassas so that might make a difference too. Who knows. If I could unload my old house for a decent price I would, actually.
Rick, I have not been to a HSM meeting, but judging from Greg’s blog, I can imagine what the content was. But if you say he is savvy enough to hide the prejudice that is the foundation of the movement he leads, I acknowledge that.
I am saying that he personally displayed leadership and steered HSM away from bigotry. Also that HSM is less partisan and slanted than his blog tends to be – that it was a very focused (and successful) advocacy group.
“…anybody catch Nohe’s comments with regard to the draft Comp Plan changes made by the Planning Commission with regard to the Long Range Land Use chapter.”
Apparently, the pseudonymous commenter heretofore called “MOM” didn’t even catch my comments with regard to the draft Comp Plan changes made by the Planning Commission with regard to the Long Range Land Use chapter, because he/she has dramatically mischaracterized my statement. I made NO reference whatsoever to the content of those changes. In fact, I don’t even know what the changes are: I have not read them, I have not been briefed on them, I have not even been provided a copy of them. I have no opinion one way or another about the quality or value of them at this point. Once I have read them, I almost certainly will have an opinion of them, but that is not my point now, nor was it my point yesterday.
What I said was that I am troubled that major changes were proposed AFTER the public hearing was closed and to my knowledge at this point, no one has expressed an intent to hold another public hearing before the Planning Commission acts on those major changes.
It is my hope, as I stated yesterday, that if the Planning Commission chooses to make a recommendation on those changes, that they will only do so after a new public hearing is held on them so that their actions are taken in the light of day, rather than under the shadow of uncertainty that would be cast upon them if the public is not given an appropriate opportunity to comment on the changes.
The comprehensive plan only undergoes major review and revision once every five years, yet it guides the actions of the county government every day. The citizens of this county deserve an opportunity to play a part in its development and to comment during that process.
I would encourage readers to look past MOM’s unfounded assumptions about me and the unfair accusations hurled at me and instead focus on the reality of my statement, which was much more limited in scope than MOM has implied. I further hope that MOM will agree that the comprehensive plan update needs to be an open process and join me in calling for another public hearing prior to the Planning Commission taking action on any major changes to the comprehensive plan that have not already been subject to a public hearing.
Thank you.
Supervisor Nohe, methinks you doth protest too much. Having watched yesterday’s proceedings it was readily apparent that you were aware of the changes and given that every other supervisor is aware of the content of the changes or at least the gist of them I find it hard to believe that you are not.
If indeed you are not aware of the changes then perhaps you can explain how you know that they are “major changes” that would require another round of public hearings. I only ask because you state that you “have not read them”, “have not been briefed on them”, and “have not even been provided a copy of them”. Again if that is the case, how can you be sure that the changes are major as opposed to minor and if you have not been briefed, how can you assert that the content requires more public hearings. Is it possible that the content changes came as a result of public comment, verbal or written? Is it not the job of the planning commission to take the draft plan and review it, amending it if they feel necessary? That is what they are paid to do is it not? There is already another round of public hearings when it gets to the Board and there is no requirement for the Board to act on them when they arrive on the agenda. The Board can send them back to Planning Commission if the Board so desires, can it not?
Lastly, your statement that you “have not read them”, “have not been briefed on them”, and “have not even been provided a copy of them”, suggests that your appointees to the LUAC and the Planning Commission haven’t been doing their job and keeping you up to date. Perhaps you should call them out for your apparent unpreparedness.
Well, I don’t really understand the difference between the two since he was the grand poobah of both. Some day a historian will have to sort that out I guess.
Mom, why can’t you take Supervisor Nohe at his word? It certainly sounds like Chairman Stewart’s style to sneak his way around public comment.
I support the idea of a public hearing. This is a democracy after all. How can we make our voices heard that we want a public hearing on this?
Once again, MOM is putting words in my mouth…
I never stated that the changes “REQUIRE” another public hearing. Frankly, I don’t know what the requirements are that would trigger another mandatory public hearing. That’s for the lawyers to decide. I do however believe that, in the interest of ensuring that the Comprehensive Plan update is executed in a manner that is transparent to the public, that another public hearing would be appropriate if the Planning Commission intends to make recommendations on major changes that were not available to the public at the time of the last public hearing. Clearly, you disagree. (You are certainly within your rights to feel that the Planning Commission should not operate through processes that are open to public comment.) But the fact that we disagree on the importance of openness in the process does not give any credibility to the assumptions you made about my position on those changes in your previous post.
In the interest of disengaging from MOMs insistence on casting aspersions, I will not comment on her suggestion that the fact that I have not read the proposed changes constitutes poor choices with the use of my time. However, if there is someone out there who would like to explain to him/her what I have done with the bulk of my time in the last three weeks that might have distracted me, please feel free.
I dont discount the value of a public hearing but in this instance I believe Mr. Nohe’s arguement to be nothing more than a red herring designed to shift the focus from the content of the plan to suggested procedural deficiencies. Truth be told Supervisor Nohe probably should have considered the language of both his verbal statement yesterday and written comment today a little more carefully. Although those with little interest in or knowledge of the subject may not latch onto certain nuances, I certainly hope that Mr. Nohe does not presume that level of scrutiny by all in the county. He can’t have it both ways, he can’t in one paragraph state that he has no knowledge of the content and in the next paragraph state that the content has undergone a major change. They are two conflicting statements but then again, I have come to expect diametrically opposed statements from members of the Board, I just didn’t think I would see them in consecutive paragraphs. I guess the Board’s opinion of the public intellect has reached a new low.
“In the interest of disengaging from MOMs insistence on casting aspersions”
For some reason the “runaway, runaway” scene from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” came immediately to mind. Python always puts a smile on my face.
I seem to remember that “Mom” is a Stirrup supporter and close associate. I remember that from the Stirrup Town Hall dust up a few months ago. Since Marty has shown himself as a decent human and supervisor, versus Stirrup, who is my supervisor by the way, who clearly is not…I side with Marty.
I am going to step in here and remind everyone that Mr. and Mrs. Nohe were very involved with the Smith family following the tragic deaths of Jean and Jim Smith. I cannot imagine that anything else has been on their minds as those types of horrific events become all too mind-consuming. Both Nohes had to deal with their own grief as well as prop up those around them and serve as spokespeople for the Smith family.
Marty, your words yesterday about Jean and Jim, who I did not have the good fortune to know, moved me and I know speaking those words must have been very bitter-sweet for you. I admire your courage in being able to utter them without a complete break down.
Mom, Marty lost two of his best friends.
“Mom Stirrup,” why are you obsessing over semantics? Why is it so important to attack Supervisor Nohe??? Something’s rotten in Denmark.
This reminds me of the attack on Chief Deane. In that it is forced, frivilous and suspiciously timed (3 weeks before the Immigration Resolution got fixed). Can someone explain the TRUE reason for this suppression fire? What is the future conflict here? Why is the extremist and myopic wing of the PWC GOP attacking the concensus-seeking, forward-thinking wing of the PwC GOP?
Elena? Lucky Duck? WHWN? Fear Not? Inquiring minds want to know.
Seems to me Mr. Nohe is simply commenting on the process, not the content of the proposed changes to the Comp Plan. Surely he has heard through the grapevine a general flavor of the proposal, but that wouldn’t mean he has seen/read/been briefed on the proposal.
Marty & Kris,
I hope that your family was able to enjoy Christmas.
I have not had a chance to watch the Supervisor’s Meeting from yesterday but I too heard that you spoke eloquently about Jean & Jim Smith. The family was blessed to have you as a spokesperson for them. Please take care of yourselves and by all means don’t take any of the comments here on the blog too seriously. We care about you guys and really appreciate everything the both of you do for the community.
I’ll give Marty the benefit of the doubt but land-use is not one of his strong points.
I am out of the loop right now, but I will try to find out why Stirrup sicked his Mom on Marty. But I have not seen the replay yet, so I couldn’t comment on the merits of her attack … even if I could comprehend her reasoning.
I will say that it sounds like the One Man Spin Machine is at it again. It might have taken him the entire year to come up with this one! Since I seem to be the only one fluent in Corey-Speak, I will do the honors of interpreting the “Planning for the Worst Doctrine” for the rest of you:
Meanwhile, back on earth … I personally would rather we had NOT employed the Corey Stewart “Planning for the Worst” Doctrine a year ago, because NOT doing so would have meant NOT having a gut-wrenching drop in property values, NOT earning a reputation for hate, intolerance and racial strife, NOT seeing businesses go bankrupt, NOT seeing empty stores in strip malls, NOT seeing falling retail sales/falling tax revenue, and NOT enduring an embarrassment factor rivaled only by the great state of Illinois for TWO YEARS IN A ROW.
That’s the real way that we differ from our neighbors.
WhyHereWhyNow,
That was extremely funny. I love the part – “remember my spin and forget what you thought you knew!”, how appropriate for the Stewart SpinMeister. Cracked me up.
But I’m not convinced that Mom is necessarily a fan of Stirrup’s but if I’m incorrect she can straighten me out.
Darn ShellyB! You sure can summons up the gods when you set your mind to it.
In case anyone is interested, the School Board voted 7-0 (with Julie Lucas absent–she left early because she was really sick) to approve the contract to begin construction of the 11th High School on Kettle Run Road.
Next step will be off to speak before the BOCS to make sure the schools don’t get screwed while we “cut taxes” for everyone at the expense of all we hold dear.