Adjourned Board Meeting February 17. 2009

We attended the Adjourned Meeting on February 17. 2009. There were several citizens signed up to speak against the uranium mining. Mr. Steve Worley of Hurt spoke and made a good point: no one on the study committee is from Pittsylvania County. The member on the committee closest to our county is actually someone from Appomattox. He pointed out that there is no one participating in the study that will be as affected as the citizens of Pittsylvania County. He, along with most of the other speakers, are also under the opinion that if the mining operation is allowed in our county, it will cause an exodus of people and business leaving, and also highly inhibit other businesses and/or industries from locating in the region.

Karen Maute also spoke about the possibilities of looking into taxing the mineral rights of the uranium rich land.

A concerned citizen (I didn't get his name) also spoke to the Board of Supervisors about the amount of delinquent taxes owed to Pittsylvania County. I believe that the budget deficit for the county is about $2.2 million - and the delinquent taxes owed to the county is also about $2.2 million. Now, I realize that some people have simply been forced to choose between food, housing or medicine in this ultra-rough economy; possibly many of these people have lost employment or sustained horrific medical bills - and I think that these people that simply cannot afford to pay right now should get a pass - with the understanding that they will pay when they are again gainfully employed. For that matter, the list may have mistakes on it. I was, myself, charged taxes on a car one year when I didn't even live in the state. When I moved back, I was told I owed car taxes and had to jump through hoops to prove that for two years I wasn't even in the state, much less the county! However, there are probably some on that delinquent list that are just "skipping out" on their taxes and I would suggest that the county find a way to look at this list and try going after some of what is owed to the county. If our county could recover even half of the delinquent taxes, that would mean the deficit would be cut in half. If you would like to see this citizen speaking about this issue to the board, you can follow this link - but warning, the sound isn't great, so be sure your speakers and your computer volume are turned all the way up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfwUG05GpbU


Then, of course, there was the great debate on a resolution originated by Hank Davis. He brought his own copy of what he had originally said in the resolution, because he said that the Resolution in the Board Packet was not what he had planned. There was a huge discussion that actually turned into a circus, over the wording of the resolution. It was totally ridiculous, and the audience got rather agitated over the Board spending so much time on wording which didn't really amount to a hill of beans. Coy Harville asked for a vote to get on with things, and the Board adopted Hank's resolution, which basically stated that no harm would be done or tolerated (by the uranium mining company) against the citizens of Pittsylvania County. At least, I think that was the 'jist' of it. The whole discussion had gotten so completely out of hand, that I, as a citizen, sort of lost track.

Well, those were the high points of the adjourned meeting. Anyone got any comments or ideas to put on this blog? Feel free :-)