Board Meeting March 2, 2009

Channel 13 news was on hand to video the huge turnout expected for budget hearings. With a state of emergency called in much of the northern end of the county, the hearings went forth on time in the town of Chatham on Monday evening. Due to the frigid weather, slick roads and almost 1000 families without power, the room was nearly empty. Most people probably assumed (like I nearly did) that since the county administrative offices were closed, the meeting would be postponed. However, the public will get another chance to turn out and speak at the next meeting on March 17. Please make every effort to attend this meeting as a public supporter - but if you simply cannot make it - we'll fill you in right here.

Marshall Ecker made a motion to amend the inclement weather policy to state that when any county administration buildings are closed due to weather, then all meetings and public hearings should be postponed. This passed unanimously.

92 year old Mr. Nathaniel Dix addressed the Board about school funding. He made a couple of valid points: he compared the school system to a child, by saying when your child asks for money and you give it to him, he will come back and ask for more. If you keep giving, he'll keep asking. There comes a point where you need to teach the child the value of the money, and how to budget and work with what he has, instead of asking for more. Mr. Dix said that year after year, the school system asks for more and more, and yet the educational expectations for our young people seem to be less and less. Mr. Dix also said, and I am paraphrasing, that what the students need is a knowledge of the basics - reading, writing, and arithmetic - and for that, you didn't need so much money - no fancy computers and labs - just knowledgeable teachers.

Ms. Barbara Hudson then spoke to the Board on behalf of Ms. Nancy Smith. The following is a transcript of the speaker's notes:

March 2, 2009
I am Nancy Barbour Smith – Tunstall Distrist

The taxpayers passed a bond referendum for a maximum of $70 million to renovate the 4 high schools.

Shortly after the referendum passed, you and the school board went to the state Literary Loan Fund, behind our backs, and applied to borrow another $30 million to renovate the same 4 high schools.

These are your numbers from the public records, adopted and approved:

In November 2007, you approved and sold $10 million in high school bonds.

On May 20, 2008 you passed a resolution to issue another $60 million in high school bonds.

How much are the high school renovations going to cost the taxpayers? Is it $70 million, or is it $100 million?

And about the Literary Loan Fund: nothing in the Board minutes shows that you informed the public of what you were doing regarding the Literary Loan Fund. We know that the School Board wanted $100 million for the high schools. We know the taxpayers approved $70 million

Are you going to use the $30 million in Literary Loan funds to redeem a portion of the $70 million in bonds we approved. There’s nothing in the record that supports any such plan. In fact, you can do anything you want with the $30 million—double billing comes to mind.

If we hadn’t found out about this through telephone calls to the State Literary Loan Fund, we’d never know that you have us set up to pay $100 million for high school renovations—or whatever.

And let’s not forget: when Davenport & Co underwrites the $70 million bond issue for the County, they get 5% commission. So on the $70 million we taxpayers have to pay Davenport $3.5 million, which comes to $73.5 million, to which is added to the interest and principal we have to pay to the bond holders.

And what about that conflict of interest with Davenport & Co? Behind the scene, undisclosed, is the fact that at least one Board member-- and I won’t mention his name here –he’s part of that gang of four-- is doing business with Davenport & Co in the amount of one-half million dollars or more. Is that why Davenport& Co has a no-bid, no competition contract with the County ? Just think of the savings we might have realized with an open bid for bond underwriting. Barely a month ago, the New York Times published an expose on the corrupt practices involved in no-bid municipal bond underwriting.

And what about the $4.13 million dollars you took from our general fund without notice and without authority, to buy land for your Berry Hill mega park. You’ve included that debt in our current budget.

The taxpayers don’t’ have to pay on a debt that you had no authority to create. So take that several hundred thousand dollar debt service out of the budget please. And start digging into your own pockets. (But Not Mr. Ecker, not Mr. Ingram).

And there are balances on bonds issued for the Brosville Industrial Park. The land there cost taxpayers $25,000 an acre to develop, according to the Deposed Mrs. Motley. You recently gave away 10-11 acres to Mr. Barber’s racing colleagues. And you devalued the land to $10,000 an acre.

So much for the success of your economic development strategy: Develop Brosville Industrial Park it at taxpayer expense, give the land away, and than call the Brosville Industrial Park a success.

Ditto for the Ringgold Industrial Park.

And what about the money wasted on Gretna Industrial Park? You gave the Gretna Industrial Park away, to shut up Mr. Ingram, but you’re still asking the taxpayers to finance a 1500 foot access road for the Gretna Industrial Park.

And is it any small coincidence that Mr. Barber is pushing so hard for the Berry Hill Mega Park—expected to cost $50 million. Not coincidently, Mr Barber owns some 95 acres near that project.

And don’t think that the Tobacco Indemnification Commission money comes free to develop the Mega Park. Every time the County gets Tobacco money, taxpayer money has to be kicked in, too. Millions of our tax dollars for a Berry Hill Project that none of the taxpayers approved. So count on more debt and more taxes for Berry Hill.

And keep in mind also: we will need to add the cost of the renovation of a closed elementary school that will be needed when annexation again becomes an issue, in 2010.

We now owe over $200 million in debt, interest and fees. With more debt to come!

Berry Hill Mega Park and the rest of your behind-the-scenes economic development boondoggles may very well be the ruination of this county because of your failure to follow the downturn of the economy and adjust the spending and debt according.

You could have actually done something constructive with Tobacco money, like ask that Broadband service be made available county-wide to all those who are unserved in this largest county in Virginia.

Mr. Sleeper said that’s not possible to get money for that, so we called the Tobacco Commission, and yes, they fund Broadband expansion, at 50%, and yes, to private companies. All we had to do was ask. But that’s money that doesn’t get passed through county hands. So our BOS isn’t interested.

I believe that when the full measure of the mismanagement of our county funds is realized by taxpayers, not many of you will be back on this board come next election. That is, if you aren’t gone before then.

From Barbara Hudson:

I want to add: When I was in university, we had to read a book called “How to Lie with Numbers.” I believe our county budget is a good example of one of the book’s techniques. We actually don’t owe $57 million for school renovations in the fiscal year 2009-2010. We owe debt service on the $70 million we borrowed by issuing bonds. So our actual expenditures, including debt service on all the county’s debt obligations and on all the monies we must use to pay for County services, salaries, maintenance, repairs, etc., is actually $57million LESS than $225,908,595 –do the math, comes to around $168, 908,595 to pay for everything we need to pay for, to keep the county running, in fiscal year - 2009 – 2010.


The meeting then adjourned rather uneventfully. We tried to make a video, but the sound was really bad in the auditorium, so we are working on getting a better camera for video recording these proceedings so that you can actually see what is going on. We have a camera "fund" right now - if anyone wants to donate, let us know :-)