Ed Long over at Conservative Virginian has some interesting observations regarding the selection of the new Augusta County BOS Chairman and his views. Ed also has some observations of the first meeting chaired by Pyles and maintains a informative website over at: Conservative Virginian...Tracy Pyles was elected Chair and Jeff Moore elected Vice Chair by the Augusta County BOS. I think the hope is that Tracy will be less difficult. One can only hope he will also listen better. But I am not certain this will be so because he immediately launched into an acceptance
speech that sounded like Tracy Pyles.
speech that sounded like Tracy Pyles.
He said he was entirely opposed to – and he seemed ticked off with – Ben Cline’s statement that any State $ surplus represented over taxation and should be returned to the taxpayers.
To me Tracy spoke like the Democrat he is. To me it is clear he believes Government owns the money. He does not believe any surplus should be returned to the taxpayer, the very ones from whom that money was taken. He wants any surplus given to him so he can spend it. (Do you recall the statement made by then-congressman Tom Perriello: “If you don’t tie our hands, we will keep stealing.” )
Tracy presented two props – homemade, over-sized checks on poster board. One represented on the order of $306,000 which Tracy said represented 7 sheriff deputies and the other on the order of $333,000 representing 10 firemen. These two values were dollar amounts Augusta County owed and sent to the State Government. (I wonder if Augusta County had not had to send the money to the State would it have been spent on these 17 individuals. Would it instead have been spent on a social program or some project of which Tracy felt Pastures District was in
need?)
need?)
Finally,
Tracy said for 2012 number of Augusta County school children receiving free lunches would be ~ 3036. This is up from ~ 2426 in 2008. I called the Augusta County School Administration the next day and learned that the number of school children in the Augusta School System for K through 12 is about 10,300 for 2012. This means 30 percent of all school children are from families so poor they are being provided free lunches. That does not seem believable. [In 2010 14.3 % of the U. S. population was below poverty level, 24 % of the population was younger than 18 and 13 % over 64, click HERE. For Virginia the values were 10.6, 23.2, and 12,2 %, click HERE. For Augusta County, the values were 9.3, 21.4, and 16.1 %, click HERE. Yet 30 % of the school children in Augusta County receive free lunches because they are either considered to be under poverty or on some form of welfare.] When I was a school child in Virginia I took one or more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with me for lunch – every day. I grew up fairly healthy and believe me when I tell you my family was dirt poor.
thats the liberal mindset... all money belongs to the government and whatever money is left for you after taxes is what they allowed you to keep.
ReplyDeleteStrip away all the populist bombast and rhetoric about not wasting $ and you find the same old liberal claptrap. Remember folks, when you see the SWACster (who while not having the political courage to openly support other candidates during the election, does indeed support them at the expense of local Republicans out of spite), Karaffa and the others who while ostensibly conservatives have allied themselves with progressives who have very different views about liberty and money. These are folks who will impugn the motives of others regarding local government spending while protecting their own "sacred cows" at Board of Supervisors meetings and on blogs. Spending cuts for thee but not for meeee!
During the BOS campaigns I was told and heard several times how many of the "Independents" were more Conservative than the Republicand candidates. Now that we have a new "Conservative Independent" on the BOS will he stand up to Chairman Pyles on matters like returnin money to the taxpayers?...
ReplyDeleteGive us back our money!
ReplyDeleteRightside- this should show us how easy it is (where folks are so inclined to do so) and the local media is either so corrupt or (more likely in this case) so incompetent, to the point of incoherence (backing Michael over Moore????), that those seeking personal political power are able to use populist means at their disposal to win an election. This was all set in motion 3 years ago when the assessment started to go sour. the SWACster, Michael, Karaffa and Pyles were chomping at the bit to use it, not to help citizens out but to gain revenge on their political enemies.
ReplyDeleteChairman TP will make sure the money is returned to the Tax Payers, to the Tax Payers of the Pastures District. Everytime something was proposed in another district TP would cry and whine about it being a waste or pet project and fight it, but yet when it came to the Pastures District is was for the good of the community. The famous line by TP after one meeting after a project was questioned by another supervisor in the Pastures District "You leave the Pastures District alone" and then stormed out of the building.
ReplyDeleteThe gameplan was obvious once the “Gang” started to organize with “Republicans” who could not get their way by teaming up with “Democrats” to attack sitting BOS Supervisors regarding the assessment process when in fact the Supervisors could not change or ignore the results by rule of law. This resulted in the infamous gathering of hundreds of “outraged” citizens to protest the assessments covered by a local press that failed to ask the obvious questions or provided the other side of the issue. Amazing how this large crowd is no longer active once the process was allowed to work itself out, give the property owners a chance to challenge the assessment, understand the process, and see that the vast majority had lower tax bills because the BOS lowered the tax rate to match the economic situation. What ever happened to the email list of 10,000+ ?...
ReplyDeleteTrue with TP and the purse-strings… It will be interesting how the “Gang-O-three” gets along with each other once it comes time to divide up the $$pot$$ with district projects. Fortunately I believe the local press will have to pay attention and explore the whole issue for there appears to be Several groups out there keeping a close eye on this “Gang”…..
You seem to have confidence the local media can do its duty. I do not share in that sentiment. Somethings not right over at the NewsLeader. Their reporters can barely be bothered to follow up or analyse spin. Are Fritz and Watson even trying anymore or just running the clock out to retirement? The Leader for all intents and purposes accepted Karaffa's attendence story without any attempt to independently verify it (asking the other candidate for comment doesn't count as research). It will take citizens, blogs and these groups to strip away the rhetoric of drama prone politicians and to counteract the SWAC spin.
ReplyDelete"Watching"
ReplyDeleteI now see your point after reading your comment and then checking the local media finding the Lovefest between the Newsleader and KM with their editorial regarding the Yancey FD... Interesting how they avoided any comment about the present BOS Chairman Pyles and his failure to identify the problem at the FD... Then the Newsleader went to Michael for a statement regarding the article about identifying which party, if any, that the candidate is running under. The NL ends up quoting a candidate that was neck deep in the shady tactics of misrepresentation that the article was about.... Ironic?