My experiences while serving as an At-Large member of the Gloucester County, Virginia Public Utilities Advisory Committee (The first in a series of articles about my experiences and findings)

I was appointed to the Gloucester County Public Utilities Advisory Committee (PUAC) in August 2014, as an At-Large member. From the outside looking in, it appeared to me that Gloucester’s Utility Department (Utilities) was not being managed very well. Being that I am now retired due to disabilities and possess knowledge and experience in water, sewer, and many facets of business management, employee and equipment utilization, safety and a few other areas; I was looking forward to and excited about the opportunity to give back to the community where I grew up.

From the very first meeting I began to realize the PUAC did not serve any realistic purpose and had no true sense of direction. From my very first visits to Utilities’ office, equipment and storage yard, water treatment plants and sewer pumping stations, I could tell everything had been neglected for numerous years. I also noted numerous workplace safety violations which I immediately shared with the Board of Supervisors and appropriate members of County staff. After thinking about the situation for a while I decided I would offer some suggestions to make things better, instead of trying to place blame on those responsible for the excessive neglect of Gloucester taxpayer's and utility customer's infrastructure.

One of my first suggestions as a committee member was the development and implementation of a Utilities enhancement program. The following was my proposal:

Gloucester County Public Utilities Enhancement

(Proposal)

As we all know Utilities is not financially self sufficient, numerous areas have degraded for one reason or another over the years and systems expansion is stagnant.  Developing and implementing an enhancement plan utilizing an ownership approach will help considerably in turning Utilities into an efficient and self supporting department.  In order to establish an ownership relationship with Utilities, each committee member would have to look at Utilities as if it were their own personal investment or business.

Each committee member would have to become familiar with Utilities’:

-missions

-leaders

-assets

-intradepartmental roles in completing missions

-weaknesses

-strengths

-finances

-growth potentials

Collectively the committee would have to identify the areas in which each member has experience or expertise so those talents can be applied accordingly throughout the enhancement process.  For example; if one or two committee members have experience in office management they could focus on areas related to such.

All intradepartmental leaders would need to give a short briefing to the committee in which they define their areas of responsibility, statistics related to their areas, their manpower, etc.  After such briefings, there would need to be an open discussion period for all of the leaders and the committee.  The primary purpose for such briefings and discussion period would be to establish professional, face to face relationships among those responsible for the functionality and care of Gloucester’s utility assets.

Each committee member would need to visit the varying sections of Utilities at least one time per month.  Such visits would serve to educate committee members on what is entailed in performing day to day operations and will help instill the ownership concept.  When employees see people taking interest in what they are doing they tend to perform better.  Such visits would need to be completely observational and educational in nature and all observations and suggestions would need to be presented to the committee before shared with others.  The only exception to this would be for safety concerns.  Situations where a person or persons’ safety is at risk should always be brought to administration’s attention immediately, through whatever means available.

A high level of participation and dedication would be required from all Utilities employees and the advisory committee to insure success of an enhancement program.  The frequency of committee meetings would have to change from bi-monthly to monthly and there would likely be frequent special meetings as well.  Increasing the number of committee meetings would be necessary to heighten focus, enhance the committees’ knowledge base, expedite the enhancement process and establish and maintain forward momentum through all process phases.

Once the above steps are in motion, the committee would then be able to begin to establish concise goals and desired results of the enhancement plan.  That is when the real work would begin.

No interest was shown in developing such an enhancement plan as it never even made it off the table. Changing the frequency of the meetings did not fly either, as it was unanimously voted down by my fellow committee members. I sensed my fellow committee members were unwilling to dedicate the necessary time to fulfill such a plan. From that time forward, the PUAC basically continued along the same path I can only assume it was traveling prior to my appointment; one of no direction or purpose. There will undoubtedly be those who will claim the PUAC has and continues to serve a worthwhile purpose and that everything is fine within Gloucester’s Utility Department. If that were the factual case, none of the articles that will be contained in this series would be necessary. In upcoming articles I will share some of my concerns about safety, accountability, water and sewer rates and a few other topics. If you pay taxes or pay for water or sewer in Gloucester County, you shouldn’t miss any of the articles.

Kenneth E. Hogge, Sr.

Gloucester Point

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What the Heck is Happening to Gloucester’s Public Education System??

On Monday, November 28, 2016, I and some other folks attended an open house and viewed a film at Gloucester High School. The school system appeared to be prepared for 350 or so people, but only 60 to 65 people showed up. I believe more Gloucester People would have attended if the school system had scheduled it for a Saturday event from, say 9AM to 3PM and advertised it vigorously within the community. Instead, the event began at 5:15PM and lasted until around 8PM, on a Monday. Aren’t most people either still at work or driving home at 5:15PM on weekdays? The event time was also during dinner hours for most folks.   

Having attended GHS for a couple of years shortly after it was built, I was amazed at the great condition of the schoolhouse. After hearing stories for the last several years about how bad of shape GHS is in; I was expecting the place to be in shambles. That was absolutely not the case.

There likely needs to be a significant amount of money spent on our schoolhouse, but not as much as our school administrators are trying to make us believe. One of their complaints is the undependability and inefficiency of the heating, ventilation and cooling system. Considering the schoolhouse was built in the mid 1970’s, it is probably time to replace the entire system. The administrators complain the roof needs to be replaced. Well, roof maintenance is part of maintaining any building, so if there is a need to replace the waterproofing components of the roof, then it needs to be replaced before other components are damaged. If a future replacement account for major schoolhouse components had been started when the school was built, money would be available when needed. Every year monies could have been added to the account as part of the schoolhouse’s operating expenses. When a school system builds a schoolhouse it is provided with information that identifies the life expectancy of such things as HVAC and roofing systems. Our local, state and federal governments choose to wait until something falls apart, then borrow money to fix and replace things. Operating this way is costing us far more than investing money in a replacement fund every year. Just let it accumulate interest each year and then pay cash when things are needed. Maybe someone needs to look into who is benefiting from all of the interest money we pay each year.

During our tour we spoke with teachers who said noise transfer from neighboring classrooms and hallways interferes with teaching and learning. I asked if changes in the methods of teaching had increased the noise level in today’s classrooms. The answer was along the lines of “probably”. Upon asking more questions it became apparent that a lot of the noise is generated by small groups from varying classes being sent in the hallway to work independent of the rest of their class. I found all of this odd because when I attended GHS, we had 25 to 30 students per class and we broke down into small groups at times, but we remained in the classroom. Everyone was taught and expected to be conscious of the volume of their voice and to respect each other by not disrupting the class. As a matter of fact, most of the classrooms didn’t even have doors. (Doors were installed some years later though.) We as students were expected to keep the noise level down and for the most part we did. If noise transference is a problem, there are ways of fixing the problem without reconfiguring the entire inside of the building.

Speaking of reconfiguring; that appears to be our school system’s ultimate objective. After touring several areas of the schoolhouse we were directed to the auditorium to watch what I consider an indoctrination film titled, “Most Likely to Succeed”. Chuck Thompson published a review of the film on GVLN and can be found at this link http://www.gloucestercounty-va.com/2016/11/the-state-of-education-in-gloucester.html  I must say I agree with Mr. Thompson’s opinions.

America’s public education system has been under siege for a long time; the ultimate objective being to lower America’s educational standards and success in order to bring our Country inline with the objectives of the United Nations/New World Order. Every aspect of their objectives entails weakening the strong and empowering the weak, on a global scale.  

America used to have the most robust and successful public education system in the world. Our public education system significantly helped make America the country with the strongest economy and military in the world. Though there have always been efforts to compromise America’s educational success, none triggered a rapid decline in American public education quality like George H.W. Bush’s commitment of America to the provisions and objectives of United Nations Agenda 21. Don’t get me wrong; there were efforts prior to 1997 to implement Socialism/Communism into America’s public education system. It wasn’t until Old Man Bush sold America out that everything really began to snowball. Mr. Obama further committed America to U.N./New World Order Rule when he committed “OUR”  Country to U.N. Agenda 2030 which has set the efforts of implementing Socialism/Communism into our public school systems into overdrive.

Gloucester County has not been immune to what our so called Presidents have done to our public education system since old man Bush committed America to Agenda 21. We never see those we elect at the local level truly fight back against the plague that is engulfing our country. We elect them to be our voice and all they do is remain silent. They remain silent because we allow them to by not speaking up and telling them we are not going to allow the federal and state government to herd us down the road to Socialism/Communism.   

Former Gloucester Public Schools Superintendent, Howard B. (Ben) Kiser was successful in steering our elected representatives into pushing the Socialism/Communism envelop, by shoving the design of Page Middle School down this community’s throat. Now Mr. Kiser is in a position to influence all school districts in Virginia as the Director of the Virginia Association of School Superintendents. The schoolhouse designs Mr. Kiser and others who I consider to be Socialist/Communist oriented traitors to America are pushing on us, were created after thousands of America’s so called educators like Kiser visited Finland on indoctrination trips. They claim Finland’s way of educating is the best way because Finland currently has one of the best rated public education systems in the world. Rated at what measures and by whom; other New World Order propagandists? What our elected leaders and school administrators don’t tell us is; Finland is a Socialist Country where the government foots the bill for everything including educating teachers. They don’t tell us that Finland educators say they have equal success in older box style schoolhouses as they do in modern, more expensive designed schoolhouses like Page Middle School. They don’t tell us the personal income tax rate in Finland averaged 52.96% from 1995 until 2016, reaching an all time high of 62.20% in 1995 and a record low of 49.00% in 2010. (How would you like the government taking over half of what you earn?) They don’t tell us Finland’s schools practice collectivism. They don’t tell us collectivism is a trait of Communism and Socialism. They don’t tell us that in collectivist cultures, identity is based on the social network to which one belongs and with the implementation of collectivism in our public schools, individualism will be erased. Everything will be about what is good for the group and completely ignoring what is best for each individual. This will erase the potential of there being other great individuals like George Washington Carver, Louis Pasture, Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison and so on. The only way to achieve the goal of collectivism is by “leveling the playing field”; in other words the strong must be weakened and the weak must be empowered. In the education spectrum that equates to lowering standards to make it appear more students are successful in academia land.

I believe we need to take back control of our public education system and return it to an educational institution that reflects the values, morals, traditions, customs, quality and superiority that empowered America to become the greatest and freest nation in the World. Common Core must go, but more importantly, the federal government must be stopped from blackmailing our public education system into submitting to the Socialist/Communist ideology of the United Nations.

Look for a future article on, “where the money will come from to pay for our school administration’s $100,000,000 vision”.

Kenneth E. Hogge, Sr.

Gloucester Point, Virginia

Parent Warrior 

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