Showing posts with label Gloucester County Virginia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gloucester County Virginia. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Gloucester County, Virginia Voter’s Debacle



Election time has arrived again, who is best suited for the positions? The school system is now in the spotlight with two seats up for grabs in Ware and Abingdon districts.


The school board for many years has never challenged the superintendent. There is a historical record of yes votes without discussion or rejections. Now at this election a phenomenal process took place, a resignation by the board chairman, replaced by the Ware District member, and the Abingdon District member who decided not to seek reelection.


Two seats open, both to be filled by acclamation, one by ballot and one by write-in. Fair and simple. Now, hold on voters of these districts, the wind of clarity and opportunity for a fresh breeze in the sails has died.


What! Yes, the current Abingdon member decides to challenge the write-in candidate in his district after deciding not to run again. Why the change of heart? What voters need to understand are the process and politics of the board. Once elected, sworn in and attending a couple of meetings, he can resign. This ploy allows the sitting board to selection a “member of the club” who shares their thinking. Do you really want this same machine control over the next four years? Now is your chance to fill the sail with a fresh breeze.


Don’t leave: a similar situation has arrived at the very last minute in the Ware District. Now you have a candidate named on the ballot and a last-minute write-in to consider.


Now comes the hard question. You the voter must ask yourself who is the engineer behind this charade. Ask who will be the loser should it succeed: the taxpayer, the student, or the county overall?


Howard Mowry
Gloucester, Va.

Friday, September 26, 2014

Gloucester, VA School Board Meeting Video, September 9th, 2014

Gloucester, VA Planning Commission Meeting Video Sept. 2014




Planning commission video for the month of September, 2014.  One of the many areas to watch so that you know and understand where your tax dollars are going.  If you are not keeping on eye on everything, how do you know that maybe, just maybe, you are way overpaying taxes?  It's everyone's job to stay on top of these issues.  We just try to make it a little easier.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Gloucester, VA Animal Control Fun Raids?

Heard through the grapevine;

  Last week, information came in that two Animal Control officers, both men, went to a house after an ambulance had left the house.  The Animal Control officers banged on the front door and were surprised when a house guest answered the door.  Animal Control told the house guest that they (Home owners) had animals running wild and that they, (Animal Control officers), needed to come into the house and search the house.

State law prohibits anyone from Animal Control to ever search any house for any reason.



Va code ann 19.2 56 from Chuck Thompson

That state law is cited above.  The house guest told them no and closed the door on them.  The animal control officers proceeded to search the property without any form of search warrant before leaving, finding the animals in question on the property fully secured.  Now the first assumption is that Animal Control, since they have radios and are able to listen to all 911 emergency calls, overheard a call to a specific house that they wanted to target for some reason and when the opportunity came up, decided to take advantage of that opportunity?

  Also, why was Animal Control even targeting a house?  Were they interested in robbing it?  Why did they tell a house guest that the animals on that property were running wild when they were secured?

Now this is only heard through the grapevine.  We are not giving out any more details than this and the folks this may have happened to may not want to come forward with the rest of the story in fear of backlash.  Should any backlash occur, we will be all over this story reporting every little detail to the fullest.  Who knows, maybe there is something to the grapevine?
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Monday, March 10, 2014

Gloucester, VA Animal Control On Patrol?


8:25 AM Monday, March 10th, 2014.  Animal Control vehicle number 72 driven by Laura Dickie, Senior Animal Control officer for Gloucester County, Virginia stopped at 7-Eleven for breakfast on the run.  Using a county vehicle for personal use while on the clock.   (She came from behind the shopping center main building where Animal Control has their Animal Shelter).



There she is coming out of 7-Eleven now.



She had some trash from other stops where she has done the same thing as she is throwing away a McDonald's bag and other trash that was in the truck.



Here is yet another shot of her getting rid of trash.  Truck must have been stuffed.



There she goes.  Time to head in to the office and check in.  Hope she got enough for everyone.

We started posting about Gloucester County employees using county vehicles for personal use back in April of 2013.  It all started with Animal Control.  Here we are one year later and we still see Animal Control continuing to break county employee rules.  This is an officer sworn to uphold both county and state laws.  Plus to add insult to injury, the Animal Control truck she is driving does not appear to have proper ventilation on the back bed for animals that need to be transported.

  Since Steve Baranek has taken office as the Chief Animal Control officer, we have now reported that each member of his staff has seemed to violate a number of county and state codes.  Again, these folks are sworn to uphold laws, not break them.  What gives?

  We are in budget time here in Gloucester County.  We would suggest that the Board look this department over as possibly being bloated with more employees than really needed.




Now the above is the latest monthly report coming out of Animal Control and it shows pretty much all of their number are down.  How are they justifying such a large department?  Here is something for the board to consider if they do not wish to cut this department.  To seriously reduce or eliminate overtime and weekend calls, create two shifts and a weekend shift.  With two shifts, there are no after hours calls in most cases.  Work the staff from whatever hours they presently have and stagger them until 10 or 11 o'clock at night.

  With a weekend shift, there are no overtime calls for weekend calls.  That can save a pretty substantial amount without changing anything else.  Right now, Animal Control has at least 4 full time staff on Monday through Friday from 7:30 until 4:00PM?  One part timer that comes in during those same hours for a total of 5 on during this short shift.  Not very cost effective.

  Or just eliminate all but one full time person and cut expenses way down and put that money to better use.  We do not need dog catchers that cost us $600.00 per doggie incarcerated when one can save a life for under $500.00.   Just something to consider and there are substantial savings when county employees are not using county vehicles for personal use, violating codes and laws and just making everyone look bad.
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Friday, March 29, 2013

Gloucester, VA - Kudos To Delegate Keith Hodges

A special thank you to Delegate Keith Hodges, representative covering Gloucester County, Virginia.  Keith recently turned down backing Gloucester Counties legalize theft campaign in favor of the citizens of Gloucester.

  A great deal of information came out in the news over all of this.  Gloucester County Government sued it's own citizens to push through a system no one wanted back in 1988.  Now the county wants more money for a system people still do not want but the county could care less what the residents want.

It's like we already pointed out, the board of supervisors have been taken over and you are dealing with a secret masonic order that knows what you need and could care less what you want.

  It would make more sense to us if you are looking to argue saving the Chesapeake Bay, that more homes should have septic systems as opposed to a county sewer system.  Let's look at the logic behind all of this.  If you can call it logic on their part.  The county sewer system is piped over to Hampton Roads across the York river.  Eventually that pipe system is going to break down or break for one reason or another.  Storm destruction, hit by a tanker, whatever, something will knock it out.  Here is the problem.  When you combine the waste of multiple households, you increase the toxicity of the waste more than twice it's level for each household added.  Two households increase toxicity by a factor of at least 4 times.  10 households over 40 times.  The more you add, the more toxic the waste becomes.

  It's no different than chemistry class.  Add chemicals together and you get new chemicals.  New strains of bacteria and so much more.  When the pipeline does break, the massive amount of waste that dumps into the bay area will be tremendous.  The system backups that will flow back into people's houses will be massive.  When that happens, who is going to pay for the cleanup?  Gloucester County Government?  Don't count on it.  You will.  Based on a system you never wanted to begin with.

  With septic systems, you have containment.  Gloucester County only had 3 septic systems needing attention in 2012 and they see this as a problem?  The hourly bird droppings into the Bay cause more damage than 30 septic system failures would cause in a week.  So who are they kidding?  No one in Gloucester wanted the 22 million dollar debt note.  So it's a county problem.  Not a resident problem.  Just stop paying the note.  Default on the payments.  If our federal government can do it, so can our local government.

  Maybe the county could then file for a federal bailout? Maybe they can just hold a bake sale to raise the money.  Have a special Masonic fun day and charge parking fees.  Put parking meters on Main Street to raise money.  Stop giving tax breaks to big business and let them pay their own way like everyone else has to.

  Maybe we should hold a contest on how the county can raise money other than putting a gun to people's backs.  Or maybe they can actually put guns to people's backs as they shop through the Gloucester Main Street Village.  A sort of pay to play daily event.  Fun for the whole family.  They can even process your credit cards to cover the fees while holding you up.

  Enough of the poking fun and once again saying Thank You to Delegate Keith Hodges.  With actions like this, it looks like we have to keep you around.  Not a bad idea in our opinion.

Free MP3 download.  Out On The Road is the title track by Persson.  A really good Blues track.




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