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Defending The Republic, Not some Democracy, and enjoying some of life's rewards along the way.
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Gloucester County, Virginia; Votes Made In Congress By Our Elected Representatives
Monday, February 13, 2017
Mr. Howard Mowry, Gloucester Point, Virginia
Mr. Howard Mowry, Gloucester Point , Virginia
We would like to introduce
Mr. Howard Mowry of Gloucester
Point , Virginia
I moved to Gloucester
This process is
slowly changing in Gloucester
Since 1999 I
have been a small voice at the local Board of Supervisors and School Board
meetings, some suggestions have been implemented many haven't. Many of
ones suggestions that can save funding (tax increases) will go by the wayside
since it may affect a retirement pension or become a cost effective solution.
God forbid we don't want to go that far in creating a lean and mean cost
effective government.
Consolidation
has always been one of my prime positions, the need to have sixteen department
heads in-lieu of eight could save up to one million a year, also providing a
ladder for promotions that is now almost non-existent unless you leave the
county.
I have written
many articles over the years pertaining to government and some with
spreadsheets to emphasize rising costs or lack of annual changes in doing
business the same as usual.
Time does not
stop for no one but time should be able to provide the incentive for the young
to step up to the plate and follow their local government. The regulations and
policies they put in place annually may in their out years become the
foundation where you are no longer a free person or country. Will I or we see
change as the annual process of budgeting and taxing of your net pay takes
place over the next several months? Without an increased showing of citizen
participation at the meetings it will be hard to determine.
One thing for
sure the special interests will stand tall asking for more; and will want to
raise taxes to fill their individual needs.
The following are Howard’s
public comments during the February 7, 2017 Board of Supervisors meeting. We will gladly publish
any and all public comments made at public meetings as they are submitted to us
at Kennysr61@Gmail.com
·
Mr.
Chairman: Members of the Board, Mr.
Fedors & Mr. Wilmot.
Howard
Mowry, Gloucester Point
As promised to a few folks I recommend you follow
through on this topic since you have already have had a discussion on the
subject in the past. Over the past eight years, the working force has seen
their economy and jobs decrease to the point where they have to work multiple
jobs to stay afloat. This in turn decreases the amount of time they can donate
to critical positions required in the county.
I am speaking about our Rescue Program
in the county; many hours are required to learn and become a licensed EMT by
the state and be able to operate the vehicle. With this in mind and you should
never be caught where you cannot answer the bell.
I recommend you proceed to have all
ambulance movement in the county be a paid for service and all employees
receive a salary. There are provisions that can be accomplished for those who lack
the insurance for payment as covered by law.
To make this process work I would
suggest you send a small group to Richmond County and be briefed on how they
operate and collect their funds for a successful rescue operation in their
community.
I have attached a copy of a redacted
billing that provides how the process is billed and what the individual pays,
depending on their policy. The winner
now in Gloucester
With billing to insurance, you free up
a large possible budget allocation for items necessary to upgrade and maintain
your existing excellence service.
A process worth tackling immediately
and implementing the first of July 017.
2. The subject of proffers ties into the
above subject, a positive use for these funds. Connecting to a shopping center
is a disaster, look to Newport News
3. The change in the real property tax year
may well pass tonight, but keep in mind to eliminate stealing from the public
the tax rate change should only
occur on the first day of the new fiscal
year. The windfall then is non-existent; this process should also apply to
personal property. If not the need for a balanced budget is only an exercise in
balancing numbers to meet state audit regulation, the taxpayer is the loser.
4. You need to push the buttons at VDOT to
have Route 17 re-painted, the lines are just about gone creating a driving
hazard at night. Appreciate all you can do to correct this safety hazard.
I
thank you for your time.
The following are the public
comments Howard made at the Public Hearings on the County Administrator’s
proposed list of Capital Improvements (Buildings, parks, parking lots and such
they want to build or fix), and on proposed changes to our local government’s
ordinance (Local law) on Noise Control. These public hearings also took place during
the February 7th meeting:
1.CIP
Politically you all have major needs
at the taxpayers’ expense. The best way is Pay as you go.
The most critical at present are the
software programs that interact with all departments including all public
service equipment both audio and software.
School
HVAC units have been neglected for more than 40 years now is the time to
upgrade without debt. Buses are an
annual requirement by regulation. Millions have been spent on school roofing,
the need to have in-house engineering or high school seniors or juniors using a
CAD system design truss systems for all the schools similar to Page, along with
metal roofing applied. A major cost savings over time.
Debt needs to be restrained for the
next five years at least. Paying down the existing 50 to 60 million unfunded
and obligated debt is necessary.
Consolidation of transportation,
facilities, and utilities on one site at T.C. Walker road is a must.
What has happened to the utility funds
outside of the consent order? What is left and why can it not be obligated and
utilized now?
2. Noise Control:
Sitting
on my porch today, it was vehicular noisy, are you going to build a wall to
suppress this discomfort? I think not.
Noise
is music to one’s ear, some for the good and some an irritation. You need to be
selective in government control of private property including the individual.
Noise
suppression from 10 to 6
AM
is a norm. All areas that have condensed housing may have logical restrictions
If
you live in the boonies with acreage, you need no government interference
unless you are exceeding logical noise decibels.
Animals
and fowl talk at all hours of the day or night. Neighbors need to communicate
with each other if a problem arises. Most can be resolved without a government
rule or the sheriff showing up at the door.
Only
the elderly hear some noise so an ordinance would not apply. Loud could be soft
who knows.
Let
us put logic into the government’s methods as they try to control the mass,
which will not work in the long haul.
We
thank Howard for his efforts and for his submission. We encourage other Gloucester
Saturday, February 11, 2017
People of Virginia!! Tell Our Attorney General to Stop Interfering With The Swamp Draining
Call A.G. Mark Herring and
Demand He Stop His Lawsuit Against President Trump’s Travel Ban Executive
Order.
Here is his number: (804) 786-2071
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Draining The Local Government Swamp
Draining The Local Government
Swamp
Our new President promised
that if he were elected he would drain the federal government swamp and return
power to We The People. So far President Trump appears to be living up to his
promise, but he cannot do it alone and our federal government is not the only
place where the government swamp needs to be drained. Our Commonwealth
government (I emphasize “Common”), needs some draining and so does our local
government and many other local government’s throughout Virginia
One of the biggest issues of
government overreach in Gloucester County , Virginia Gloucester Gloucester Gloucester County
Several years ago our local
government began to implement what they refer to as the “Village Plans”. These
plans constrict growth within the Hayes/Gloucester Point and Courthouse areas.
They want retail and other business, medium to high density housing and other
such growth restricted primarily to these areas and are making a concerted effort
to develop every space possible.
Recently our Board of Supervisors approved a rezoning request so a developer can build an apartment complex next to the York River Crossing Shopping
Center
About three years ago our
local government approved a developers request to rezone land behind the
American Legion Hall so they can build around 260 apartment units. This land is
well outside of their Village Plan development area, but the rezoning request
was still approved. Recently a developer requested our local government to
rezone five and half acres of land so he can build five, four unit, apartment
buildings; for a total of 20 apartments. This developers rezoning request was
denied.
Recently a Gloucester
Our local government would
like us to think they are taking steps to accommodate growth in Gloucester
Do you agree or disagree?
Comments about articles and
submissions for publication on GVLN may be emailed to: Kennysr61@gmail.com
Let your voice be heard on
any topic pertaining to our community.
We will publish many opinions
the newspapers will not.
Kenny Hogge, Sr.
Kennysr61@gmail.com
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Where Do Your Local Tax Dollars Go?
-Parks and Recreation
funding should be limited to what it takes to operate and maintain our most
used parks and programs and the lesser used (over half of them) should be
closed. Manpower should be limited to minimum operational requirements. All
parks and recreation capital projects should be frozen until financial ability
and growth trigger further expansion. This will save over $250,000 annually.
-We pay over $250,000 a
year to rent our libraries. The rent arrangement for the Main St. Library is an
unethical back door funding mechanism for a non-profit organization (That organization is the Gloucester Main Street
Preservation Trust) and is not a fair and transparent way to spend tax
dollars. As a first step, the library at Hayes should be closed and funds
normally appropriated for its operation and rent should be diverted to a
library construction fund. Owning our libraries will save over $200,000
annually, after depositing $50,000 annually into a maintenance and expansion
fund.
-Last year I called for
the elimination of the Community Education Department. (Instead of eliminating it, more money was dumped
into it and the name was changed to the Department of Community Engagement.)
I also called for returning the department’s functions back to schools,
social services, County administration, human resources, IT and the various
non-profit organizations the department supports. I suggested moving the director
to the planning department. (I now feel the position should be eliminated
all together.) This will yield an annual savings of at least $350,000.
(If the director position is eliminated the savings would be over $100,000 more
than the $350,000 I suggested last year.)
-Animal Control should be
reorganized into a reactionary department and patrolling should cease. This
will make the department more citizen friendly. Staff should be limited to two
officers. The Sheriff’s dept. dispatcher should receive incoming calls and
dispatch the officers as needed. This will save over $100,000 annually.
-What to do with our bus
garage and old Page properties is being considered. It has been rumored that
selling all or part of the properties is the best option. Considering our
substantial infrastructure needs and need for consolidation, any option to sell
the properties does not seem to be fiscally responsible, in the best interest
of managing our assets or taking care of our employees.
These properties afford us
the ideal location to consolidate county and school functions. We should expand
our bus garage and consolidate all school and county transportation functions
under one fleet director employed by the County. We should consolidate all of
our school and County public works, buildings and grounds and janitorial type functions
under one director employed by the County. Utilities has money to purchase
property for of a new yard and office. It should be used to begin the
consolidation process by moving Utilities to the old Page property. (The County and our public school system continue to
kick this can down the road. Someone wants the old Page and school bus garage
properties and Gloucester
-All IT and financial
functions should also be consolidated under one director per department and employed
by the County. All of the mentioned consolidations will lead to a savings of
over $1 million annually. (I now
believe these functions should also be consolidated on the old Page and bus
garage property.)
Total potential savings from
these few suggestions would be in the neighborhood of $2,000,000 annually.
Unfortunately, not enough People in Gloucester Gloucester Gloucester
The County Administrator
http://www.gloucesterva.info/Portals/0/finance/documents/FY17AdoptedBudgetandFY17AdoptedCapitalBudget.pdf?ver=2016-08-19-125753-407
Keep following and please
share with everyone you know in Gloucester County
Comments about articles and
submissions for publication on GVLN may be emailed to: Kennysr61@gmail.com
Let your voice be heard on
any topic pertaining to our community.
We will publish many opinions
the newspapers will not.
Kenny Hogge, Sr.
My experiences while serving as an At-Large member of the Gloucester County, Virginia Public Utilities Advisory Committee (PUAC) (The 5th in a series of articles about my experiences and findings)
Our Public Sewer Collection System
Like our public water system,
parts of our public sewer collection system are very old and in need of
attention sooner than later. Our sewer system is made up of a series of
underground pipes, manholes and pumping stations; with some components in the
Courthouse area dating back to the 1950’s.
Many of the Courthouse area
sewer components and components in other areas of our sewer system are not
sealed to prevent rain and ground water from entering the system and to prevent
sewer water from escaping into the environment. In fact there is at least one
building in the Courthouse area that has its storm drain pipes connected to our
public sewer system. When rain and groundwater enter our sewer system it
greatly increases the amount of sewer water that must be treated before it can be
released back into the environment. Rain and ground water infiltration also increases
the workload on our pumping stations, causing some stations to be flooded and
overwhelmed during heavy rain and flood events. Because sewer pumping stations
are typically built on low land, overwhelmed and flooded sewer systems have the
potential to cause negative environmental impacts to our creeks, rivers,
streams, etc. All of these negative impacts equate to a lot of tax and utility
customer dollars being flushed down the drain.
Environmentally sound, operationally
capable and dependable pumping stations are necessary components of our sewer
system. Some of our older pumping stations pose significant operational and
environmental risks. At least two of our pumping stations need to be completely
replaced due to their age, size and the way they were built. We also have
several pumping stations that need to be upgraded because they are so old that
it is impossible to obtain repair and replacement parts. These stations typically
contain two pumps, but some of our stations only have one operational pump. Not
having an operational backup pump significantly decreases dependability and
greatly increases environmental and other risks. It will cost a substantial
amount of money to upgrade the pumping stations that need it, but it will cost
far less than complete replacement of the stations. The needs of our pumping
stations are all part of normal public sewer system operations and maintenance
and should have been financially planned for years ago.
Employee safety in and around
sewer pump stations, manholes and other such high risk areas should always be a
high priority to those we hire and elect. Sadly and alarmingly that is not what
I found to be the case in Gloucester County
Sewer pumping stations pose
numerous health and safety risks to those who operate and maintain them. Sewer
gases can form in pumping station tanks that will incapacitate a person within
three seconds. Imagine climbing down a ladder into a tank 15 feet deep with liquid
several feet deep below you. Imagine becoming incapacitated after you take one
or two breaths. You will fall in and die if you are not already connected to a
retrieval system and someone uses it to remove you from the tank immediately.
It has happened, many, many times all over the world. In fact, in September
1996 four construction workers died on the Navel Weapons Station pier in Yorktown . One man entered a pumping station tank and became incapacitated. Another
man entered to help the first man and he too was knocked out by sewer gas.
Another man went in to help, he too fell out. A fourth man climbed in and he
went down too. A fifth man called for help when he discovered what happened,
but it was too late. All four men were dead within minutes because mandated
employee safety procedures were not followed. What is even worse is they had an
air quality tester and a retrieval system right there with them, but chose not
to utilize them.
The Occupational Safety and
Health Administration or OSHA has established mandatory employee safety
procedures for entering confined spaces like sewer manholes and pumping station
tanks. Failure to follow OSHA mandated permit required confined space entry
procedures can result in injury and death of employees; and fines, jail time
and lawsuits for supervisors, executives, businesses, counties, cities, etc.
Utilities has a portable tripod and wench retrieval system that can be connected
to a single person when they enter some types of confined spaces. This system
does not work at some of our pumping stations because of they way the stations
were built and how much room the tripod requires. I suggested constructing a
fixed retrieval system at these pump stations, but do not know if anything has
been done as of yet to protect our employees and comply with law. Utilities
also has air quality testers, but it appears they started using them only year
or so ago. For years our elected representatives, hired government
administrators and leaders of our utilities department have been allowing our
labor level employees to enter potential death traps, on almost a daily bases, without
testing air quality, utilizing adequate retrieval systems or following other
workplace safety laws.
Over the years a heck of a
lot of what I have shared in this and other articles about my experiences on
the PUAC has been made known to our elected representatives and hired
administrators. Over the years they have all continued to kick the can down the
road. Well, the can has become thin and the road short. Before our current
elected representatives throw more money away on pipe dreams of industrializing
our County in support of turning it into a retirement community, they need to
rectify our infrastructure deficiencies and set in place ordinances that will
provide the necessary mandates to prevent further neglect, fraud, waste and
abuse of our public water and sewer systems.
Keep following and please
share with everyone you know in Gloucester County
Comments about my articles
and submissions for publication on GVLN may be emailed to: Kennysr61@gmail.com
Let your voice be heard on
any topic pertaining to our community.
We will publish many opinions
the newspapers will not.
Kenny Hogge, Sr.
Kennysr61@gmail.com
Friday, January 27, 2017
Who Owns Your Land; You Or Our Local Government?
Another Rezoning Request
Here goes Gloucester County , Virginia February 2, 2017 .
Over the last couple or three
years there have been numerous requests submitted to our local government to
have land rezoned to allow the construction of approximately 440 apartments or
apartment like units. (i.e. condos, town homes, etc) Of those requests only one
has been denied by our Board of Supervisors; the request of Gloucester
“First, the proposed
development was right in the center of a cluster of single family homes. A duplex would look out of place in that subdivision,
would you not agree? It would have
caused a slippery slope of events going forward, and I am opposed to
"micro zoning".”
“Second, we believe the
Comprehensive Plan incorrectly classified this subdivision as multi family use
(we will be correcting that).”
“Thirdly, while not all of
the residents appeared at our meeting, we were inundated with an overwhelming
number of residents opposed to the proposed development.”
The following was my reply.
As I understand it; micro
zoning is the detailed preparation of land use maps by local bodies and public
authorities, fixing specific land uses for each site (such as residential,
educational, commercial, etc.). Micro zoning also details the density of land
uses at particular sites. In other words; micro zoning establishes a detailed
land use pattern.
I too, am against micro
zoning, but it appears we may interpret the words “micro zoning” somewhat
differently. In my simple mind I believe Gloucester County
Basing decisions on “how
something looks” is micro managing micro zoning to the extreme. What you find
acceptable from a “how it looks” standpoint may not be acceptable to others and
vise versa. As I shared in my article on GVLN, there are duplex units within
multiple neighborhoods here at Gloucester Point that cause no negative impacts
on any of the surrounding single family dwellings. Most people don’t even
notice they are duplexes. So I guess my answer would be; no to your question
about the duplexes “looking out of place” within the courthouse area
neighborhood.
As for potential errors in
the comprehensive plan; I don’t know what to tell you other than it is the
BOS’s plan. I am of the opinion that local and other government involvement in
how a landowner uses their property should be strictly limited to protecting
the health, welfare and safety of the citizenry. Nothing more, nothing less. No
level of government within the United States
It is great the people of
the neighborhood at the courthouse successfully rallied together to exercise
their 1st Amendment rights, but they are not the only ones to speak against
such rezoning requests. I would be willing to confidently bet that if the
voices of every person in the Gloucester Point, Hayes , Guinea York River Crossing
Shopping Center
Personally, I believe we have more than
enough existing apartments and apartments approved for future construction,
but who am I to say what Mr. Davis or any other land owner may or may not do
with their property? How will our Board of Supervisors “Rule” on Mr. Davis’
rezoning request? Will the “good ole boy” system come into play? Will they
continue to support United Nations land use agendas on American soil? Or will
they begin to return Gloucester
Email your comments to
Kennysr61@gmail.com
Kenny Hogge, Sr.
Monday, January 23, 2017
My experiences while serving as an At-Large member of the Gloucester County, Virginia Public Utilities Advisory Committee (PUAC) (The 4th in a series of articles about my experiences and findings)
Our Public Water Distribution System
Once our drinking water is
processed at our treatment plants it is pumped into our mostly underground pipe
distribution system. I say mostly underground because within our system there
are three elevated water storage tanks commonly referred to as water towers. These
towers are where our water is stored to readily accommodate customer demand. Ideally
in water systems like ours where hydraulic pressure created by elevating the
storage tanks (gravity) eliminates the need for electricity powered pumps to
deliver water under pressure to customers, elevated water towers should be
constructed at as close to the same capacity and elevation as possible. There
are numerous reasons for building water towers like this; of which include
water quality, pressure control and system costs. Unfortunately our water
towers were not built that way.
Our public water supply
system began in the Courthouse area back in the 1950’s. A separate water tower
and public supply system was constructed in the Gloucester Point area in the
early 1970’s. The two systems were connected together and our third water tower
was constructed in the mid 1990’s. Our public water supply system now has a
250,000 gal water tower located in the Courthouse area, a one million gal tower
at the old Page Middle School site and a 250,000 tower at Gloucester Point that
are all connected together and to our water treatment plants. The Courthouse
tower’s full water elevation is 198 feet above sea level, the Page tower was
constructed with a full elevation of 215 feet above sea level and the Point
tower has a full water elevation of 160 feet above sea level. As can be seen,
the Courthouse and Page towers are quite a bit higher in elevation than the
Point tower, with the Page tower, geographically located in between the other
two, being the highest and largest of the three.
I am of the opinion that the
Page water tower was built at the elevation it was to facilitate water
requirements associated with the Gloucester Business Park
The differences in our water
tower sizes and elevations make it hard to control water quality in the
Courthouse and Point water towers; I’ll explain. Once a water tower is filled,
the supply to the tower is supposed to be turned off until the level of water
in the tank drops to a specified level. Once the specified level is reached the
supply to the tower is turned back on until it is full again. This fill, drop
scenario is commonly referred to as water turnover and is supposed to
occur continuously. This does not happen at the Courthouse and Point towers
because the Page tower is so much larger and higher in elevation that it causes
the other two towers to constantly remain full. When stored water does not get turned
over frequently and regularly, disinfectant byproducts (DBPs) begin to
consolidate.
DBPs are chemical, organic
and inorganic substances that can form during a reaction of a disinfectant with
naturally present organic matter in water. There are too many types of DBPs to
list here but many are suspected of causing damage to the bladder, liver,
kidneys and central nervous system. Some are also considered carcinogenic.
In order to achieve
sufficient water turnover in the Courthouse and Point tower; Utilities
employees must manually lower the water level in each tower by dumping water
from the tanks onto the ground. Unfortunately, it does not appear Utilities has
always been consistent in turning the water over in these towers. I believe our
current Utilities employees do a much better job making sure DBPs do not build
up, but I also know Utilities has sent high level DBP notifications to
customers in the Gloucester Point area within the last year. I am unsure of the
source of the DBPs that drove customer notification in the Point area because
DBPs are known to consolidate in other areas of a water supply system. I do
know the DBPs customers were warned about at the Point are associated with
bladder cancer.
Our system currently has
underground water supply lines that run along Short Lane Road, Guinea Road,
Terrapin Cove Road, Providence Road and other roads, streets and cul-de-sacs in which the waterlines dead end. Dead end
lines such as the ones noted are also areas where DBPs are known to
consolidate. This problem was first brought to my attention during my first
visit to our water treatment plants. The statement made to me was to the effect
of no one being able to guarantee that water high in DBPs was not consumed at T.C. Walker School Achilles Elementary
School Guinea Road
Regularly flushing waterlines
and fire hydrants is part of operating and maintaining a public water supply
system. Like everything else I have talked about in these articles; regular
flushing of our waterlines is something that did not occur for many years due
to mismanagement and neglect. Now we have buildups of sediment in the bottom of
many of our waterlines which causes many customers to end up with cloudy water
in their sink whenever a fire hydrant is opened. Exercising valves and hydrants
is part of any good flushing plan, but again, is something that was neglected
in Gloucester
Some areas of our water
supply system are very old and in need of replacement. Utilities’ is constantly
repairing leaks and replacing components of the system. Unless there is a much
higher priority placed on water quality and accountability, I believe the
repairs will continue and will likely intensify until such time as something
catastrophic happens. I will share more about our water accountability in a
later article.
It will take a rather large
financial investment to bring our public water supply system up to acceptable
standards and performance. We need to correct our water tower issues. We need
to replace our out dated and defective water supply pipes and apparatuses. We
need to adopt and enforce up to date construction standards. And we need to
establish and enforce policies and procedures that will prevent future neglect
and mismanagement of our public water supply system.
In my next article I will
introduce our public sewer system. Environment conscious folks will not want to
miss it.
Comments may be emailed to:
Kennysr61@gmail.com.
Kenny Hogge, Sr.
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Kenny Hogge, Sr.
Gloucester Point, Virginia
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