Gloucester, VA - Louise Theberge, Questions of Quid Pro Quo And Conflicts of Interest?

This is the video in full that covers the recent introduction of the Gloucester Main Street (Village) sub area plan.  Louise serves on the board of the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust.  This video opens a lot of legal questions.  Are there Quid Pro Quo issues here?  The conflict of interest is very clear.  We just received this comment from one of our readers.  

"Sir:

Unlike one of your other readers please feel free to post my comments.  Like you, I would like the County to answer the issues you have brought up in your posts.  Please continue to keep us informed since none of the local papers care to cover the news!

I read your article wondering how these things could happen.  Louise Theberge being the chairperson of the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors would know that she has to excuses herself from any discussion or vote on anything to do with the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust as this is a conflict of interest and a violation of the public trust.  Case in point Mr Borden excused himself from discussions and votes on extending the sewer line to Providence Baptist Church since he is a long time member and supporter of the church.  We know she did not do this since the vote was 7 – 0.  I have to wonder why the State Police or FBI are not investigating this issue.  Does this meet the definition of Quid Pro Quo? 

According to Wikipedia:

“In legal usage, quid pro quo indicates that an item or a service has been traded in return for something of value, usually when the propriety or equity of the transaction is in question. For example, under the common law, a binding contract must involve consideration: that is, the exchange of something of value for something else of economic value. In the United States, if the exchange appears excessively one sided, courts in some jurisdictions may question whether a quid pro quo did actually exist and the contract may be void by law.^[2]

Similarly, political donors are legally entitled to support candidates that hold positions with which the donors agree, or which will benefit the donors. Such conduct becomes bribery only when there is an identifiable exchange between the contribution and official acts, previous or subsequent, and the term quid pro quo denotes such an exchange. The term may also be used to describe blackmail, where a person offers to refrain from some harmful conduct in return for valuable consideration.”

Louise Theberge stated in a newspaper article for her reelection she is open to listening to the public.  I would like her to talk to us.  I would like her to address these issues and the questions you have your story “Gloucester, VA - What Are The Board of Supervisors And The GMSPT Hiding? “

I would definitely like to see these issues cleared up before the Republican Party considers proving support for her reelection.  These issues appear to reflect poorly on her as a person, as a member of the Board of Supervisors, especially as the chairperson, and the Republican Party in Gloucester County.

Does the Tea Party have anybody interested in this position?

Voter in Gloucester"

Should anyone be concerned?  

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Gloucester, VA - Edge Hill Service Station Potential Demolition Update

Looking further into the Edge Hill service station being scoped for potential demolition by the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust and presented to the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors, we decided to see if the Fairfield Foundation was still the owner of the present Edge Hill Service Station and it is.

  What we also looked up is any ties between Fairfield Foundation and the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust.  We found one. The present Edge Hill Service Station is listed in the county as Fairfield Edge Hill LLC or a Limited Liability Company.  Not a non profit organization, yet still tied to the non profit foundation.
https://apps.gloucesterva.info/cor/landbookdb/landbook3DNN.asp?Param=29861  is the link to this information.

The Fairfield Foundation is a member of the Gloucester Main Street Association.

You can blow this image up to see it more clearly by clicking on it.  Now the Gloucester Main Street Association is tied to the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust which has Louise Theberge, chairperson of the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors, on it's board.  Both organizations are tied to the Cook Foundation.

The Edge Hill Service Station is a for profit arm of the Fairfield Foundation which is a non profit organization.  The question that comes up that we ask is the Fairfield Edge Hill LLC looking to sell the building to the county for these new plans possibly making a profit on the building and at an expense to local taxpayers?

  The present market value of the property is $97,300.00 according to Land Book which is available for everyone to view at the link above.  Fairfield has owned this property since May 19th, 2010 and to date has not done much with it except restore the exterior to a more pleasant facade fixing numerous exterior damage.

  Any plans for opening it up as an educational facility would seem to be running far behind any estimations if it were meant to be opened to the public.  If it was meant to be restored as a period property, again, it is running way behind any reasonable estimations.  The period restoration that was originally talked about is a 1930's service station.  Here it is a few days short of 3 years later and still nothing period about a period restoration taking place.

  So again one must question why the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust was making plans that included potential demolition of this structure when the GMSPT should know that the new owners have plans for the property, or is it that these are the real plans?  And why did the Board of Supervisors except review of the plans with this included in them?  Straight forward facts with straight forward questions.  Plain and simple.

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Gloucester, VA - County Officials Throw Nasty Surprise At Daffodil Fest Vendors

Seal of Gloucester County, Virginia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gloucester County officials have a good deal of vendors that participated in the Daffodil festival very upset and seriously reconsidering whether to come back next year.  Why?  A nasty little surprise sent to food vendors after the event.  That little surprise cuts into what profits may have been made by food vendors.  Now it's fair to say that every vendor would know to collect the 5% state sales tax on prepared food.  The nasty surprise is the county now asking for an additional 4% local tax on prepared food.

  The question isn't whether or not it's legal.  The issue is that not all localities in the state of Virginia have additional local taxes on prepared foods.  Those that do have varying taxes.  It's not at all uniform across the state at any level.  For Gloucester, VA that extra tax is 4%.  At no time did the county notify any of the food vendors of this extra tax and or the need to collect it.  We have both a letter from Kevin Wilson, Commissioner of Revenue below asking to collect that extra amount along with all the rules and regulations provided to the vendors on this site to show that at no time did the county ever notify the vendors of this required tax collection.

  So now vendors have no choice but to pay the extra 4% sales tax to the county  that was not collected by them.  That comes out of any profits that may have been made at the festival by any of the food vendors.  The vendor that supplied us with this letter is steaming mad and doubts ever coming back.  All this on top of the county at the last minute suspending rules for collecting an additional $500.00 per vendor to even show up and work in the county that county officials have always failed to follow through with anyway.

  This vendor told us, had the county tried to collect that additional $500.00, there would be no way to even consider setting up at the festival.  Vendors would have to pay extra money out of their own pockets and operate at a loss to do so.  County officials gone insane?  That's the common question asked by vendors when they learned about the $500.00 extra last minute fees the county did suspend at the last minute.

  Future vendors coming into Gloucester County should take warning here.  You may just be in for a financial surprise you didn't count on and not in your favor either.

KEVIN A. WILSON
Commissioner of the Revenue
COUNTY OF GLOUCESTER, VIRGINIA 6489 Main Street
Suite 137
Gloucester, Virginia 23061
(804) 693-3451 Office
(804) 693-3581 Fax
April 15, 2013

Re: 2013 Daffodil Festival

Dear Business Owner:

I refer to the recent 2013 Daffodil Festival held in Gloucester County where you
attended as a vendor. This office administers business licensing, prepared food and beverage and the audit of sales tax. To that end I have enclosed a form to gather information to ascertain your liability to none of the above taxes or some depending on your answers to the questionnaire.

Vendors selling food are required to collect the Virginia 5% sales tax, unless
classified by the IRS as a nonprofit 501C3 entity, and collect the County 4% prepared food and beverage tax on prepared food only. All retail merchants are required to register with the Virginia Department of Taxation and collect sales tax in accordance with their policies and state law. All vendors, other than non-profits, are required to hold a business license with a locality in the Commonwealth of Virginia to prosecute a business.

In order to collect this information in a timely manner I would like to thank you in
advance for your cooperation in returning the questionnaire/form on or before May 1, 2013.
If you have additional questions please feel free to contact our office at (804) 693-1319 or (804) 693-3451.

Kevin A. Wilson
Commissioner of the Revenue
KAW

Vendor Information: http://www.gloucesterva.info/ParksandRecreation/DaffodilFestival/VendorInformation/tabid/353/Default.aspx  Web site link.

Daffodil Festival Vendor Information

Festival is held Rain or Shine

DAFFODIL FESTIVAL VENDORS EMAIL REMINDERS LIST  
Please join our list to receive monthly reminders on deadlines, forms and the festival.   Please add me to the email reminder system.
Since we have several email reminders list please include "Vendors Reminder List" in your email.

VENDOR QUESTIONS???Original Handcrafts & Fine Arts - Juried Show.  All items must be made by the applicant.  Fee: $150.00 for a 10x10 space.    Deadline to apply is January 11, $20 fee for late applications.  Please add me to the email reminder system.  PRINTABLE FORM
FOOD COURT - Application fees - $30/frontage foot for commercial vendors and $15/frontage foot for non-profit vendors.  Forms will be posted October 1.  Deadline to apply is January 4.   Please add me to the email reminder system.

MERCHANDISERS - This area is for sales/display of manufactured goods or handmade items that were made by someone other than the vendor.  Fee: $150.00 for a 10x10 space.  Deadline to apply is January 11, $20 fee for late applications.   Please add me to the email reminder system.   PRINTABLE FORM
NON-PROFITS -  This area is for local Non-Profit groups to set up displays about their efforts, demonstrations, membership drives or sales.   Fee: $75 for a 10 x 10 space.   Deadline to apply is January 11, $20 fee for late applications.  Please add me to the email reminder system.  PRINTABLE FORM

PRINTABLE W-9 FORM (54KB)  ALL APPLICATIONS MUST INCLUDE A COMPLETED W-9 FORM, WE ARE CO-SPONSORED BY GLOUCESTER COUNTY AND IT IS A REQUIREMENT OF THEIR ACCOUNTING SYSTEM.

GENERAL INFORMATION FOR ALL VENDORS:

• vendor must provide tables, chairs, booths, tents, etc.
• vendor must provide full and accurate descriptions of their wares
• vendor must be set up by 9 am on Saturday and 11:30 am on Sunday
• vendor may not begin packing up until 5:00 pm on Saturday or 5:00 pm on Sunday
• vendor must park in designated areas only - parking in public spaces takes a parking space away from YOUR CUSTOMERS
• vendor must provide full address, self addressed stamped envelope, payment and FIN or SS number
• vendor must NOT offer ANY shirt or sweatshirt of any kind with daffodils in the design
• vendor must NOT use the trademarked "Daffodil Festival" in any way on their wares
• vendor must clean up their assigned space - trash bags will be supplied and dumpsters will be on site
• vendor must realize there are no refunds due to weather
• vendor must realize that if conditions become unsafe during the festival, due to acts of mother nature, violence or other catastrophic event that is out of the hands of the Daffodil Festival Committee, the festival will be canceled with no refunds
• On a good weather day, we expect to have 10 to 15 thousand visitors. 
• On a bad weather day, we expect to have 5 to 7 thousand visitors.
• Lodging in Gloucester County

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Gloucester, VA - What Are The Board of Supervisors And The GMSPT Hiding?

Since we posted our article on the planning documents for Gloucester Main Street area, showing that these documents contain plans for the potential demolition of the Edge Hill Service Station, we have had several attacks against us.  The attacks stopped once we asked the right question.  Why have plans been made against private property?

What business do Gloucester County officials and the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust have making plans that look at private property?  Why did Gloucester County Board of Supervisors vote 7 to zero to accept looking at these plans when they should have known that the plans have highly questionable tactics loaded into them?  Louise Theberge should know full well that the plans contained this issue since she is on both boards.

  If you look at the attackers comments, you will see that the person is close to the issues.  "Yes, keep it going. You display your ignorance and wild leaps of "logic" which time will show are at best confused. The station was painted white prior to being sold to the current owner who plans to upgrade the existing building and corner. This reality has nothing to do with a planning document ... say what you will about the planning document's merit ... it is not prescriptive. Not even the long arm of zoning can force a property owner to comply with a planning document. So, like I said, keep up the ignorance and people will gradually see that you have no idea what you are talking about. I particularly like your brazen posting of my previous message and you will probably do the same with this one ... I hope. Ignorance is not bliss. on Gloucester, VA - Readers Respond To Edge Hill Service Station Slated For Possible Demolition"

  The attack is made at the personal level towards us and uses deceptive language designed to take what we presented off track.  We presented a copy of the planning documents showing the plans for potential demolition.  This was the first attack on us when we did.

"Please keep posting stories like this. They prove that you have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about.

The restoration of the station has hardly begun with much work left. Check your facts before you post alarmist articles. I'm guessing you have not spoken with the owners ... they would have told you what is actually going on. "

These pages come right off of the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust's site.  We didn't make this stuff up.  This is the exact information that was presented to the Board of Supervisors that they voted 7-0 to accept looking over. Why the attacks?  What are they hiding?  These documents are public though very hard to find and take forever to download.  These documents clearly show plans for the Edge Hill Service Station.  According to our attacker, the new owner has other plans for the service station which would mean that both the GMSPT and Gloucester County officials are violating the rights of private property and the rights of the new owner as well as the rights of private enterprise.  Is this why we were attacked?  To get this information off the site so that the public would not figure this out?

  Are there plans to somehow take over this property from the present owner?  We do not know, we are only asking the question.  It's disturbing to see issues like this when you have Louise Theberge being the chairperson of the Gloucester County Board of Supervisors and also on the board of the Gloucester Main street Preservation Trust, playing both sides.  You will never get a straight answer.

  Now part of our story covered the issue that Edge Hill has been restored.  The facade at present does not look anything like our top picture.  

The building now is an off white or light tan color with murals painted on it's side and numerous exterior damage has been  repaired.  Hence the exterior meets the term restored.  Maybe not period restored, but restored never the less.  

  That took money.  Tearing it down after all this work would seem a shame unless the inside is in such disrepair that the required repairs would be more expensive than it's worth.  Not likely though.  So again, why the attacks?  What is someone trying to hide?  The attacker is attacking us like we made up the planning document.  We reported to the public what part of the planning document contains.  We will be covering more of the planning document as it has some pretty ridiculous areas to it.

  Why did the attacker call the initial article alarmist when all we did was show the public what the planning documents contain?  Once that was brought up, the attacker went to another direction.  And again, you can see that this is someone inside.  Inside which organization is part of the question.  County official?  Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust?    The attacker states that the planning document is not prescriptive.  Again, why was the Edge Hill Service Station even included in the plans then?  

  Something just isn't right here and what happens to this property in the future might just be a very telling tale.

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Gloucester, VA - Battle of the Hook Slideshow of Free Images

Sample of some of the pictures we are giving away from the 2008 Battle of the Hook event that took place here.  These are all licensed under a Creative Commons license on Flickr and Google and can be used even under commercial conditions.

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Gloucester, VA - Free Tools For Local Businesses No 2

This is a copy of the document before you start to use it.  It's the main template.  There are 6 spots for 6 businesses to network together and create a cooperative advertising piece.  This can be used as either a black and white version for ultra cheap printing costs or color photos can be used keeping the major costs for printing down.

Each business in the network picks a spot and fills in the colored box with their photo and then underneath the photo, put in your business information.  We used an 11 point font for the text underneath the picture and it worked out well.

  For something more colorful, we have created this next version for you.

This is the same as above only with more visual impact and a lot more expensive to print.  Would be great for window signs and plastic holder sign boards though, Also good as a free download off your  web site for others to learn more about local businesses you are involved in a co-op with.  Again, the blue section is where you post your business photo and the white box underneath is where you put your business information in.  Another sample we created to show you how it would look.

Now this first set of free tools for businesses is for Main Street businesses, many more will be following very soon for all businesses of Gloucester.  This one will prove to be the most difficult but also the most rewarding when completed.  Businesses will have to create a very strong network and work together on this project.  Any single break in the network and the project will fail.  Just an advanced warning, so choose your network carefully.

Each business will pick one boxed area and complete the area.  It then moves on to the next business to pick a boxed area and so on.  It really does not matter who has what position.  Don't fight over it.  Any position can be argued for the best spot.  Once the project is completed, the last business to complete the last box must then distribute the final project to everyone else in the network.  

Now that each of you have a final project, you can print out as many copies as you deem appropriate or as the network leader decides what should be appropriate, and give them out at your store.  You can also post it on line as a download or as an additional web page on your site.  You can send us a final project and we will both post the work and we can even host the download for you giving everyone in the network the download link.

What you are going to need.  Open Office office suite is needed to work on the project as the template file is an Open Office odg doc.  We tried to build this on the cloud but have yet to find a good host program on the cloud that gives us the design capabilities we wanted.  Great news.  Open Office is free and we like it better than Microsoft Office.  http://www.openoffice.org/  This is the link to the free download of Open Office.  

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5NJpRCvjyV8bzdvS1Y0T2JQMkk/edit?usp=sharing  This link is for the first template.  The one with the white background.  

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5NJpRCvjyV8ZEpONHpkeDJsbVE/edit?usp=sharing  This link is for the more colorful template.  We recommend using both but printing the cheaper of the two for free distribution and the color one for posting inside your business.

Gloucester Main Street Templates 1 and 2 by Already Listed On Poster is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at Can Not remove attribution.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.GloucesterCounty-VA.com.

This is the license for the templates.  You can not remove our information from the bottom.  We are providing these tools at an expense to us, so it's only fair to require that you leave our information on the final products.  Besides, it will help spread the word for the free tools to other businesses.  The provided license helps protect each party in the network as well.  It's not no cost, but it is a very effective low cost tool to begin with.  

This video will give you an idea of the real power of the Open Office tools.

By the way, if any businesses outside of Gloucester, Virginia wants to use these tools, you are free to do so as long as you stay within the license conditions. 

Stay tuned for a lot more tools.  We have no shortage of ideas.  

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Gloucester, VA - Free Tools For Local Businesses Number 1

Instead of the Shop Local campaign, as far as Gloucester Main Street businesses are concerned, here is an idea for local businesses to come together on and create.  Everyone is free to copy the example above and expand on it in any way that works for you.

The above here is another example of what can be created through a cooperative.  Numerous restaurants can get together and create a one page promo piece that shows community pride, promotes tourism and promotes each restaurant.  We are starting to work on a number of pieces that you will be able to download and add your own information to it and will create multiple promotions, working as a community information service as well as promoting your own business.  Some will be time sensitive while others will be all year round.  You can use anything you think will work for you.

  As these are developed, we will teach you how to use them for maximum advantage and at a very low cost.  Much lower than other forms of advertising.  The pieces will all be designed for anyone to use.  The new tools will be licensed under a creative commons license so that no issues should occur.  How inexpensive will some of these new pieces be?  Whatever your time is worth while others are strictly a printing cost per page.

  We kept thinking about how bad we thought the Shop Local campaign was for local merchants and as we cried out about poor leadership under the Shop Local campaign, we saw the need for leadership to happen somewhere.  So we are going to take that position and help you at no cost to you.  You decide if you want to participate.  We also do not care if you are a small business or a big box business.  If you think the tools we give you will help you, then participate.  If not, no hard feelings.

  We will be posting the new tools for download on a regular basis, so you will have to keep coming back to see the new offers and decide if you want to use them.  We will try and use the same heading for new tools with updated numbering.  This is number 1.  We will also discuss newspaper ads and show the advantages to cooperatives and how to get into a cooperative possibly for free.  

  Networked together we can make a serious impact for both local businesses and for the community as a whole.

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