After multiple resignations and months without meeting minutes, the Town of Louisa is finally beginning to rebuild its government — and its relationship with the public. Residents and council members alike say the past year has exposed deep cracks in how the town communicates with the public, leading to a growing demand for transparency in how decisions are made. Staffing shortages increased concerns about transparency. With meeting minutes not posted for six months, and video recordings not posted at all, residents struggled to find out what was happening on Town Council. … Experts say lack of transparency, intentional or not, can erode trust between a government and its community. “It can cause a real disconnect when things are done behind closed doors or it’s hard to get records,” said Megan Rhyne, executive director for the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, which advocates for transparency practices in state and local government. “If there’s a culture of secrecy, the public will then be suspicious of everything you do,” she said. “Like, oh, well, it’s just another thing they did behind closed doors. And even when they did it the exact right way, people are still going to be skeptical. So it’s a real erosion of that relationship, of the trust between citizens and government.”

Over a month after City Council first asked Mayor Danny Avula’s administration for figures on the city’s projected surplus for last fiscal year, the administration over the weekend said the city had taken in $22 million more than it spent. In a Saturday memo from Chief Administrative Officer Odie Donald II to City Council, Donald said that number was “preliminary” and “subject to change” following an external audit. Donald also said he was unable to provide an estimate of the surplus in time for the vote, promising instead to deliver it by the Nov. 15 deadline set by city code. On Monday, 8th District Councilwoman Reva Trammell — who was among the councilmembers to support the tax cut — accused officials in Avula’s administration of delaying disclosure on the surplus details so that the vote would go their way….“Somebody knew this number before we took that vote,” Trammell added. “If you’re doing your damn job, you’d know how much the surplus was going to be. It’s not hard to add up. This is BS. It’s not transparency.”

Soon to be under construction on rolling farmland at Green’s Corner, Mountain Run Elementary School has its own new webpage at culpeperschools.org. “The page will serve as the central hub for project updates including photos, videos, FAQs, and Board presentations throughout the building phase,” according to a Culpeper County Public Schools release on Friday. “This temporary information center will remain active until the official Mountain Run Elementary School page goes live closer to the school’s opening,” slated for the 2027-28 academic year.