According to the Suffolk News-Herald story, meeting in the open went against Suffolk City Councilman Mike Duman’s personal preference. “My original desire was for the meetings to be open. (Closed) meetings can always be somewhat more productive, especially if there’s negotiations involved or there’s a need for more open conversation,” Duman said. “It’s easier to have a conversation when you don’t necessarily have to worry about being politically correct.” If we assume for a moment that Duman could be right about government meetings being more productive when they aren’t public, then we must disregard the reason both these bodies exist. Duman ran for public office and was elected, or hired, by the public. They call this public service. The spending issues the task force members hope to solve with public money that they receive from the public through taxes. And state law says unambiguously that “The affairs of government are not intended to be conducted in an atmosphere of secrecy since at all times the public is to be the beneficiary of any action taken at any level of government.”
There is that pesky word public again.
Dick Hammerstrom, Free Lance-Star
Like “pink slime,” a term for fine-ground beef trimmings, “industrial sludge” is a dysphemism — the opposite of a euphemism — for a product that’s not as bad as it sounds. But people are still entitled to have concerns about the stuff, and to know where it’s being used. Unfortunately, Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality failed to give the public adequate notice about a proposal to spread industrial sludge, which is a type of fertilizer, on 16,000 acres of farm fields in seven counties in the state. Residents were understandably displeased. Regular readers of this space know we’ve made a bit of a hobby horse out of the public-notice issue. Every year, some local government officials and state leaders try to weaken public-notice requirements on the specious grounds that doing so will save money. It won’t. All it would do would enable those officials to spread a lot more of their own … fertilizer.
Times-Dispatch
Jerry Canada is right. It was inappropriate for a fellow school board member to seek an administrative job with Roanoke County Public Schools before first resigning from the division’s policymaking body. Yet board member Mike Stovall did not before seeking, and ultimately getting, the job of transportation department head, though Canada had told him he first should give up his elected seat.
Roanoke Times
Remember last fall, when part-time Roanoke County Supervisor Butch Church applied for the full-time county public information officer position? Although he didn’t get that gig, elected officials applying for full-time gigs in the government they rule is getting to be an annual thing in Roanoke County. The latest example is Mike Stovall, recently of the Roanoke County School Board. On Sept. 5 he announced he was resigning his elective seat for an unspecified “business opportunity.” A few days later, we learned more: * The business opportunity was a full-time job as the county schools transportation director, which pays $60,000 per year. * Stovall had in advance cleared his application with his colleagues on the school board before he tossed his hat in the ring for the job. Other council members and Lange were falling all over themselves to deny the hiring process had been greased for the (nearly) 20-year school board veteran. That they felt the need to deny it at all is a telling factor.
Dan Casey, Roanoke Times
In a routine congressional election featuring incumbents and challengers singing the songs of their parties, Independent Green Party candidates Ken and Elaine Hildebrandt stand out like thumbs mistaken for nails. They’re not the usual suspects. They are married. They accept no campaign donations from anyone — no citizens, no lobbyists and no large corporations. Elaine Hildebrandt, a teacher, is running for election in the 6th Congressional District, but lives in the 5th District. It’s rare, but legal.“In general, voters want their member of the House to live in the district, or at least have a home in it. That’s especially true in a state like Virginia, which is so close to D.C.,” Larry J. Sabato, head of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said. “We expect to see our representatives a great deal. You’re taking a chance if you don’t meet expectations. Ask ex-Rep. Eric Cantor, R-7th, who was apparently seen over Skype more often than live and in-person in district town halls and other forums. Voters notice over time.” Elaine Hildebrandt recognizes the unlikelihood of getting elected, but she doesn’t see her residency as a big drawback. “A lot of people I talked to when I was circulating petitions in the district to get onto the ballot said they worked in the district but didn’t live there and, in a way, that’s how I look at it,” she said. “The district is where I will work, even if I don’t live there.”
Bryan McKenzie, Daily Progress
It’s time for Virginians to demand of their legislators and their publicly elected officials the highest possible standards of ethics and conduct. This means new laws with stiff enforcement. It is time for a new Virginia Way, where our representatives – at every level – exemplify the honesty and integrity that we the people have a right to expect. The free ride is over. And so is the gravy train. But only if the citizens insist.
Mike McClary, Star-Exponent
“I would love to go to the Masters,” says House Minority Leader David Toscano, referring to the famous golf tournament. “But I’m not sure it’s appropriate for me to take Dominion’s money to do it.” That was a veiled reference to a trip enjoyed by two Republican lawmakers, Hanover’s Ryan McDougle and Spotsylvania’s Bryce Reeves — not that members of Toscano’s own Democratic Party don’t take plenty of unseemly swag too, mind you. Partisan digs aside, Toscano is entirely right. Yet a lot of state lawmakers can’t seem to grasp that obvious point, even after watching their most recent former governor get convicted on nearly a dozen federal corruption charges. Finally, it bears repeating why all of this is necessary in the first place. Beyond original sin and basic human weakness, there’s the fact that state government inserts itself into all manner of business matters, in ways that can make or break enterprises into which people have poured their entire lives. Even short of that, a tweak to the tax code or a change in an obscure rule can mean millions of dollars in revenue lost or gained. When companies and other interest groups ply legislators with swag bags and fancy trips, they are sometimes paying what amounts to protection money to government officials who could ruin them. And other times, they’re seeking an unfair advantage, a handout, or a loophole they plainly do not deserve.
Times-Dispatch