Welcome
After spending several years attending Board of Supervisor meetings and staying abreast of important county issues, I feel qualified to make statements, factual and opinion, about county issues and the actions and inactions of elected and appointed county officials.
My commentary isn't always flattering but it isn't always negative. If my tone sometimes appears to be lacking in patience and tolerance, there is a very good reason for that and it has to do with how the supervisors treat county citizens and specifically this citizen. To date, 4 of the 5 seated supervisors have at one time served as chair of the board (Mr. McCoy has yet to serve as of 2008). Each chair has exhibited their own unique characteristics with some being more inclined to allow citizens to speak than others. The 2008 chair, Mr. Eric Gentry, imposes a strict 3 minute rule on the amount of time he allows a citizen to speak to the board. This dictatorial approach to conducting a public meeting does little to encourage citizen participation in what should be a platform for citizens to voice their concerns, suggestions, and requests. Very little pertinent information can be conveyed in a period of three minutes. I have noted the need at times for citizen commentary to have a time limit. However, more often I have noted the need for time limits on some of the useless dialogue between supervisors. If you are able to hear the supervisors, primarily because they speak more to each other than they speak to meeting attendees, you will eventually come to the same conclusion as I, and that is how ill-informed they are on important issues before them for decision.
This site will always attempt to provide meaningful insight about important county issues in an effort to allow interested county citizens an opportunity to acquire information they might not otherwise become informed about if they don't attend county meetings. I hope you will find my site of interest and I welcome you to return often. I also welcome your personal commentary, which can be provided in identified sections within the site.
Please Enjoy Your Stay.
Please use the site navigation buttons to move from page to page within the site. Unlike the county, I can't afford to pay for a professional web site designer but I will do my personal best to make the site easy to navigate, pleasing to the eye, and chocked full of useful information.
I have and will continue to provide various interactive features that I hope will be of interest to you. If these features don't prove to be of any interest to site guests, I will either alter or remove them from the site.
October 1, 2008
New Site Commentary
Important new commentary has been added to several areas of this site. Please review your areas of interest to determine if new information exists.
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November 12, 2008
Tax Increases are Coming!!
My fellow Giles County citizens, I implore you to take to heart the fact that your current Board of Supervisors and their leader, County Administrator Mr. Chris McKlarney, are poised to pilfer your wallet in order to fund their numerous favorite projects and their continued approval of inefficient expenditure of your taxes.
The situation is more serious today than at anytime I can recall during the last six years. Repeated requests to the supervisors that they mandate performance of efficiency reviews throughout county government and schools has for years continued to fall on deaf ears. In regard to schools, neither the School Board (primarily J.B. Buckland) nor the School Superintendent, Dr. T. E. Arbogast, II, will agree that an efficiency evaluation could possibly identify areas where the schools could save money and apply the savings to such things as teacher salaries, school renovations, and other education expenses as allowed by the State.
The “do-nothing” Board of Supervisors don’t have the backbone or will to mandate to the School Board that they contract the efficiency study to a qualified business and once and for all determine if the schools are operating as efficiently as J.B. Buckland has gone on record as saying “they are as efficient as possible.”
Come on citizens, GET INVOLVED AND MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD!!
The real estate reassessment is reportedly averaging 25-27% increases in the value of your real estate holdings!!!Can you believe this is possible when our ENTIRE country is in an admitted RECESSION and most likely a soon to be announced DEPRESSION?
The totally idiotic explanation published in the Virginian Leader is absurd and an insult to the intelligence of every taxpayer in Giles County.
Our county officials think you are DUMB and they have no respect for you and your rights, especially when they become parties to the totally business-loving Chris McKlarney who is combination Giles County Economic Development Director and County Administrator. This good old boy can go home to West Virginia every night and live off the $105,000 plus that he receives from the county. He can hunt and fish on the property of good old boy J.B. Buckland and enjoy the new road to Mr. Buckland’s property paid for by Appalachian Power Company.
Believe me when I tell you that Mr. McKlarney is more interested in doing what he can for business in Giles County and the New River Valley than he is interested in looking out for your tax obligation to the county. You are his Golden Goose and he wants you to keep laying those golden eggs so he can spend more for business development in the county and valley. But where is all of that promised development? Much money has been spent and all he can take credit for is 50 new jobs in a county of close to 17,000 people.
If you want to do something productive, contact your supervisor, contact the two at-large supervisors, contact Chris McKlarney, contact other county citizens, and encourage positive action to operate our county more efficiently before approval of even one cent in tax increases. This is the duty of your elected officials! Make them perform the job you elected them to do!!!
If you decide to take no action, then don’t utter one single word of disagreement when your taxes are increased! Don’t utter one single word of disagreement when you receive your increased real estate assessment! Because if you decide to remain silent you deserve what you get from your elected county officials. If you are wealthy and don’t care about this issue, then good for you but what about your neighbors? What about the 30 plus percentage of the county population that lives on a fixed income? What are they supposed to do when they see an increase in their taxes?
If county citizens decide to turn the other cheek and let the supervisors do this to them, then I will finally give up on trying to open the eyes of those who might not know what is going on in this county. This battle cannot be fought and won by one person and I sincerely hope many of you will jump onboard and help to correct the course of this captain-less ship.
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Contact Information
I can be contacted as follows:
Douglas Turner
134 Cypress Lane
Pearisburg, Virginia 24134
540-599-1578