The esteemed member of the Bowling Green Town Council Susan Sili (and the wife of Jeff Sili [Bowling Green representative for the Board of Supervisors]) really needs to get her story straight. Here’s what she said on November 28, 2007 on FredTalk using the alias “oharascarlett”:
Visitor Center is grant Money/cannot be used for anything else BUT a Visitor Center/TJ [Tom James] and Corran [my “alias” on FredTalk] have been told this over and over again but still keep spewing the same nonsense
Of course, in the same post she said that the “courthouse greenery” (Victory Park) was in the “architectural committee level to decide if it will even be done at all”. That very day [November 28th], The Caroline Progress reported the old jail had already been torn down that week as part of the “courthouse greenery” plan under the headline of “Old jail leveled for scenic Victory Park”.
Of course, again, in the same post she said the YMCA wasn’t a done deal, when the Board had already been voted on it way back in June of 2005.
Here’s what she said on December 10, 2007:
The visitor center/new office for Wilson was premature and will it ever be completed?
Here’s what she said on February 17, 2008:
The grant money and proffer money was given for the visitor center, cannot be traded for public safety or schools. Its not an either/or proposition as has been explained MANY times before to TJ, you can’t trade it in for another project.
Here’s what she said on March 14, 2008:
BigheadA, I had said along time ago, Why cant the BOS decide what to do with the Proffer Money? Could we have not said “thank you for your Donation, we will put this in our school system or Fire & Rescue” I am still upset that we wasted money on a visitors center, we have so many things that were more IMPORTANT !!!!!
Of course, the only reason she changed her tune was because the consensus of everyone on the message board was outrage at the current conditions of the schools (and the lack of use of proffers for the schools) in Caroline County. Guess she didn’t want to be odd-man (woman) out.
Wow, such amazing leadership we have here in Caroline County…
I’m just glad I don’t live in the town of Bowling Green…
It’s this kind of, for what of a better word, abuse – that has resulted in the homebuilders of Virginia seeking to outlaw proffers.
Their concern is that the INTENT of proffers is to offset the impacts of development on schools, roads, fire/rescue, etc.
And any locality that does not use proffers for that purpose is actually passing on those increased costs to county taxpayers.
If this is what is happening done in Caroline, ya’ll need to start getting rid of the folks who favor growth and to pass the costs of growth onto the backs of existing residents – many of which do not make NoVa salaries and others of which are on very fixed incomes …living in fairly modest circumstances.
Every new home built, on average, is occupied by 2.4 people. The .4 is a kid. New schools cost, on average, about 10K per school seat.
If new growth does not pay part of this cost – and the existing county taxpayers do not (unless the tax rate is raised), then you’ll end up with seriously overcrowded schools.
What amazes me is that this is not rocket science. Spotsylvania and Stafford made these mistakes many years ago before voters started throwing the pro-growth, do-not-collect-proffers folks out of office.
Now Caroline seems to be repeating the same mistakes…