Caroline County Board of Supervisors | I'm Surrounded By Idiots

So, where’s that $3,200,000 YMCA at in Caroline County?

Short Answer:

It’s been put on hold “indefinitely”.

Long Answer:

Way back in 2005, the Caroline County Board of Supervisors, in their infinite wisdom, decided to spend $3,200,000 — $2,800,000 of which were proffers — to build a YMCA at Ladysmith.

The vote was 3-1, according to The Free Lance–Star, with Maxie Rozell dissenting (no idea who was absent or abstained). Rozell wanted to verify first that “the county [would] have enough proffer money to pay for new schools, roads, and fire and police stations, before considering the YMCA.” Rozell objected to the location of the YMCA, as well.

Schools, road, fire and police stations? Nah, can’t have those!

At the time of the approval of the YMCA in Caroline County, it was stated that the Caroline County YMCA should be opened around the same time as the King George County YMCA.

The King George YMCA is currently slated to open in September. Meanwhile, the Caroline County YMCA hasn’t even broken ground.

According to Percy Ashcraft, the Caroline County YMCA has been put on hold “indefinitely”.

So, right now the county has been sitting on $3,200,000 for three years. As Joey Schiebel pointed out while discussing the proposed expansion to the wastewater treatment plant, building costs suffer around a 5% inflation every year.

In three year period from 2005 to 2008, that means the county has lost around $504,400; that means that the YMCA is going to cost more or the project will have to be smaller than was originally proposed.

So, not only is the county sitting on $3,200,000, but they also are considering borrowing $4,500,000 to expand the county park in Milford. Percy Ashcraft noted at one of the Board of Supervisors meetings earlier this year that the county was almost at their established maximum ceiling for borrowing.

Not only that, but the county will see their debt increase in the coming years since they opted to set up interest-only payments for the first couple years on several projects. I guess the county is another “victim” of “predatory” lending.

Percy Ashcraft himself has said if there is any more borrowing by the county, the tax rate will have to go up.

Remember the Caroline County Board of Supervisors and their secret subcommittees?

Read the previous coverage here.

Well, Colonial Beach has done the same thing as Caroline County (The Journal Press):

The Spring of 2008 witnessed the Town of Colonial Beach ushering in a new regime – three new council members, Burkett Lyburn, Ronald “Sparky” Ridgely and Karen Payne; and one new mayor, Fred Rummage. Almost immediately the composite of the Council changed again when Council Representative Linda Crandell resigned and Planning Commission Chair, David Coombes, was appointed in her place.

As one would expect with a new council and mayor at the helm of Colonial Beach, changes have been made and some of them not necessarily for the better. What was once a fairly open style of government has been slowly moving towards the side of privatization.

One of the largest and most notable changes that has occurred is the eradication of the three-person committee. Whereas previously the Town of Colonial Beach had been utilizing a three-person committee made up of Council members, and on some committees members of the public as well, to oversee particular areas such as public works and public safety, a single member is now being designated as being “responsible for the oversight of”.

The reason this is of such importance is because of the number 3; three council members together in one place discussing council business constitutes a meeting which means that it must be advertised and the public must be allowed to attend. This is so that government business, the government business of Colonial Beach, is discussed in an open forum that provides residents the opportunity to make themselves aware of what their government is doing.

This also makes it possible for journalists to attend and obtain information and relay it to the public, again so citizens are aware of what their government is doing. This is specified in 2.2-3700 of The Virginia Freedom of Information Act; “By enacting this chapter, the General Assembly ensures the people of the Commonwealth ready access to public records in the custody of a public body or its officers and employees, and free entry to meetings of public bodies wherein the business of the people is being conducted.” A committee of one, in theory, might not have to make the public aware of when they are conducting business.

The reason for this thought might be perhaps because the term “meeting” under 2.2 -3701 Definitions under FOIA, is designated as “the meetings, including work sessions when sitting physically, or through telephonic or video equipment pursuant to 2.2-37-8 or 2.2-3708.1, as a body or entity, or as an informal assemblage of (i) as many as three members or (ii) a quorum, if less than three, of the constituent membership, wherever held, with or without minutes being taken, whether or not votes are cast, of any public body.”

This change to one person committees, however, is also of note, because at this year’s Town Council’s FOIA review session conducted by the Town Attorney, Andrea Erard, the Mayor joked that the FOIA was the reason he had established things this way. On August 14th Agenda #52-08, Resolution – Approval of Mayor’s Monitoring Appointments of Town Council Members was voted and approved.

Almost immediately after approving the monitoring appointments, the mayor appointed a committee of two, Steve Kennedy and Sparky Ridgely, to look into complaints regarding the public works department. And although no jokes were made about this committee being able to meet in private and fly under the radar, the assumption is there. So it needs to be remembered that this two-person committee, just as the oversight positions, was voted into being by the rest of the council, in other words, approved by the public body itself, to conduct business on its, the council’s behalf.

The vote that was taken establishes this two-person committee, just as it did the oversight positions, is an extension of the public body, thereby making them public bodies themselves. It says so, again in 2.2-3701 under the definitions for FOIA; “Public body” means any legislative body, authority, board, bureau, commission, district or agency of the Commonwealth or of any political subdivision of the Commonwealth, including cities, town and counties, municipal councils, governing bodies of counties, school boards and planning commissions; boards of visitors of public institutions of higher education; and other organizations, corporations or agencies in the Commonwealth supported wholly or principally by public funds. … and (ii) any committee, subcommittee, or other entity however designated, of the public body created to perform delegated functions of the public body or to advise the public body. It shall not exclude any such committee, subcommittee or entity because it has private sector or citizen members….”

This is not to say that all council business has been conducted in secret, Vice Mayor Trish King has opted to hold her economic development group meetings on the third Tuesday of the month at Town Center, Council Member Burkett Lyburn has also kept the public forum for Public Safety and Dave Coombes holds the Planning Commission meetings in public as well, but how about when he meets to handle a special assignment? And what of those representatives in charge of the budget, roads, water and sewer? When and with whom have they been meeting?

According to Maria Everett, with the Virginia Freedom of Information Act Advisory Council, “These committees of one, or two, composed of council members, are subsets of the larger body created to advise and as such all their meetings should be advertised and open to the public.” They do not however have to keep minutes. Everett said that if the intent was to thwart the Freedom of Information Act, the effort has been unsuccessful. The advisory council can be reached at (804) 225-3056.

It should be noted that these changes have occurred on the heels of a campaign where multiple promises, in fact portions of campaign platforms, consisted of pledges towards transparency and openness of government.

How many state laws did the Caroline County BOS violate when they gave themselves pay raises?

At the beginning of the 2008 calendar year a 2% pay increase went into effect for the Caroline County Board of Supervisors (BOS).

At the beginning of July 1st — the beginning of the 2008/2009 fiscal year — the budget adopted by the board increased their pay by 5%.

That makes a total of a 7% increase in six months in their salary to $18,693.20 per head for two nights of work a month.

In the same budget, a proposed 5% increase for county employees was reduced from a 5% merit pay increase to a 2% cost-of-living increase.

That means for a member of the county staff, unless they make more than $61,650 a year, not only did they receive a lower percentage increase — they also received a lower absolute (dollar) increase as well!

Not only that, but as the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported in 2006, the supervisors for Caroline received $10,000 more per year than the supervisors in King George and Westmoreland County (which have comparable populations)! (link)

From my look through of the Code of Virginia, I see two different sections that involve the salary of a board of supervisors, § 15.2-1414.2 “Salaries to be fixed by board; limits; reimbursement in addition to salary” and § 15.2-1414.3 “Alternative procedure for establishing salaries of boards of supervisors; limits; fringe benefits”.

§ 15.2-1414.2 states, in part, the following:

The annual compensation to be allowed each member of the board of supervisors of a county shall be determined by the board of supervisors of such county but such compensation shall not be more than a maximum determined in the following manner. Prior to July 1 of the year in which members of the board of supervisors are to be elected or, if the board is elected for staggered terms, of any year in which at least forty percent of the members of the board are to be elected, the current board, by a recorded vote of a majority present, shall set a maximum annual compensation which will become effective as of January 1 of the next year.

[…]

No increase in the salary of a member of the board of supervisors shall take effect during the incumbent supervisor’s term in office; however, this restriction shall not apply to boards of supervisors when the supervisors are elected for staggered terms nor to corrections to the above listed compensation.

§ 15.2-1414.3 states, in part, the following:

In lieu of other provisions of law, the boards of supervisors of the several counties may establish annually, by ordinance, and pay in monthly installments each of their members an annual salary pursuant to the following procedure and schedule:

1. On a date determined by the board of supervisors, not earlier than May 1 nor later than June 30 each year, the board, after public hearing pursuant to notice in the manner and form provided in §§ 15.2-1426 and 15.2-1427, shall establish by ordinance the salary of its members for the ensuing fiscal year not to exceed the maximums herein set out.

2. Counties within the following population brackets shall be allowed to set salaries for board members not to exceed the following amounts:

Population Annual Salary

[portion of table omitted]

15,000 to 24,999 5,500

[portion of table omitted]

The maximum annual salaries herein provided may be adjusted in any year or years, by ordinance as above provided, by an inflation factor not to exceed five percent.

Based on my reading of these two sections of state code and after doing searches for both “15.2-1414.2” and “15.2-1414.3” on Google to see how counties have used them, the sections work the following way: § 15.2-1414.2 allows a county board of supervisors to set their pay to any amount as long as it is an election year when at least 40% of the board is up for election. This must be done before July 1 of the election year and will not take affect until January 1 of the following year.

§ 15.2-1414.3 allows a board to set their salary outside of an election year to a maximum ($5,500 in Caroline County’s case based on the 2000 census). It also, apparently, allows the board to adjust their salary’s up 5% each year, even salaries that were set pursuant to § 15.2-1414.2 (at least other counties have used § 15.2-1414.3 to do that). This must be done between May 1 and June 30 and goes into affect the next fiscal year.

The use of § 15.2-1414.3 to increase the board’s salary would require the adoption of a ordinance according to state law. It is required when adopting an ordinance for the county to hold a public hearing pursuant to §§ 15.2-1426 and 15.2-1427.

I see several errors in the way the board has increased their pay:

For the pay raise beginning on January 1, 2008, the board did not vote on any matter involving board pay — except for the 2007/2008 budget — specifically before July 1, 2007 pursuant to § 15.2-1414.2 according to their minutes.
However, the vote on the budget couldn’t be considered a vote authorizing a pay increase beginning on January 1 due to the fact that the board went over budget for salaries in the 07/08 budget year due to the 2% pay increase beginning on January 1.
The 5% increase that started on the July 1 — the beginning of the 08/09 fiscal year — was clearly done in violation of state law: To use the 5% inflation adjustment available to boards pursuant to § 15.2-1414.3, the county must adopt an ordinance establishing their pay with a 5% increase between May 1 and June 30. To adopt a ordinance, state law requires a public hearing to be held. No such ordinance was adopted and no public hearing was held.
Besides the obvious illegalities involved, there’s also the morally wrong aspect of a board increasing their pay — while increasing taxes by $0.05 per $100 assessed during a struggling economy — while also only giving county staff a 2% pay increase.

You know, one of the supervisors on the previous board lost their reelection campaign last year partly due to the continuous pay increases implemented by the board.

Maybe next time all of ’em will get voted out.

The important news out of the Caroline County BOS meeting: Golf carts!

So sayeth The Free Lance–Star: Golf carts possible for Caroline subdivision

I guess I have to handle the unimportant news from the meeting:

The county is considering spending $4,500,000.00 for a bloody park. That’s at least another cent on the tax rate to handle the debt retirement for the project.

Meanwhile, there’s still no public safety building nor a new public works workshop.

Meanwhile, Jeff Sili was whining (and boy, can he whine) about spending $61,000 to improve security at the Circuit Court so a sheriff’s deputy or someone else doesn’t get killed by a prisoner who tries to escape. And remember, this is the Circuit Court: that’s where felons are being tried.

You know, I don’t much care for Wayne Acors, but he has his moments, especially when he essentially tells Jeff to STFU.

There was the Belmont hearing with the BOS giving the developer crap after the developer has proffered millions of dollars, including a new fire station.

There was the BOS stealing someone’s subdivisions: Apparently the BOS believes that a rezoning/subdivision applicant should know every letter of the zoning/subdivision ordinance and when the Planning Commission or the Department of Planning & Community Development messes something up, it’s okay to take someone’s private property rights away. Ever funnier was after the applicant’s lawyer got up and said, “we’re going to sue your asses [the BOS]”, Jeff Sili moved to vacant the subdivision, and no one offered a second! In fact, they all gave him a look that read, “are you stupid or just crazy?”. Eventually Maxie Rozell decided it might be important to ask the county attorney before they did anything. After a closed session, they showed the great leadership of doing nothing and letting the Planning Commission handle it.

Oh, and the board finally got around to approving the six month goals “for [the] period of July to December 2008”. Isn’t it currently August or did I miss something?

By the way, if you want to watch all this unimportant news, the county has started to put video of the meetings up online (and thankfully, now I don’t have to do it). The video of this meeting isn’t up as I’m writing this, but it should be up in a day or two:

http://www.visitcaroline.com/boardmeetingsonline.html

2-1 odds of heck breaking loose.

By “heck breaking loose”, I refer to a certain Supervisor whining and complaining.

Press release:

Dear Chamber Members,

This year, the Chamber has been on the move in many ways —– next week we’ll add another!

On August 7, the Caroline Chamber of Commerce will relocate to a new office at 18067 Jefferson Davis Highway in Ladysmith. We are doing this primarily because we needed more room for meetings and daily operations and it seemed, with the many negotiations going on right now for County space, that we would not get the Office of Economic Development’s former office on South Main Street as promised.

We are sad to leave the Town of Bowling Green — home of the Chamber for so many years — but optimistic about the new office space and its possibilities for growth. Thank all of you for your continued support in our programs and events – we’ve met so many of you at Chamber functions and hope to meet many more in the future!

Please continue to drop in and see us in Ladysmith – more details of any changes to phone and fax numbers will be sent by the Chamber office later today.

Sincerely,

L.J. Moyer
President
Caroline Chamber of Commerce

So, not only is the Department of Economic Development moving out of the county seat (Bowling Green) but also is the Chamber of Commerce!

The Department of Economic Development is going to the visitors center at Carmel Church.

So much for the whole premise of a “county seat”.

Well, at least they didn’t move the Virginia Cooperative Extension Office out of the Community Services Center, or else you would have to essentially travel to Hanover County to get there.

Of course, the Cooperative Extension Office might be getting the soon-to-be former office space of the Economic Development Department; hence the Chamber of Commerce won’t get it.

I thought the former Union Bankshares Building — the soon-to-be County Administration building — was supposed to provide the space needs of the county for the next 20 years… (The Caroline Progress)

Hell, it only cost $3,700,000.

Port Royal District Constituent Meetings.

PDF:

PORT ROYAL DISTRICT COMMUNITY MEETINGS
with Supervisor Bobby Popowicz

Monday, August 11, 2008 7:00 p.m.
Rehoboth United Methodist Church
18580 Partlow Road
Beaverdam, VA 23015

Wednesday, August 13, 2008 7:00 p.m.
Upper Caroline Volunteer Fire Department
12563 Stonewall Jackson Road
Woodford, VA 22580

Thursday, August 28, 2008 7:00 p.m.
Port Royal Volunteer Fire Department
435 King Street
Port Royal, VA 22535

There will be an open agenda for these meeting. Please make plans to attend, bring a topic of discussion and meet with Supervisor Popowicz.

Caroline County’s Telecom Consultant: “Conflict of interest? What’s that? …Seriously?”

At the July 22, 2008 meeting of the Caroline County Board of Supervisors, there was a public hearing about a proposed special exemption permit (SPEX-01-2007) for a communications tower in the Reedy Church District.

The proposed location is approximately 1.7 miles away from the soon-to-be new home of the State Fair of Virginia. The company pursuing the new tower is National Communication Towers, LLC (NTC).

AT&T, nTelos (a provider of PCS coverage in Virginia), as well as wireless broadband provider CVA Link, have all sent letters of intent expressing their interest in this communications tower to NCT.

AT&T even sent an engineer to the meeting to express their support for the tower and to provide information on how much more coverage the tower would provide to the surrounding area, including areas that currently have little to no coverage.

Caroline County employs Atlantic Technology Consultants, Inc. (ACT) as consultants on telecommunication issues. The president and chief operating officer (COO) of ATC is George Condyles.

Condyles stated that based on his analysis, this tower in Caroline County is not needed due to the fact that Hanover County is building a tower in Hanover for their emergency communications system.

However, both AT&T and nTelos both refute this assertion and even provided maps showing that the Hanover County tower would provided little areas of new coverage, and might even interfere with existing tower locations in the area.

So it seems that Condyles thinks he knows more about AT&T’s and nTelos’s equipment than the respective companies do: He says that the companies would get just as good coverage from the Hanover County tower as from NCT’s, assertions that both companies refute. Let’s see, who would know more about the way a wireless company’s equipment works? A “consultant” with no experience at the companies, or the people employed by AT&T and nTelos that set up new antennas tens, if not hundreds, of times a year?

Every other sentence out of Condyles’s mouth was about how great the Hanover County tower would be.

At one point, when talking about Hanover’s tower, Condyles stated, “I’m not a business agent of Hanover County, I just live there.”

Well, you do more than just live there Mr. Condyles, you happen to be on Hanover County’s Architectural Review Board and you just happen to list Hanover County as a client on your company’s web page.

Who is the sole beneficiary of Hanover County having the only tower in that area?

Why, that would be Hanover County, of course.

If Hanover County had the only tower, they would have a de facto monopoly in the area.

Caroline County and its citizens wouldn’t benefit, either.

If the NCT tower in Caroline County was built, Caroline County would have free access to place antennas on the tower for its police, fire, public works, and public utilities radio frequencies, per the terms of the special exemption permit. If Hanover County had the only antenna, Caroline County would have to pay Hanover County for the use of their antenna.

The citizens of Caroline County wouldn’t benefit either. AT&T and nTelos won’t use the Hanover County tower because it wouldn’t provide any service to areas that lack service currently. However, the NCT tower in Caroline County would. The NCT tower would get AT&T cell phone coverage to the Route 301/Route 30 intersection as well as several miles of Route 301 north of the intersection as well.

Further, since the NCT tower already has a letter of intent from a wireless broadband provider, CVA Link, the NCT tower would provide broadband service to currently unserved areas of Caroline County, something that the Hanover County tower wouldn’t.

And if Virginia Broadband wants to provide coverage to that area of Caroline County, which would they prefer: a tower in Hanover County or one in Caroline County? Well, I would guess a tower inside Caroline County since that would provide more coverage for Caroline County (duh).

County to contribute $1,200,000 to school system.

The Board of Supervisors agreed last night to contribute $1,200,000 in local funding to the school system.

$600,000 will come from the general fund.

The other $400,000 will be sent back to the schools from the school’s unencumbered balance (i.e., money that is left over from this closing fiscal year that would go back to the county normally).

And they [the Caroline BOS] have a Plan — oh wait, no they don’t.

(Pardon the vague reference to Battlestar Galactica.)

To recap:

Caroline County has requested and received $490,000 from the federal government in the form of a FY08 earmark for a “commuter rail station” (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008; p. 2465).*
Caroline County has received $100,000 from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation in the form of a grant “to study building a passenger rail station in the Carmel Church area”. (The Free Lance–Star).
Caroline County has requested an additional $800,000 from Congressman Rob Wittman via a FY09 federal earmark (Appropriations Requests FY 2009).

When Gary Wilson was questioned if the county was negiotating with any organization to provide service to a “commuter rail station”, he provided the following response:

The County has been in contact with Amtrak regarding city to city service from a Caroline station to Washington, DC. Others who own or use the line have also been contacted to obtain a preliminary understanding of the needs those entities will have should there be additional traffic on the existing lines.

I sent a follow-up email with the following questions (slightly edited to be more concise):

“In contact”? Is that the same as a guarantee that the station will have service from Amtrak when/if it is built?
What routes by Amtrak will be offered at the station?
In addition, why is the county considering building a station with service from Amtrak when Amtrak ridership in Fredericksburg went down 6.82% last year (Ridership statistics fiscal year (FY)06, FY07)?

Gary Wilson’s response (I kid you not):

Staff is still in the early stages of studying this project.

We are not yet at a point to address the questions you have raised.

Oh, the staff isn’t at a point where they can answer a couple simple questions but they are at the point where they can request $1,400,000 in funding for a project when they don’t even know if service will be provided.

Other problems with the Board’s (and Gary Wilson’s) master-plan:

A) Ridership on Amtrak trains dropped 6.82% between Amtrak’s FY06 and FY07. This was not part of a general decrease in Amtrak ridership since ridership as a whole across Virginia went up 3.35% (Ibid).

B) Amtrak is not a commuter rail service: There are only two trains that are ran by Amtrak in the morning that can be used to commute to Washington, D.C. (Schedule).

One leaves the Fredericksburg station at 6:55 a.m. and arrives at Union Station (Washington, D.C.) at 8:15 a.m. This train does not stop at Leeland Road, Brooke, Rippon, Lorton, Franconia-Springfield (start of the Metro’s blue line), and Crystal City (Ibid).

The only other morning train leaves Frederickburg at 8:55 a.m. and arrives at Union Station at 10:06 a.m., making it useless for anyone working a 9-to-5 job. In addition, the 10:06 a.m. train does not stop at Leeland Road, Brooke, Rippon, Woodbridge, Lorton, Franconia-Springfield (start of the Metro’s blue line), Crystal City, and L’Enfant (the only station to be served by four Metro lines [Green, Yellow, Blue, and Orange]) (Ibid).

C) The cost of an one-way ticket between Fredericksburg and Union State in Washington, D.C. is $21. For both ways it will be $42. $42 a day to use Amtrak to commute to D.C.

D) During the last Board of Supervisors meeting the Board was complaining that the county doesn’t have any money to pay for road improvements; how about this: Instead of asking for $1,400,000 for a “commuter rail station”, why not ask for that much for road improvements in the county like Stafford and Prince William Counties did (Appropriations Requests FY 2009)? How about asking for money to improve radio communications between emergency services like Stafford County did (Ibid)?

Up next: Why is the county moving county services out of (essentially) the county seat to the Hanover County border?

*I had previously stated the amount received was $500,000, however I did not note that all earmark requests were reduced by 2%, therefore making the amount received $490,000 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008; p. 2464).

New Caroline BOS motto: “We don’t need no stinkin’ openness in government!”

Also considered: “There’s nothing wrong with planning budget cuts behind closed doors!”

The first one never gets old, by the way.

At the January 8, 2008 Board of Supervisors meeting several subcommittees were created by Floyd Thomas to handle certain issues (2008-01-08 BOS Minutes):

3. APPOINTMENTS

Chairman Thomas stated that he wanted to take the Chairman’s prerogative and make some appointments of his own. He said that the School Board Superintendent, Chairman of the Board and the County Administrator meet on a regular basis and he would like to create some subcommittees, one being on education. Chairman Thomas asked Supervisor Popowicz to be a part of a utilities subcommittee where he could meet with Mr. Ramsay on a regular basis. He asked Supervisor Rozell to serve on a sub-committee for public safety, Fire and Rescue, and the Sheriff. Chairman Thomas asked that Supervisor Acors be in charge of a Finance subcommittee. He asked Supervisor Sili to be in charge of and serve as Chair of the education subcommittee.

Chairman Thomas said that these subcommittees will cover five major areas [the minutes don’t specifically mention the Economic Development Subcommittee but I believe Floyd Thomas was heading it up -ed.] of the County in a little more detail from a Board perspective and hopefully be able to report to each other on a regular basis.

Why the excessive use of underlining and bolding? The Virginia Freedom of Information Act, § 2.2-3707(C), requires the following [emphasis mine]:

Every public body shall give notice of the date, time, and location of its meetings by placing the notice in a prominent public location at which notices are regularly posted and in the office of the clerk of the public body, or in the case of a public body that has no clerk, in the office of the chief administrator.

§ 2.2-3701 defines a “public body” as the following [emphasis mine]:

“Public body” means any legislative body, authority, board, bureau, commission, district or agency of the Commonwealth or of any political subdivision of the Commonwealth, including cities, towns and counties, municipal councils, governing bodies of counties, school boards and planning commissions; boards of visitors of public institutions of higher education; and other organizations, corporations or agencies in the Commonwealth supported wholly or principally by public funds. It shall include […] (ii) any committee, subcommittee, or other entity however designated, of the public body created to perform delegated functions of the public body or to advise the public body. It shall not exclude any such committee, subcommittee or entity because it has private sector or citizen members.

Are we all clear that these (sub)committees are in fact (sub)committees, and are considered a “public body” under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act? Yes? Good, let’s continue.

When I first contacted Percy Ashcraft asking when said subcommittees meet I received the following response:

At this time, no formal meetings have been called by any of the supervisors, but instead they have been briefed by department heads informally. Administratively, I have committees for all of these departments that supervisors have attended from time to time. And Mr. Thomas and I meet regularly with the superintendent and chairman of the school board to discuss education matters.

Oh, really? Then explain the Board Summary (the minutes for this meeting haven’t been approved [or posted] yet) for the April 8, 2008 meeting (link):

The Board authorized Supervisor Acors to work with Mr. Ashcraft and Financial Advisor Courtney Rogers at the Finance Committee meeting on April 15th on possible areas to make the necessary budget cuts to compensate for the difference in the tax rate.

After I quoted that portion to Ashcraft, he stated the following:

These are not subcommittees they are overseeing as no members have been appointed to any committee. I have turned the matter over to our County Attorney for him to render an opinion and direct the Board from this point forward.

So, I guess it’s alright for the Finance Committee to meet behind closed doors and plan budget cuts. Comforting…

Again, after pointing out that Mr. Thomas appointed a member to each of the committees, he stated the following:

I appreciate you providing the background and again I am having our County Attorney review this. The term “subcommittee” is what needs to be defined here. As I stated earlier, we have not formally appointed subcommittees which would include members of staff and possibly the public. If it is the desire of the Board to formalize this process, they can certainly do that. But at this point in time, it is not set up that way.

Uh-huh.

“[A]ny committee, subcommittee, or other entity however designated, of the public body created to perform delegated functions of the public body or to advise the public body” is a public body. These bodies clearly meet the definition of a “public body” purseant to § 2.2-3701 but the county refuses to disclose when these bodies meet and what they discuss during the meetings.