Into the fray

Tuesday’s board of supervisors’ meeting

Goochland’s new county administrator Becky Dickson got an earful at her first official board meeting on Tuesday, August 4.

The expected highlight of the day, the report on the forensic audit of the utilities department, paled in comparison to more disturbing information about the Tuckahoe Creek Service District.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Claiborne H. Stokes reported that the forensic audit uncovered no apparent evidence of criminal activity.

Matthew McDonald, speaking for the auditing firm, gave an overview of the audit report. He said that all of the undeposited checks were traced back and accounted for.
Stokes’ bottom line was that the forensic audit found that no evidence that anyone in the utilities department gained financially from the repeated failure to deposit checks.

McDonald said that it appeared that there was no established procedure for depositing checks and that each employee was given the latitude to decide how money would be handled. Use of three separate receipt books, which were not reconciled with county accounts, only exacerbated the problem.

Findings of the audit suggest that an eight-year old running a lemonade stand has a better grasp of handling money and reconciling accounts than the Goochland utilities department did.

Members of a standing room only audience were disappointed with the report. Stokes said that none of the former utility department employees had been interviewed. He also said that the report on the criminal investigation would not be given to the supervisors.

While the county was found to be whole financially, the audit did not dispel the cloud that hangs over fired utilities department employees or the former county administrator. People still wonder if they perhaps made some sort of deals with some utility customers to “lose” checks.

The supervisors who supported the former utilities director and county administrator whose inattention to detail permitted the situation to occur in the first place, did not even have the decency to look embarrassed at the revelations.

The Virginia Resource Authority, source of the bonds that financed the TCSD, requires an annual certification by the county administrator that the TCSD generates sufficient revenue to pay it debt service and adequate income to cover its operating expenses. Initial financial review of the TCSD revealed that current utility rates are insufficient to cover its operating expenses.

Last month, a 16 percent county utility rate increase was proposed to ensure that the certification is backed by fact.

Since then, on the recommendation of District 4 supervisor Rudy Butler, an increase in residential connection fees was added to the proposal. The increases will be voted on following a public hearing at the September 1 board of supervisors’ meeting.

Dickson stated that there will be no change in the TCSD ad valorem tax before January 1, 2010.

The board adopted a shortened meeting format a few months ago. Instead of starting with a morning workshop followed by an afternoon session starting at 1:30 p.m. and public hearings at night, board meetings now begin at 3 p.m. and workshops are part of the agenda.

A bit of procedural tweaking seems to be in order.

What should have been a routine motion to advertise the rate increase hearing mushroomed into a lengthy confabulation by District 5 supervisor Jim Eads about the TCSD in general. He seemed unable to differentiate between debt service and operating funds. His remarks were a veritable brain dump of catch phrases about the TCSD that had little relevance to the subject at hand.

In the future, the board would be well advised to hold workshops separate from actual meetings and adjust the starting time to accommodate the complexity of matters under discussion.


Public comment before the evening session included several exhortations to operate Goochland government in an open and honest manner in response to concerns that government operations has reverted to the stealth process that created the current mess.

The comments and manner in which they were expressed demonstrate once again the high caliber of people who live in Goochland and care deeply about good government.

Ben Slone and Bob Marcellus advocated putting the check register for both county government and the school system online to enable citizens to know how public dollars are spent.
Given the ballooning magnitude of the disorder in county government and rampant suspicions of elected officials, this transparency would go a long way toward restoring public trust.

Although there was much talk about openness and transparency at Dickson’s swearing in ceremony, it was not that long ago when the phrase transparent government was Goochland administration code for “we’ll talk about it in private and do as we please.”

Slone welcomed Dickson and told her about some of the amazing people who call Goochland home. He also denounced the immoral attitudes that characterized the “old regime” and alluded to the darker reasons that contributed to supervisors requesting the resignation of the former county attorney.
Slone predicted that the fiscal times ahead will be dark indeed and contended that the reduction in county property values may be closer to 20 percent than the 10 percent used in current projections.

To overcome these challenges, Slone said, government and citizens must work together in an honest, open and collaborative manner.

Richard LeBlanc, who read the Declaration of Independence at the Goochland Farmers Market on July Fourth, reminded the supervisors that their power is derived from those they govern. Citizens, said LeBlanc, have a vital need to know what is going on in local government so that they can make informed choices when voting for supervisors.

LeBlanc concurred that local government should be operated in a collaborative manner by means of a flattened structure with “reduced power distances” between citizens and government.

“We the people,” said LeBlanc, “have a right to know.”

One speaker observed that citizens need to know not only what the supervisors decide, but the thought processes behind those decisions.

We can only hope that the message sent by the stirring rhetoric was taken to heart.

Additional actions:

Following at least seven years’ of fruitless discussion and the expenditure of large sums of money, the board finally approved $600,000 for upgrades to the school bus maintenance facility. According to documentation furnished by the superintendent of schools, the improvements should handle most of the needs for about five years.

The supervisors voted 4-1, with Eads dissenting, to rezone the 10.29 acre parcel of land behind Satterwhite’s Restaurant in Centerville from A-2 to B-1. The rezoning is intended to accommodate a retail commercial development of a total of 85,000 square feet. A change in the final proposal delayed the installation of the proffered turn lanes until the widening of Rt. 250 is completed.

Centerville citizens did an outstanding job of reshaping this project from a dismal strip into what could be a charming enclave. Time and the economy will determine when this parcel develops.