Commentary: Is the Supervisor’s Majority Listening to the Opportunity for ‘Peace and Conflict Prevention’ on Library Issues?

As I was completing my story on the weekend planting of a Rotary International and District 7570 Peace Pole at Samuels Public Library, the idea emerged of applying the context of that event in relation to the ongoing effort of a four-member majority of the Warren County Board of Supervisors to end the County’s multi-century relationship with the entity currently operating as Samuels Public Library. This is that Commentary:

“Promote Peace and Conflict Prevention”

Now, there’s a thought locally that, if not a shooting war, certainly hostile verbal and intellectual conflict is being initiated around a 4-of-5 majority of the Warren County Board of Supervisors, excluding Cullers, against the Samuels Public Library and its supporters throughout the county.

Unfortunately, South River District Supervisor Cheryl Cullers was the lone supervisor present to see the local and regional business-community organizations’ honoring of Samuels Public Library.

But will that current Warren County Board of Supervisors majority and its extremist minority support base seeking to end the County’s lengthy relationship with Samuels and the entities it evolved from dating back to 1799, listen after the fact of Saturday’s Peace Pole dedication, to the potential of a peaceful resolution of the involved conflicting perspectives on library operations?

Or will that lame-duck majority continue to lob their verbal equivalent of grenades and bombs at not only Samuels Public Library, Virginia’s reigning Library of the Year 2024, but at what appears to be a great majority of the constituents those supervisors were elected to represent the best interests of?

If those four supervisors, John Stanmeyer, “Jay” Butler, Richard Jamieson, and Vicky Cook, took advantage of the opportunity to backtrack, essentially without losing face due to the recent loss of their chosen library provider, Library Systems & Services (LS&S) withdrawal of its proposal, perhaps we could regain governmental “peace and conflict prevention” here in Warren County.

Along with the community’s five-grade schools, a Peace Pole has been planted on the grounds of the Samuels Public Library. And the opportunity for rational compromise has fallen before the supervisors’ majority.

Cheryl Cullers, closest to the camera, has thus far stood alone against her colleagues in the attempt to oust the Samuels Library as the community’s public library. Below, outside the WCGC at a previous county meeting, Samuels supporters express their opinions. Is this really about financial accountability or is it a thinly disguised effort to resurrect the 2023 effort to entirely ban all LGBTQ-themed books from the library? Considering the direct or indirect involvement of several of the board majority in that book-banning effort, you can guess what their answer to that question is. Royal Examiner File Photos

So, again we ask, will they choose to move toward peace and conflict prevention, as well as financial stability, or continue their descent into what many Samuels supporters believe is a dark chapter in the local governmental and cultural history of Warren County? It is also a path that, if the current course is maintained, is likely to become increasingly costly for the county’s taxpayers, with little to no return.

Stay tuned, the new Fiscal Year-2026 begins tomorrow, Tuesday, July 1, the same day the county supervisors have a Special Meeting, including a Closed Session, convened at 6 p.m., in which the library situation and budget will be discussed, and 7 p.m., when the open meeting is slated to start. The open meeting agenda includes a General Public Comments period near the end of the meeting.

Samuels Library Honored at Receipt of a Rotary District 7570 ‘Peace Pole’ as Part of Worldwide Effort to Foster Global Peace