‘Drain the Swamp’?

I watched a 32+ minute video of the 21 July Board of Supervisors meeting and was appalled. Many tried and true clichés and comments came to mind: “blind leading the blind”, “drain the swamp”, “back room deals”, “good faith”, “transparency”, etc.

As an observer, it is difficult to understand all the issues and it was pretty apparent that board members did not understand them either. Is this the same team that campaigned on transparency and draining the swamp? Where is the strength of their convictions? Well unfortunately, the citizens have voted in a team of uninformed supervisors to occupy the swamp who in this early stage of their term had the audacity to form a private team of two people without the Supervisor’s knowledge or consent to negotiate the settlement of an apparently complex legal/financial issue between the Town of Front Royal, Warren County and the EDA. It sounds like they agreed to pay half of a bill leaving the other half blowing in the wind. Additionally, obviously to divert attention, Delores (Oates) demonstrated significant disrespect of Tony (Carter) by accusing him without any specifics of “back room deals”.

It is obvious to the most casual observer that there needs to be a sanctioned committee formed with knowledgeable members from WC, FR and the EDA to meet in a publicly announced, yet private meeting to search for a resolution that will satisfy the legal responsibilities of each party. The output of the meeting needs to be presented to the citizens.

I am not sure how this happened. The two participating board members were obviously grandstanding for self-promotion. How did they get elected? PT Barnum said, “Nothing draws a crowd quite like a crowd.” I expect “mob-rule” put these people in office and now the rest of the citizens must endure.

I wonder if there is any kind of training available to new board members addressing their legal and ethical responsibilities.

Robert Turner
Chesapeake, Virginia