Local Government
After Lengthy Prelude Citizens & Jamieson Clash Over Stated Operational Dynamics of Samuels Public Library
For the majority of citizens not quite packing the Warren County Government Center (WCGC) main meeting room on a rainy, thunder-stormy day headed into evening, what they were there for would take a while to be addressed. First, there were four public hearings, three on Conditional Use Permit (CUP) requests for Short-Term Tourist rentals, and the fourth on a CUP request for a commercial Campground in the South River District.
Then there were board reports, which in some cases seemed overly detailed on every public event or meeting attended over the past week, as well as a 14-item Consent Agenda from which five items were pulled for additional discussion.
The crowd gathering as 7 p.m. approaches. Below, were the supervisors glad to see another well-attended meeting? Well, at least one, Cheryl Cullers, closest to the camera, likely was. Royal Examiner Photos Roger Bianchini
Two of the CUP requests drew quite a bit of public hearing comment on the nature of the board’s current CUP request policy allowing what some see as unequitable treatment of applicants. In fact, the inconsistency in votes that evening led to some supervisor introspection, led by Fork District’s Vicky Cook, on the advisability of readdressing their existing permitting process, allowing exceptions in some cases but not in others sought in identical situations.
But more on those agenda items in a related story.
“Are you Ready to Rumble?!?”
First, we will explore the evening’s main event. And not surprisingly to readers that “Main Event” was the direction the board majority would take on its public library partnership and funding in the wake of the unexpected withdrawal of the Board of Supervisors and its recently created Warren County Library Board’s (WCLB) chosen proposal for Fiscal Year-2026 public library operations here.
The groundwork on the County side of that coming verbal conflict was hinted at in the motion into Closed Session convened at 6 p.m. The motion into Closed Session included these passages:
“I move that the Warren County Board of Supervisors enter into a closed meeting under Section 2.2-3711(A)(29) for the discussion of the award of a public contract involving the expenditure of public funds, including interviews of bidders or offerors, and discussion of the terms or scope of such contract, where discussion in an open session would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body. The subject matter is Library Services.
“I further move that the Board enter into a closed meeting under Section 2.2-3711(A)(8) for the purpose of the provision of legal advice regarding specific legal matters requiring such advice. The subject matters are budget appropriations, the providing of library services including the Library Funding Agreement … ”
The board and legal staff, leave the 6 p.m. convened closed session a couple of minutes before the scheduled 7 p.m. start of the open meeting.
And get the popcorn, sports fans, the dueling realities battle got off to a lengthy start as North River District Supervisor Richard Jamieson approached a half hour of reading a prepared statement on his perspective on the board majority and its appointed Warren County Library Board’s conflict with Samuels Public Library, its Board of Trustees, and wide-based citizen support.
Samuels in …
In that statement Jamieson elaborated on assertions of multiple violations of State standards on the provision of public library services and the use of funds to that purpose. Jamieson’s presentation, which drew repeated groans and other signs of negative public reaction, begins at the 3:29:10 mark of the County video. Somewhat stunningly Jamieson began with this assessment of the situation:
“I’m going to go ahead and make the motion, and then backtrack and make comments. The withdrawal of the LS&S proposal means that Warren County faces a clear choice: Samuels Library Inc. shall be our library services provider. The only question to be resolved is whether it will operate as a public library or a private library, Jamieson began, first offering hope to Samuels officials and supporters dominating the meeting’s public attendance, but then setting the stage to pull the rug out from under that hope.
North River District Supervisor Richard Jamieson read for over 25 minutes from prepared notes citing his perspective on the nightmarish doublespeak reality of the novel ‘1984’ right here in Warren County, Va., circa 2025.
Samuels in and out
For Jamieson continued for over 25 minutes of reading from prepared remarks to assert that Samuels officials had broken myriad funding and disclosure rules for public library operations, essentially self-defining without meaning to, itself as a Private Library operation. Here Jamieson quoted a comment made by someone he only identified as a “candidate” then proceeded by making an “Orwellian” analogy to the famous nightmarish, anti-totalitarian novel “1984” by George Orwell:
“A candidate recently stated that the board of supervisors should not privatize the library. And he said that ‘Samuels belongs to the people.’ This is truly Orwellian double-speak. For Samuels is, in fact a private library company that has absolute governance authority over publicly-funded services,” Jamieson began in reference to “1984’s” theme of the verbal bending of reality.
“In other words this board of supervisors could not privatize the library because it’s already privatized with Samuels as its operator,” Jamieson continued, returning to his Orwellian, dystopian/anti-Utopian theme: “In the dystopian novel ‘1984’ by George Orwell the totalitarian regime uses slogans like ‘War is Peace’ and ‘Freedom is Slavery’ to deliberately invert reality and cause citizens to question basic truths.
“Here we see the same technique, calling public governance through a public library board ‘privatization’ on the basis of using a private contractor to provide the services, while simultaneously claiming that the actual privatized library Samuels operation’s private control over public funds is somehow ‘public’,” Jamieson explained of his “Orwellian” analogy.
It was becoming increasingly apparent that Jamieson was using his “1984” analogy to justify withholding the allotted $1.024-million in County funding for Fiscal Year-2026 library operations. That funding included in the board’s recently approved $94-million-plus budget, though without appropriation, would have gone to private, for-profit, out-of-state-based Library Systems & Services (LS&S) instead of Samuels had LS&S not backed out of its proposal to operate the County’s public library in the coming fiscal year. The $1.024-million amount set aside through the WC Library Board to distribute to the supervisor majority’s chosen LS&S provider matches a re-worked Samuels request for the County’s portion of Samuels Public Library’s FY-26 funding, which it couples with Endowment Funds, patron donations, and State grants to operate annually.
During the second Public Comments period of the initial regular July meeting of the county supervisors that followed what one citizen Public Comments speaker, Rebecca Althizer, termed Jamieson’s “diatribe”, the public’s disagreement with Jamieson’s ongoing negative stereotyping of Samuels Public Library became increasingly apparent.
The general perception of Samuels supporters is that Jamieson and his three allies on the board of supervisors, Butler, Stanmeyer, and Cook, are simply infuriated they and their minority of what appear to be extremist-religiously motivated public allies did not break Samuels officials to bend to their LGBTQ-related censorship efforts over the past two-plus years.
But it’s ‘Big Brother’ rewriting reality
In fact, second Public Comments speaker number 5, Sydney Patton, turned Jamieson’s “Orwellian doublespeak” analogy around on him. “I would like to note that I am also a big fan of ‘1984’. I actually checked it out from Samuels Public Library and wrote a paper on it as I attended Laurel Ridge Community College,” Patton began, adding:
“And I found it interesting that you chose that book because the entity that is rewriting the history is not the citizens, it is the controlling government-styled entity. We are not the ones out here rewriting it. It started out as gay books inside the library, and now it’s about fiscal responsibility?” Patton asked rhetorically, voice rising, “You couldn’t win one, so you went for another (tactic).
“And that is textbook ‘1984’ rewriting,” Patton observed, looking at Jamieson and his board allies trying to control the narrative about what is really going on between the current four-supervisor majority and Samuels Public Library, as we have often noted, Virginia’s current Library of the Year 2024.
‘1984’ novel fan Sydney Patton reminded Supervisor Jamieson, and his colleagues below, that the ‘doublespeak’ of ‘1984’ was used by the controlling governmental leader ‘Big Brother’, not by the citizens forced to live within the parameters of ‘Big Brother’s’ contradictory reality built on lies.
Read the Room
In closing her unprepared remarks, Patton referred to earlier Public Comments speaker Jarred Hill in challenging the board majority to — “Read the room” as to the will of an apparently vast public majority support of Samuels Library.
Of the role of the people in Warren County, Virginia’s version of “1984”, Save Samuels Library Political Action Committee (PAC) President Samantha Good had given this appraisal:
“Let me tell you what 1,339 people just did in Warren County. They showed up in a Republican primary and shut the door on the political circus you created. Hugh Henry won by 22 points. Tony Carter won by a margin of almost 27 points. These weren’t close races. They were total rejections,” Good asserted of the primary result here, adding, “And I don’t want to hear one more word about how it ‘wasn’t representative’,” she said of Jamieson and his board allies’ tendency to allege a great silent majority behind them on the library issue.
“It was the third-highest Republican primary turnout in the entire state,” Good commented on the public interest in the recent Fork and Happy Creek District primary elections both of which chose Samuels supporters Henry and Carter by the wide margins cited above.
Good then pointed to Jamieson’s involvement in support of one of those badly defeated, anti-Samuels Library candidates: “And Rich Jamieson, you’ve spent all this time whining that our PAC (Political Action Committee) doesn’t represent the community. Meanwhile, you personally dumped at least $2,000 into Patrick Pennefather’s campaign, and he got crushed by more than 20 points.
“You weren’t just invested. You were all in. So spare us the lectures. You picked your guy. You bankrolled him. And this community sent him packing.
Read the numbers
“Today is Day 1. Samuels Library is operating without a single dollar of County funding,” Good reminded everyone of the start of FY-2026, adding pointedly, “And yet, it’s still standing. Because this community refused to let you destroy it. You tried to hand it to LS&S, a private company with no transparency and no connection to Warren County, but you had no library to give them. So now you’ve lost the trust of the community, lost two primary elections, lost LS&S, and lost the RFP (Request For Proposals).
“There is no pending lawsuit. No plan. Just $1.024 million dollars in public funds you’re holding hostage. If you’re wondering what accountability looks like, start by funding the library,” Save Samuels Library PAC President Good challenged the supervisors.
“Instead, you’ve spent nearly $60,000 in taxpayer dollars chasing an ideological crusade, including $1,030 just last week on liability insurance for a board (WCLB) that has no library to oversee.
“That money isn’t yours. It belongs to the people of this county, to the families, the educators, the kids, the job seekers, the readers, and the public. And they have told you where to spend it.
“You failed this county. Not by mistake, but by design. You went after the one institution that serves everyone because you couldn’t control it.
“Dissolve the book-banning Warren County Library Board (WCLB). It has no purpose, no credibility, and no public support. It was built to seize control, and it failed. Call Samuels, negotiate a new MOA. Restore full funding. Give them everything you offered LS&S, including building maintenance, because we know saying ‘sorry’ isn’t your style. And stop insulting this community like we don’t see exactly who you are.
“The voters saw it. They responded. And we are not done. This isn’t the end. It’s the warning shot.”
After Jamieson’s presentation and the public response to it, the current board’s lone Samuels supporter, Cheryl Cullers, asked if the motion Jamieson was about to restate on withdrawal of the library operations RFP did not include any references to his lengthy presentation quoted above. Staff replied that no, it did not. Consequently, Jamieson’s motion read: “I move that the RFP (Request For Proposals) for library services be cancelled because only one proposal was submitted that included the necessary services. And that offeror has declined to continue any further negotiations or enter into a contract with the County.”
And it passed by a 5-0 vote, with Cullers joining her colleagues in cancellation of the RFP process, without any of Jamieson’s allegations against Samuels Library referenced or included in that motion. When the RFP went out, Samuels’ representatives told County officials they could not respond to it due to the specter of Samuels losing its classification as a non-profit 501 (c) (3) if it were to reply in the context presented by the County.
And so it goes in Warren County, Virginia’s own disputed version of “1984”, where each side accuses the other of a “doublespeak” version of twisting reality to its own ends. Perhaps the next phase of the conflict should be to call a Joint Special Meeting of the Warren County Supervisors and Samuel’s Board of Trustees. As the meeting convenes, all officials from both sides would be strapped into lie detectors and asked what this library battle is REALLY all about from their perspectives.