Is This Really a Democracy?

Last week I attended the BOS meeting where supervisor Cullers offered a reasonable suggestion to put the issue of funding Samuels Public Library to a voter referendum.  It was summarily rejected by the other Board members who clearly had no stomach to allow voters of Warren County to decide this contentious issue by a referendum vote.  What are they afraid of?   I also find it ridiculous that our county ordinance does not allow citizens to submit a referendum initiative without the Board of Supervisors’ approval.  How is this democracy?

What bothers me even more is this provision in the Virginia election code that states, “Voter petition for an initiative referendum is permitted ONLY if the county, city or town charter includes provisions allowing voters to circulate petitions for such an issue.”  Really?  Shouldn’t the citizens who oppose a position taken by their Board of Supervisors have the right to request a referendum vote on a very contentious community issue?  Why is this provision even in the code as it seems counter to what a democracy really means, for the people, by the people?

The County Board has every right and opportunity to review, approve or reject the budget request from the library’s non-profit board through its regular budgeting process.  If it has questions about the funding request, it can, and should, ask for clarification or justification of the non-profit board’s request for funding. But that is not the case here, the Board simply wants to use the library’s budget issue to coerce the non-profit Board to accept an ultimatum, be overseen by an unelected Board whose sole purpose is to control what books should be allowed in the library or be defunded as a community resource.

If you doubt this fact, just look at the composition of the newly selected Library Board appointed by the BOS.  Almost every person selected to serve on this unelected body was also associated with earlier efforts to ban books at the Samuels Library.  Not one person associated with the library who requested to be on the new Library Board was selected.  The budget for the library isn’t the real issue, the issue is the ability of a small minority of people who oppose certain books to control the library.  The newly appointed BOS Library Board is not representative of the greater community, nor is it even interested in serving what’s best for the community, rather it is more interested in what conforms to its sense of morality or religious beliefs.

It also seems clear to me at least that of the number of people who took the time to attend the meeting, a vast majority of those attending do not agree with this effort.  But we will never know if this is the case because we cannot ask Warren County voters to weigh in on this decision.  Why shouldn’t the greater community express their opinion through a democratic vote?

What is really at stake is a local library controlled by an all-volunteer, community-centric non-profit organization or a government appointed Board with a private agenda.  This relationship has managed to function in cooperation and partnership with our county government for well over 200 years.  We have to ask why suddenly there is a need for the BOS to insert itself in the governance of the non-profit organization that has managed the library and served our community so well.  In my view, the BOS has not demonstrated a convincing argument for this effort.

Jerry Welcome
Linden, Virginia

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