Supervisors Release on Library – MORE disinformation

We’ll state the obvious. The recent Warren County Board of Supervisor’s (BOS) statement regarding Samuels Public Library (SPL) is full of inaccuracies and misinformation (in addition to being arrogant and condescending), designed to deceive, mislead, and bully Warren County residents into supporting the BOS folly.  Due to space constraints, I’ll highlight only two examples.

• SPL is a legally recognized independent entity. It owns its assets. Otherwise, its asset disposition clause would be meaningless and amending it would not be any cause for concern to the BOS. Most states (including Virginia) have “slayer statutes” preventing a person from killing someone and inheriting their victim’s assets. These statutes acknowledge that it is not good public policy for there to be financial incentive to kill someone or, in this case, something. The BOS wanted to strangle SPL to death by eliminating their County funding and planned on then “inheriting” SPL’s assets. SPL’s legal and rightful amendment to their asset disposition clause has prevented that from happening, apparently causing the BOS much frustration. So sorry – NOT!
• In their statement, the BOS claims that they have given SPL approximately $24-million dollars since 2007. The funds that were given to SPL were for the purpose of covering the costs of running a library, <i.e: payroll, payroll taxes, insurances, utilities, etc.> Those funds were spent on exactly what they were intended for. IF Warren County has given SPL $24-million dollars since 2007, Warren County residents have received more than $34-million dollars of library services since 2007. I would say that slate is clean! Furthermore, County dollars were generally not used to acquire the library’s collection materials (books, magazines, periodicals, etc.). The collection materials were generally acquired using dollars received from Virginia specifically for that purpose. County dollars were also not used to acquire capital assets. Capital assets were generally acquired using dollars from the accumulation and prudent management of donations received from its patrons and supporters. SPL’s assets are not being “held hostage”; they are OWNED BY SPL! Warren County has no legitimate claim on SPL’s assets.

Lastly, conspicuously missing from the BOS statement was an attempt to try to justify their plan to breach their lease with SPL. SPL (as tenant) has fulfilled every promise and obligation it has to its landlord (Warren County) under its written contractual obligation (the lease) with 14 years remaining on it. SPL has caused no violation of any provision of its lease with Warren County. How ethical is it for the current BOS to renege, without cause, on Warren County’s promise and legal obligations to SPL under the lease between them.

It seems that the current BOS has adopted the philosophy that “the end justifies the means”. It appears that they have no concern about their actions being ethical. It’s no surprise, therefore, that this BOS would release a statement specifically designed to deceive, mislead, and bully Warren County residents.

Pete and Laura Walker
Warren County, VA

(Publisher’s note: Pete Walker is a financial assets management professional)

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