Warning: Reading Orwell Aloud May Trigger Donations

It’s pretty rich of Rich to use George Orwell’s 1984 as his theme for comments last night at the Board of Supervisors meeting.  He opted to read his thirty-minute speech before making his motion to end the RFP that asks for library services.  I could spend a decent amount of time tearing apart his analogy and explaining how he’s actually Big Brother.  However, there are two reasons I won’t: first, it’s because he wants it.

That guy wants so desperately to be heard, to be relevant.  I sometimes wonder if he only knew the amount of appreciation that I receive, after my three-minute speeches and shorter op-eds, what he’d feel.  I don’t do anything I do for the accolades.  But it never fails at the end of one, someone I’ve usually never met will thank me for my professionalism, passion, and heart, or last night for reminding Jamison what 1984 was really about.  I am the thing that is supposed to be feared and run out of town for my wicked ways, but here the community hears me and supports my advocacy for Samuels.  Not to be petty, but I think that would bother him greatly.

The second reason I don’t need to do a play-by-play is that there is absolutely NOTHING new in what he said.  He has a greatest hits album that he wears out.  Speaking of wear out, thank you, Supervisor Cullers, for the shoutout. The Friends of Samuel’s Library is hosting a pop culture sale this Saturday, July 5th!  We have over 300 records with amazing titles that, unlike Jamison’s song and dance, are not worn out with audio burn.  Plus door prizes, raffles, comic books, CDs, DVDs, and more. Check us out from 11 am to 4 pm in meeting room B. There is something for everyone, and proceeds support FOSL, helping Samuels keep the doors open.

Like I said in my first op-ed written for the Royal Examiner, don’t let them take your tax dollars and run.  They owe you, the taxpayer, a public library, you paid for it!  Just because Samuels is run by better business sense than the county, doesn’t mean the Board of Supervisors should be able to make Samuels’ success their windfall.  I assert that if they truly believe they are picking this fight with Samuels over financials, it’s because they don’t know what excellent financial books look like.  I guess that they’ve never seen or achieved that before, so it must look foreign to them.

Finally, let’s be clear, the plan is to force Samuels to the table by July 31st.  Then, when they can’t agree to the BoS terms, give the money allocated to library services to other things he listed. This means that Samuels will have to be self-funded for a full year before the newly elected members can fix the funding.

Sooo… we need the community’s support now more than ever. Put pressure on your representative, annoy them like they are annoying us.  May I also suggest as a ‘petty fun activity’ donate $19.84 in Jamison’s name directly to Samuels Public Library’s emergency donor fund.

Now, to Jamison, I’ll end with a quote from 1984 – the obvious choice would be – “Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.”

However, we have four supervisors championing this mess, so I’ll use this one, which matches my theme.

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”

Maybe try ‘loved’, come over to the other side; stop this mess and watch what happens when the community doesn’t see you as Big Brother with doublethink.

Sydney Patton
Warren County, VA

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