Last night’s meeting of the Wythe County Board of Supervisors was as entertaining as any traveling circus or tent show revival I’ve ever attended. The wingnuts were out in force, Bucky was glad handing and working the crowd before the meeting started, and extra deputies were laid on in case things got out of hand.
The invocation was given by Pastor (Get Back) Jack Rutherford of the Sharon Baptist Church. Rev. Jack essentially implored the Almighty to protect the Board from the snarling crowd. After we pledged allegiance, Bucky opened Citizen’s Time by admonishing folks there was no need to bring up subjects (pay raises) that they had under advisement from previous meetings and to show proper respect for those speaking by not demonstrating any reactions. Naturally tea bagger after tea bagger stood up to heap abuse and threats on the Board regarding the raises all accompanied by cheers and applause from the crowd (which appeared to interfere with either Martha Umberger’s cocktail hour or her early evening nap.) Bucky dern near wore out a perfectly good gavel trying to keep order.
It was almost anticlimactic when, near the end of the meeting, Cellell Dalton quietly read a memo to the Board stating that he had administratively halted the raises for himself and Stephen Bear (who actually looked like a bear last night) and asked that they formally vote to rescind them, which they did without objection. It took maybe 5 minutes for the majority of the crowd to understand what had just transpired. One of the baggers finally raised his hand and asked for clarification, which Bucky gave with his Cheshire cat impression. Yes, they had rescinded the raises. At that point, the tea baggers declared victory and started filing out. Game over, right? WRONG.
The most salient thing to come out of last night’s meeting was that these dillweeds blew a chance for a 15 million dollar state bond to repair the schools. A bond that EVERY surrounding county has received. Seems our bozos didn’t submit the paperwork. The message from the Governor’s Office delivered to the Board by the president of the Sheffey Elementary PTO contained a direct quote from the Gov: “Tell Wythe County they need to get their act together.” Can you believe it? 15 MILLION BUCKS that was ours for the asking. Gone!
It’s been said that a giraffe is a horse that was designed by a committee, and we have a handicapped giraffe masquerading as our county government. Last night’s meeting put us right back where we were before all this nonsense with the pay raises started. The Board is still inept, and Cellell Dalton is still a bully with a bad haircut.
Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Cellell Dalton has got to go!
While this blog has the HUMOR of a comidic literature piece (I literally LOL while reading it)………..I am truely saddened to think what Mr. Dalton and Mr. Bear are doing ……….along with the “leadership” (and I use that term loosley) of our BOS to let FIFTEEN MILLION dollars slip through their fingers (sorta like that 11 & 15%)!!! Talk about KARMA!!!!
Tea baggers? really? really?
C’mon Ron, this was a group of politically diverse folks trying to get a grip on the local government shenanigans. There wasn’t any affiliation – that was dealt with long ago and wasn’t an issue.
oooooo how I love how you say the truth! if only past employees and current employees could tell their stories.
Actually bob, they can tell them to me. My email is: RonDees1@gmail.com All identities will be kept private unless agreed upon in advance.
Your blog seems spot on with the current situation in our beloved county’s government. Thank you for staying on top of this! My question is when will someone stand up and speak out about another major situation facing us every day, our sorry excuse for emergency services. Have you looked at the fire departments and rescue squads in our county recently? It is amazing that we trust these people with our lives and the lives of our family and friends. I live in fort chiswell and had to use this sorry excuse for a 911 system a couple weeks back for my aunt. The old pun that a pizza arrives to your house before an ambulance is true. It took, literally, almost an hour for an ambulance to arrive and when it showed up, it was Guardian. I didn’t call Guardian, I called 911, what is up with this? Not that it matters, the service wasn’t any better from them than what you get from the all of these backwoods rescue squads around here. Is this really what it has come to, slow and substandard service? These are our lives we are talking about! And the fire departments are not much better!! The board of stupervisors should have stepped in long ago and fixed this issue but I guess it is a low priority compared to administrative raises. I for one enjoy my life and worry that it is not well protected in wythe county, plain and simple. It is time to take a stand, if we are going to fix one thing we need to fix it all!!
Tell, me when was the last time you donated to help these people continue to do what they do. Are you helping to fund them? Most of these people are having to hold regular jobs AND be on call. I recently had to call 911 for my mother. They were there within a short period of time and were wonderful with her. Just because you had one bad experience, it doesn’t mean all these folks are bad. Yes, there may be problems, but did you ever stop to think that the other squads may have already been out on calls? I know folks that volunteer their time to help save lives, whether they are on the fire department or on the rescue squads. They do their jobs well. They don’t deserve to be a lumped together and have it publicly stated that the entire county’s emergency personell are bad!
I lean both ways on this subject. I agree 100% that you cant lump all of these people into one group because they all have their own issues but I also agree that there are a lot of problems to be fixed. I have friends that work at guardian and they are always having to go out on 911 calls for the whole county because the local squads don’t do it. I know these people volunteer and I for one do donate to my local squad but they are one of the worst for not answering the calls. If there is a problem with volunteers answering calls maybe it is time to look at other options. I thank the volunteers for all that they do but its not 20 years ago and part time ambulance service is no longer working.
Just out of curiosity what exactly are we donating for? These departments are NOT what they use to be and are NOT worth donating to anymore. You are donating to a system that is no longer about service to the community. I’d love to see the financial records from these agencies to see just what our donations are used for. They obviously are not used to provide services. Who runs these places anyway? Whoever volunteers regardless of experience?
Well the raises got rescinded and that is a start. If we can stand together as citizens and get that done why can’t we fix other problems in our county? Its time the voters stand together and send a message to our elected officials.
Roseanne….I can’t speak for the rest of the county but our Rural Retreat Rescue and Fire department volunteers are FIRST RATE and we appreciate all they do every day to help our local citizens and those on I-81!!!! Sorry you had a bad experience.
On the rescue side only how many volunteers are even left in Rural Retreat? Rural Retreat Rescue is ran by Jay Hawkins and I think that says enough about how ‘FIRST RATE’ that agency is!! If the people in our county want first rate service they need to call Guardian directly and that is that. Guardian answers most of the calls anyway!
This county administrator deal is about money so when we compare to this I think we need to give Lead Mines credit where it is due. ALL of the agencies around here bill now but if you have insurance you never see a bill from Lead Mines. With ANY of the other agencies you may still owe money even with insurance like copays or deductibles but not with Lead Mines. They have said “If someone has insurance they will never see the bill as long as the insurance covers medical transport” I think this is a great thing they do by not charging the citizens for this and saving hard working people money. PLUS they also said “Although Lead Mines will be billing they and Guardian Ambulance Service are still the lowest charging service in the county” I think that says all I need to know!!!
Name calling is a waste of time. Anyone who has ever tried to bring about change knows it doesn’t happen over night. Chris is right. A person has to keep themselves informed and be vigilant. There is nothing stopping a person from beginning to work on addressing a problem they identify. A prime example is the small group who showed up at the Board meeting the other night and saw the raises rescinded though they had been told ahead of time it was a done deal.
I do not know a lot about the school bonds mentioned by the Sheffey PTO president. But, a bond is a LOAN, not free money. In all likelihood these are no-interest or very low interest loans similar to the literary loans the schools have used in years past. Should the county have applied for these monies? Probably. But a plan for the repairs and upgrades to the various schools needed to be in place BEFORE requesting the money. You don’t ask for $15 million to repair broken toilets.
Well, it’s Friday nite in Wythe County & it looks like the prel budget they promised isn’t here…….Yet as promised! Today was the day they said at the last meeting it would be available-if anyone finds it PLEASE TELL US WHERE to look. More stonewalling!!!!!