Agnor-Hurt Elementary School, under the governance of Principal Michele Del Gallo Castner, has posted what could be construed as a Barack Obama campaign poster at the entrance of the school’s library.

The highly stylized placard bears striking resemblance to the famous Obama “Hope” poster, and features:

• President Barack Obama’s posterized likeness
• The President’s signature
• The President’s name, campaign logo and inauguration date
• The Obama Re-Election Campaign’s official web site, www.BarackObama.com

Students visiting the referenced web site will see a picture of the president, a video link in which the president announces his support for “same-sex” marriage, and the following quote:

“Same-sex couples should be able to get married.” —Barack Obama

Site visitors (under this circumstance, presumably students) are then encouraged to “stand up with the president” by submitting their email and zip code information.

The Albemarle County School Board directly addresses the topic of student indoctrination in an internal policy guideline entitled, Teaching About Controversial Issues:

The Albemarle County School Board accepts training for effective citizenship as one of the major purposes of education.  This includes, in part, recognizing that many important areas of study involve issues on which differing positions are held by individuals or groups.

In considering such issues, it shall be the purpose of the Albemarle County Public Schools to allow the student to do the following:

1. Study any controversial issue which has political, economic, or social significance and which is within the range, knowledge, maturity and competence of the students, and which does not conflict with State Board of Education regulations and the Albemarle County School Board Policies and regulations.
2. Provide resources containing a wide range of views on controversial issues so that students may develop the practice of critical reading and thinking.
3. Study under competent instruction in an atmosphere of freedom from bias and prejudice.
4. Form and express opinions on controversial issues without jeopardizing his position with the school.

The role of the teacher in the presentation of controversial issues is vitally important.  All sides of the issue should be given the students in a balanced manner.  The goal is for the students to be taught to think clearly on all matters of importance, and to make their own decisions in the light of all the material that has been presented or can be secured on the issues.  Indoctrination is not a policy of the Albemarle County Public Schools.

Although the instructional program of the school division includes many facets of the political party system in the United States, the School Board does not sanction as a part of the school program the involvement of students in activities that imply school endorsement of an individual political party or candidate.  Individual class assignments and volunteer work involving students in political activities are permissible. [emphasis added]

In contrast to the division’s written policy on indoctrination, the overt display of Obama campaign-oriented material at the school’s library entrance in the main hallway may indicate that:

1. A “wide range of views” is not presented obviously at Agnor-Hurt Elementary
2. Agnor-Hurt Elementary’s “atmosphere” does not appear to be free from “bias”
3. “All sides of the issue” are not presented to the students in a “balanced manner” at Agnor-Hurt Elementary
4. Political “indoctrination” does seem to be the policy at Agnor-Hurt Elementary
5. Agnor-Hurt Elementary appears to be endorsing a political party (Democrat) and their presidential candidate (Barack Obama)

In the midst of a United States presidential election campaign, Albemarle County Schools Administration, the Albemarle County School Board, and Agnor-Hurt Principal Castner should endeavor for strict compliance with the division’s own written policies regarding political indoctrination of students. While the posting of a formal portrait of the United States chief executive in government schools may be considered acceptable if done consistently, the one-sided display of a campaign-type poster along with a link to a campaign web site which promotes a controversial social policy, has no place in a taxpayer-funded American elementary school.

UPDATE 5/17/2012 9:49 AM: Controversial Obama poster now removed and replaced with appropriate portrait of the president, per Principal Castner.

View pictures of Agnor-Hurt Elementary and the President Barack Obama poster:

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I judge the two preeminent interviews that Rob has completed as of late, to be the ones with Michael Del Rosso and Jim Patterson. In both, the guests made it more than copiously clear, that in the face of America’s current narcissism, where we seem totally captivated with either money, (the economy), or sex, (the contraception debate), that during all of this, is the seemingly abject failure by most all of our elected representatives, to adequately address foreign policy. Or rather, the failure of the politicians to permit the military to do its job, and to hold sacrosanct, the concept that the one position that both sides of the political aisle will not attempt to intervene in, is in the regards to the prosecution of a conflict. “The unforgiving minute,” is a phrase from Kipling that referred to certain times in war when the collective will of a people or an army can without warning collapse – critical moments that must be capitalized on. Thanks to the feckless pantywaist policies of politicians, our enemies in the Middle East are capitalizing on that axiom making the United States continue to repeat the one grave mistake it can no longer afford. It must have an established code of conflict that is easy to understand and leaves little room for error, while maintaining great room for flexibility. It must allow our servicemen to do what they were trained to do, and not turn them into construction workers whose uniforms just happen to be desert camo and bullet proof vests. It must let them keep weapons in their hands, not handing out ice cream and watercolor paints. There is room for that no doubt, but for another party, another time, one that follows after the men who’ve completed the call of front line duties. However, this approach to armed conflict seems to run deep in our history, regrettably.

America was still getting itself together when WWI broke out. Then, as now, there were those that falsely believed that if America just acted helpless, and simply kept a small standing army and navy, with little in the way of munitions, we would somehow receive a pass from the rest of the world. We were a little late to the party, taking three years and nine months for congress to take action, and only after seven of our ships were sunk by German submarines. Playing catch up, we were sending 10,000 G.I’s abroad everyday, and saved the day. Regardless of the warning of members of the military to the contrary, America was prepared to hammer its swords into plow shears, and once again rely upon the false notion that the “war to end all wars” had actually been fought. The military had to beg and plead to keep itself as strong as it was, when the eyes of the pacifists were once again awakened on the sleepy Sunday morning of December 7, 1941. Certainly there has been enough written and discussed, that it need not be reiterated here. However, the one thing that should be recognized is how “politics” began creeping into the manner in which we prosecuted that war. To some degree it was orchestrated out so that all of the allies were allowed to share in moments of glory. Much to the chagrin of men like Patton, who had to stop his advance into Germany, so that his fuel could be diverted to Montgomery, in order to allow him to catch up. Eisenhower angered a lot of our military leaders by failing to let the military do its job, and get it over with. Many have speculated that WWII in Europe could have ended many months earlier, had we heeded the advice of the professionals. We spent a lot of time and money fighting the cold war with the Russians, after again, failing to heed the advice of our military leaders, who warned of the dangers of not taking Prague, or Berlin, before the Russian’s could get there. History has written the correct but unheeded prophecies of those men.

The Korean War, or police action as well as Vietnam equally show the vain waste of human life, when the military is wrongly bridled with feckless policies of opinion poll driven politicians. This criticism is not pointed at any one political party. It matters not to me whether you are a democrat, republican, independent, etc. If you, who represents WE THE PEOPLE, are willing to send our soldiers into hostile territory, then it is incumbent to know what it is you want done beforehand. Having listened to the two interviews, it seems abundantly clear, that senators and congressmen should be required to attend a through briefing by the joint chiefs, so that they quickly and completely comprehend the threats from abroad, that WE THE PEOPLE, expect to be protected from. After which, it seems cogent for a code of conflict to be formulated given those threat assessments and understandings.

What then should be those understandings? First and foremost, everyone in a suit and tie should know what General Leonard Wood stated concerning the purpose of an army. “The purpose of an army is to fight!” The second point is to realize that of paramount importance is to make the number one goal of our actions, to be the defeat or destruction of our enemies. All other actions, no matter how well intentioned or noble they may be, are secondary, and must never conflict with the first goal. Thirdly, the goal must not require infinite resources, human nor financial, and twenty-year time lines to accomplish. Fourthly, our code of conflict can not nor should not be designed with the notion of political correctness in mind. It can not be drafted in order to make ivory tower elites or media personalities happy. It has to be predicated upon the notion of winning conflicts in the fastest manner possible, at the greatest cost to the enemy, and the least cost to us. It is understanding that all the hardware that has been developed, has been for that to transpire effectively and efficiently.

Our civilian leaders seem not to understand the nature of our enemy. Our “war on terror” is a misnomer. There has never been a war against a method, which was effectively fought and won. We are no more in a war against terror than our servicemen were in a war on “ Zero’s,” or “ U-Boats” or “Panzer tanks.” If we are to be gravely straightforward with ourselves, we would recognize that we are at war with Islamic fascists, more often than not from the Middle East, who have played on the frustrations of customarily regularly male, jobless young people, whose autocratic governments are unable to provide the conditions for decent employment and family life. A tiny group of Islamists appeals to the anxiety of the disaffected through a reflective and intransigent turn to a fabled Caliphate, in which religious purity trumps the material advantages of a decadent West and protects Islamic youth from the contamination of far-off technology and insidious ideas. Millions within the Islamic world daily scrutinize the West’s struggle against Islamic fascism. Somewhere within the recesses of their being, they perhaps would prefer, understandably so, and with some idealism, to live under Western-style freedom and democratic auspices. Their inability to let go I believe, is partly due to nationalistic, and religious reasons that has created an ethnic solidarity in this war, which ultimately seems to produce far greater resentment against a powerful America, even though it is America’s power that can bring the very freedom that the Arabs for decades, have declared they wished for. Correct code of conflict would not be bothered by such inconsistency. Rather it would make sure that it had not only overwhelmed the terrorists and their cohorts, but had done so in such destructive fashion that none in the Middle East might find such a repugnant cause at all romantic, bringing as it did utter ruin as the wage of the wrath of the United States. Therein has been the problem in allowing the empty suits to overrule the professional soldier. We always seem to stop short of fully achieving our objective. Politicians should formulate their plans first. Work out the details, and agree on what they want the end scenario to look like. Once they have done that, give it to the Joint-Chiefs, and then get the heck out of the way. But instead, suits with no skin in the game will flap in the breeze of public opinion, allowing the winds of conflict to blow in unnecessary chaos.

No doubt, given the recent turn of events in Afghanistan, an august body of men will gather together to formulate a new and revised code of conflict. One group will have experience, wisdom garnered from blood stained service, and braid upon their sleeves. The others will be in three-piece suits, checking their face book accounts, current public opinion polls, and scheduling meetings with their lobbyists. Mean while, our enemies are quietly gathering together, licking their collective chops, awaiting our “unforgiving minute.” That minute may come only when the spoiled and lazy elitists and the subculture of dualists they have spawned that keeps government ever growing, all suddenly find they have no power to their various entertainment devices, and see the headline news declaring that a couple of million people have just been vaporized. I pray not, but it is possible.

With a father who was a veteran of WWII and Korea, I grew up in American Legion Halls and VFW Posts, both here and in North Carolina. I’ve heard war stories that will never be made into motion pictures by Tom Hanks or Stephen Speilberg. The one fact I can count on, is that noble young citizens will always be asked, and will be ready to risk their lives for our country. They should not be expected to die for a code of conflict crafted in ignorance and forged in political correctness.

To: Members of Charlottesville City Council
From: Antoinette W. Roades
Date: 1 May 2012
Re: Your plan to give away 20 percent of Oakwood Cemetery

Given City practice over the last few years, what you are poised to do on 7 May could appear unremarkable. Again and again, you have given favor to Charlie Armstrong. And more and more, you have made only slight pretence of public process in proceeding with whatever you have already decided to do. (N.B. I can find no one who knew anything of a year-ago charette cited as neighborhood endorsement of development on the property involved. But even had my neighbors and I taken part in such a thing, we would not consider as endorsement a discussion of hypothetical projects between self-selected participants to constitute public process under law.) However, on brief investigation — the only sort of investigation possible given your unseemly rush to deliver the City’s latest gift — it becomes clear that the current situation is remarkable. It is remarkable because of the wrongs that have already been done. It is remarkable because of the wrongs that will be done if you persist.

Most recent among the wrongs done has been the misrepresentation of this property to the public and the press. And perhaps to you as well? It has been described as a problematic piece of land the City just happens to own “near Oakwood cemetery,” a piece with which something has long needed to be done, a dump worthy only of giveaway to what Councilors deem a worthy “vision” (albeit a “vision” even its submitter calls only conceptual). In fact, the property — which carries an assessed value of $370,700 despite its alleged worthlessness — is part of Oakwood cemetery, a part made up of public land purchased systematically by public officials with public money for the public purpose of expanding the City’s otherwise limited public cemetery space. And further inquiry reveals that this public land in a public cemetery should have been opened long ere now to the burials for which it was purchased. As for its being degraded in any degree, inquiry reveals that any such degradation is the direct and deplorable result not just of City neglect, but of active City abuse.

BACKGROUND

Our larger community — that is, both the City of Charlottesville and County of Albemarle — has only two public cemeteries, Maplewood and Oakwood, both of which lie in the City and fall under the jurisdiction of the Parks and Recreation Department. Both cemeteries were established in the 19th century — Maplewood earlier, Oakwood later. By the early 20th century, Maplewood was hemmed in by streets and residences that left it no potential for expansion. Oakwood, however, had potential for expansion, potential recognized by two sets of far-sighted and responsible City officials who secured additional land via two transactions.

By deed of 13 October 1944 (Charlottesville Deed Book 118, page 191; plat in CDB 20, page 289), the City acquired what is now Tax Parcel 29-266. Then, by deed of 29 March 1957 (CDB 198, page 61; plat in CDB 92, page 124), the City acquired what is now Tax Parcel 29-272.1. Both purchases reflect deliberation. Both occurred in difficult times when seemingly more important matters could claim public officials’ attention. The first occurred during World War II. The second occurred during the conflict over school desegregation. But as the deeds and related documents show, both occurred as soon as the property in question became available because of changes within the Gleason family, long residents of Ridge Street. (Note: The apparently low prices that the always public-spirited Gleasons set on their land further suggest that they were supportive of the purpose for which the City was making the purchase — yet another reason to honor that purpose.)

City officials of 1944 and 1957 obviously considered providing sufficient public burying ground to be a significant responsibility. Even that long ago, they foresaw a time when the burial capacity in the City cemeteries as then bounded would be exceeded. And documents show that at least some of those officials’ successors understood their intention and the property’s dedication. Two such items are attached. One is a Charlottesville map of 1963 published by National Bank but based, of course, on official surveys. It shows Oakwood’s boundaries inclusive of the parcels you are poised to give away. The other is a City Planning Department map of 1979 that projects land use for 1990. It also shows Oakwood inclusive of those two parcels. (The color blue denotes public use.) And I would add on an anecdotal note that no one I have raised this matter with — including former City Councilors — ever thought that the open land immediately west of Oakwood’s westernmost drive was anything but part of the cemetery.

Today, Maplewood appears to be full, and inquiry reveals that it is, in fact, “closed” because all available plots have been purchased. Indeed, it turns out that all its plots had been purchased by at least 20 years ago. Oakwood appears to have space remaining even east of its westernmost drive. In fact, however, it is also considered “closed” because all available plots east of Tax Parcels 29-266 and 29-272.1 have been purchased. But Oakwood should not be closed because Oakwood has more space — three-and-a-half acres more space that should have been opened for burials at least ten years ago if not earlier.

Instead of opening the land for the purpose for which it was purchased and needed, however, City officials allowed it to become a dumping site — that is, an illegal landfill — for assorted detritus hauled by City workers at the direction of City supervisors. That detritus, according to Jim Tolbert, has accumulated to a depth as measured by core samples of 20 feet. (Of course, any private landowner who had done the same thing at the same time would have been required to clean the property up under penalty of law. Failure to do so could have netted a fine, jail time, or both.)

SITUATION NOW

The repercussions of the City’s failures in regard to Oakwood vary. At a personal level, families of limited means who have needed public cemetery burial as well as families that may have considered Oakwood their traditional burial site have been forced to go not only elsewhere but onto the commercial cemetery market. At a community level, the natural flow of burials that makes of public cemeteries particularly valuable three-dimensional family albums and museums of local history has been cut off. And at a humanitarian level, the centuries-old community practice of providing burial ground for indigents, unknowns, and other unfortunates has been abandoned leaving a matter of civic compassion to the charity of churches.

The City’s official webpage for Oakwood says: “Oakwood Cemetery has been Charlottesville’s primary public cemetery since the latter half of the 19th century when Maplewood Cemetery began to reach its maximum capacity. It was also the primary burying ground for the poor and indigent. The first recorded indigent burial took place there in February of 1883 — that of “Sophie Shepherd’s child,” a local pauper. The cemetery still has a ‘Potter’s Field,’ a colloquial term for cemeteries used for individual burials of the poor. Such cemeteries, or sections of cemeteries, have existed throughout history as places for those who could not afford a grave or family vault.”

But the cemetery does not still have a Potters Field and has not had one for some time. So the statement on the City’s official website is untrue. (Note: This means among other things that should a resident of The Crossing or a client of The Haven die without means for private burial in a private cemetery — an event that can easily be foreseen — that person will again be homeless, something that would not have happened before Oakwood was declared “closed.”)

When I began this hurried inquiry, I thought the current situation might be attributed to mere reprehensible carelessness. During the time the Oakwood additions were made, public officials focused on being good stewards of public resources and providing basic amenities to the citizenry. However, in the last couple of decades, public officials have focused more and more on imposing on the citizenry the latest fads in politics and planning and providing public resources to private interests. Also, because the deaths of individuals rarely become public matters, the City’s failure to open the additional public burial space already provided for might easily elude public notice.

In the last couple of days, however, I have learned that employees of at least two (and probably three) City departments saw this situation developing and made their concerns known. And I have been told that at least some of those concerns were conveyed to City Council. So I am now forced to attribute the current situation to systemic incompetence, serial hypocrisy (vis-à-vis civic compassion), and calculated misrepresentation.

An analogy comes to mind — that is, declaring South Fork Reservoir worthless because silt that should have been dredged as a matter of course reduced its capacity below that for which it was designed. For the two situations to be truly analogous, however, City workers acting at their supervisors’ direction would also have to have dumped into the reservoir tons of debris rendering even the water it can hold unusable.

LOOKING AHEAD

Were blame to be assessed in this case at this moment, several generations of officials and employees would have to share it. But if you persist in giving 20 percent of the City’s public Oakwood Cemetery to Charlie Armstrong — who, of course, has shown unconscionable contempt for Hawkins family remains on the Ridge-Cherry property, contempt reinforced by the City Attorney’s directive to officials not to acknowledge the issue even for discussion — you will assume as entirely your own the blame for permanent denial of access by this community’s needy families, indigents, et al., to a basic amenity that your far-sighted predecessors acted to secure to them.

In my opinion, you have no legal right to do as you plan. If you persist you should be taken to court. I do hope, however, that you respond instead to the civic-minded ghosts of Charlottesville’s past — just the sort we should be honoring on the City’s 250th birthday — by restoring to current and future members of this community what already belongs to them.

Please do that. Thank you.

Immediately upon the release of investigative findings implicating (now former) Charlottesville Communications Director, Ric Barrick, in a public bid-rigging and cover-up scandal, Barrick resigned his $95,000 per year position. Following Barrick’s public self-termination, Jones punished Barrick with…a new job—one that pays the full-time equivalent salary of $55,000 per year, and one which appears to have no definite termination date.

In the course of the police investigation into “Barrick-gate,” the former Communications director freely admitted to permanently deleting emails and other public electronic documents in order to conceal his misdeeds—this in clear violation of the Virginia Public Records Act.

While Jones did not respond publicly to Barrick’s attempted cover-up through the destruction of evidence, the incident caught the attention of the Library of Virginia, which oversees public records administration.

John Metz, Director, Archives Records and Collection Services at the Library of Virginia, in a March 29, 2012 letter to Jones admonishes the Charlottesville City Manager that Barrick may have violated Virginia civil and/or criminal codes:

Effective management of public records is a matter of the utmost concern to the Library of Virginia. Improper management of public records may lead to civil penalties under the Freedom of Information Act, Code of Virginia § 2.23714, or criminal penalties under Code of Virginia § 18.2-472 and Code of Virginia § 42.1-88.

In most rational municipalities—those under competent management—an attempted cover-up of a fraud against taxpayers would have been met with an immediate dismissal and subsequent prosecution, where warranted. In Charlottesville, such transgression is rewarded with cushy employment and continued public presence. While City Manager Jones apparently has not taken substantive steps to punish Barrick for his serious abuses of the public trust, his flagrant misappropriation of taxpayer funds, and his multiple violations of state code, the Library of Virginia has stepped in to fill the management void in Charlottesville City Hall—and not a moment too soon.

Read  or download the Library of Virginia’s letter to Maurice Jones:

March 29, 2012

Dear Mr. Jones,

It has been brought to my attention that the Procurement & Risk Management Services in the City of Charlottesville may not be properly following the General Schedules established by the Library of Virginia. The specific concern raised is that email pertaining to contact [sic] negotiations has been improperly managed and destroyed.

According to the Virginia Public Records Act, Code of Virginia § 42.1-76 et seq., each agency, here defined as, “all boards, commissions, departments, divisions, institutions, authorities, or parts thereof, of the Commonwealth or its political subdivisions and include[ing] the offices of constitutional officers,” must designate a records officer to serve as a liaison to the Library of Virginia for the purposes of implementing and overseeing a records management program, and coordinating legal disposition, including destruction, of public records.

Furthermore, under the provisions of Code of Virginia § 42.1-86.1, no public records may be destroyed without the completion of a Certificate of Records Destruction (RM-3 Form) and the approval of a designated records officer. All records destruction must be reported to the Library of Virginia through the submittal of the RM-3 form.

Effective management of public records is a matter of the utmost concern to the Library of Virginia. Improper management of public records may lead to civil penalties under the Freedom of Information Act, Code of Virginia § 2.23714, or criminal penalties under Code of Virginia § 18.2-472 and Code of Virginia § 42.1-88.

Please contact the Records Analysis Section at (804) 692-3600 to arrange for a Records Analyst at the Library of Virginia to assist you in complying with the commonwealth’s records management policies and procedures.

Sincerely,

 

John Metz

Director, Archives, Records and Collection Services

Cc:             Craig Brown, City Attorney
Dr. Sandra G. Treadway, Librarian of Virginia and Virginia State Archivist

With both an engineering and medical background, my views are science and validated-results based.  They are more oriented with F. A. Hayek and “The Fatal Conceit,” than with American Planning Association dogma.

None of my comments are intended to disparage the conscientious efforts of those who have been fulfilling their duties in conducting the various studies being presented to you tonight.  My focus is on the factual results rather than on motives or good intentions.  Such a focus might give a false impression of my not being considerate or caring, just the opposite is the truth.

According to the official “oneCommunities” website, the “Livability Project” (your agenda item #1), is funded by a U.S. HUD $999,000 grant.  The October 14, 2010 letter from HUD to Mr. Stephen Williams in announcing the grant award made reference to the title of his application, “Sustainable Communities Regional Grant Planning Program.” Subsequently, an unexplained metamorphosis took place which transformed the project title into a “livability” project, and the term “sustainability” was scarcely to be found thereafter.  What is the definition of “livability” for this project?  If it exits, I cannot find it.

From that same website, I have copied one item from the 1998 Sustainability Accords (implementation of which is an objective of the grant):

3. To maintain a population composition that does not reduce the sustainability of the Region.
To be measured by the distribution of population according to age, race/ethnicity, income/personal wealth, education, and employment status.

In looking around the room at the people making up these commissions, I see at least one visible measurement feature not yet achieved from this 1998 guiding goal.

Mr. Williams in his opening remarks tonight claimed that the City, County, and University are considered as one entity by the public.  The public does not seem to agree, as documented by his own TJPDC livability group survey on jobs and housing preferences.  As reported in the February 15, 2012 Charlottesville-Tomorrow: “most of the 508 respondents said that they would prefer to live in the rural areas of Albemarle County if there were no barriers in choice of housing. Sixty-one percent said they commuted from outside the Charlottesville Albemarle area because they found housing elsewhere more affordable or a better value.”

The article continues: “…commuters continue to have a preference for larger houses on large lots in nearby counties…if expense were not a barrier, many of these commuters would prefer to live in Albemarle’s rural areas.”

This same  article noted that Mr. Wayne Cilimberg found that “it is too easy to live in the rural area and drive to work.” Albemarle County staff found this a “thorn in our flesh.”

From the citizen taxpayer’s point of view, it appears that “livability” is whatever the planners want it to be, even if it means forcing the round pegs of private citizen choice  into the square-hole  utopian notions of planners.  Instead of working to accommodate the expressed wishes of the public, the planners complain that the public does not know what is best for them.

The historical record of planning gives little reason to be optimistic about any attempts to define, measure, and regulate this undefined “livability.” Your own comments here tonight illustrate that fact. There were calls to have more committee meetings to get your stories straight before the next joint planning meeting.  The livability surveys are inherently flawed because any survey is limited to the chosen indicators.  What is the correct number of indicators?  Are all indicators of equal value? Who decides? Why feature questions on bike paths and not questions related to better or more paved roads? How do you quantify the worth of an indicator? What indicators are unknown, yet vital?

Would a different group pick and weigh different indicators? Whose biases get to shape the wording of the questions?  Who does not know that the phrasing of a question largely determines the answer? Who decides how large a sample group must be? Who decides the composition of that sample?

In the end, the result is largely pre-determined by the original crafters of the survey process, and the choices they offered the public.

You commissioners were quick to notice and question the issue of survey sample size and composition.  For all the effort to engage the public to vote their opinions on the packaged survey questions, the livability team could point to only 350 or so individuals, scattered over the several survey topics, who had signed in to partake in the surveys.  They had failed to cross reference the names and could not answer your question: “Are these the same people voting each time or not?  Is it the same core group of activists voting each time?   At some of the public voting displays only 20 or 30 people showed up. The County/City population is around 120,000.  This cannot be considered a valid representation of public opinion.  The HUD grant demands that the livability project go through this public participation process, but to say that at the end that “the public wants this or that” based on the results so far is not valid or meaningful.

None of the Livability surveys included linking “cost” to the desirability of a measure.  If the survey had included: “How much more in taxes would you pay for measure “x,” then the results might be meaningful.   So long as the wish list is “free” why not have more of everything deemed desirable. You will get a diversity of choices limited only by the number of people responding.  Livability for some might include a free flat panel TV, why not?

None of the Livability surveys included “private property rights” as a limiting factor or “indicator” in the choices offered. An expert on governmental planning, Randal O’Toole, has noted that “planners believe that private property rights are flexible and can be changed at whim.” He quotes from the APA book “The Land We Share,” that private property is an “institution that communities reshape over time to promote evolving goals,” and comments that “if guided by planners, the government decides that your property has historic, environmental, or scenic value, they can take from you the right to use your land without any composition.” Do you agree with this?

On the topic of transportation, Mr. O’Toole notes that “more than four out of five Americans say they prefer a house in the suburbs to higher-density housing near jobs, shops, and transit. (This true here as noted already in the TJPDC Livability study.) But planners believe a greater share of Americans should live in high-density housing, partly because planners erroneously think people living in higher densities will drive less.”  He notes that “Germany can’t tear them (high-density housing) down fast enough to keep up with people leaving for single-family homes.”

The presentations this evening spent much time on affordable housing.  What is the definition of “affordable housing”?  What determined the arbitrary percent level goal for 2050? How much is the right amount and for whom? I heard no mention of making housing affordable. In City/County discussions of new jobs, such jobs are always carefully qualified as being “environmentally friendly, high-tech, high-paying, clean.”  This proviso filters out the real jobs that the real unemployed might be qualified to do in more basic manufacturing.  The large numbers of unemployed for whom housing is unaffordable do not have the educational skills for such utopian industries.  This cherry picking of acceptable industry/jobs puts the disadvantaged in a perpetual dependency role rather than into a job.

One example of advocacy guiding public policy was illustrated by the comments regarding accommodations by the City to bicycling groups.  The spokesperson for the City noted the need for basic infrastructure upgrades.  How odd then that C-T reports that “The city’s budget director, Leslie Beauregard, said $100,000 of the capital budget was moved from undergrounding utilities into bicycle infrastructure development.”

Much “livability” talk also concerns the achieving of the right mix of housing stock and individuals.  The April 17, 2012 article by Thomas Sowell discussed this very topic.  He notes, “…in order to mix and match classes and races to fit the government’s preconceptions…is the idea that there is something wrong if a community does not have an even or random distribution of various kinds of people. This arbitrary assumption is that the absence of evenness or randomness — whether in employment, housing or many other situations — shows a “problem” that has to be “corrected.”

No evidence is considered necessary for this assumption to prevail at any level of government, including the US Supreme Court. No one has to show the existence, much less the prevalence, of an even or random distribution of different segments of the population — in any country, anywhere. Nothing is more common than for people to sort themselves out when it comes to residential housing, whether by class, race or other factors.”

In reference to politicians and bureaucrats, Sowell concludes with, “People convinced of their own superior wisdom and virtue have no time to spare for what other people really want.”

The article by Wendell Cox in the WSJ April 9, 2012 “California Declares War on Suburbia” confirms the experiences in other states regarding planning edicts.  He notes that “The campaign against suburbia is the result of laws passed in 2006 (the Global Warming Solutions Act) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and in 2008 (the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act) on urban planning. The latter law, as the Los Angeles Times aptly characterized it, was intended to “control suburban sprawl, build homes closer to downtown and reduce commuter driving, thus decreasing climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions.” In short, to discourage automobile use.”

Further, “Dartmouth economist William Fischel found that California’s housing had been nearly as affordable as the rest of the nation until the more restrictive regulations, such as development moratoria, urban growth boundaries, and overly expensive impact fees came into effect starting in the 1970s. Other economic studies, such as by Stephen Malpezzi at the University of Wisconsin, also have documented the strong relationship between more intense land-use regulations and exorbitant house prices.”

There was discussion during the meeting concerning housing prices and their statistical distribution in the City/County and land use/density.  Are you  bemoaning County regulations requiring 21 acre minimums for land divisions, with the restriction of only one home on one acre of that 21 acres? Do you not realize that the more restrictive land use laws become, the more expensive the land and homes become?  The number of people who chose to move and live outside the City or County because of increased housing costs is testimony to this.  Such planning choices make City and County living appear to be more of an elitist achievement.

At the recent London conference “Planet Under Pressure,” Yale University professor Karen Seto was quoted in MSMBC, “We certainly don’t want them (humans) strolling about the entire countryside.  We want them to save land for nature by living closely (together).”

Commissioners, it appears that there is a schism between the elite notions of the university planners and the wants and actions of the public. You  have the unenviable job of reconciling your good intentions with history and human diversity.

Corbusier tried in the 1930s with his “Radiant Cities” project; Jane Jacobs did a bit better; Chicago tried with the best planning talent in the 1950s and 1960s only to have these edifices later demolished.

In conclusion, I return to F. A. Hayek’s “Fatal Conceit.”  Ralph Reiland’s 2009 definition of that term conveys the message,  “that one man or one group, one cabinet of commanding officials or one central committee, or one team of planners from Harvard and Yale, can gather and understand enough information in order to reshape the world around them according to their wishes, reshape human nature…”

(Note: These remarks were delivered to a joint session of the Albemarle County and Charlottesville City Planning Commissions on April 18, 2012.)

A former assistant director of public works in Virginia Beach, Mueller assumed her Charlottesville position in 1985.

Mrs. Mueller’s rumored replacement is Lance Stewart, Charlottesville City’s current Facilities Maintenance Manager.

You heard it first on The Schilling Show Blog and News.

In his comments, entitled, “Our Titanic Government,” Schilling references the arrogance and ignorance surrounding America’s impending financial doom. Kristin Szakos, Dennis Rooker, David Toscano, Dave Norris, and Tom Perriello are noted as prominent examples of government officials who through their actions, votes, and words endanger liberty.

Watch “Our Titanic Government”:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SflHlflRNao

Norris, a pro-abortion Democrat, joined about 25 protesters at an April 12 rally on University Grounds to call for an end to feline intubation. This procedure allows medical residents to practice putting tubes down cats’ throats in anticipation of later using the technique to save lives of human babies.

According to a report in the April 13, 2012 Daily Progress, “Norris the Red” called the feline testing process “cruel and unnecessary.”

The Progress story clarifies that no cats have died as a result of the process. Dr. Sandy Feldman, attending veterinarian to subject cats compared the procedure’s aftermath to a “sore throat.”

Sadly, Norris’s concern for “cruel and unnecessary” procedures performed on cats does not extend to human babies, thousands of whom have been (and continue to be) aborted at the University of Virginia Medical Center—just steps away from the UVa “save the cats” rally.

Whether pleading for the comfort of cats or declaring the rights of trees, godless Charlottesville leftists, inspired by morally confused “leaders” like Dave Norris and David Toscano, continue to miss the forest for the trees. And while Charlottesville cats may now be more comfortable in life, Charlottesville babies continue to suffer unspeakable, torturous deaths (warning extremely graphic photo) in the name of “choice.”

Following an exposé chronicling Charlottesville City’s profligate misspending, Albemarle County is the target of the “red pen 2” report—suggestions that if followed would save County taxpayers more than $14M this year alone. While not exhaustive, these first-round recommendations ultimately could result in a real estate tax rate reduction of .09, dropping the proposed rate per $100 of assessed value from .762 to .672.

While Albemarle County has responded to “the new economic reality” with significantly more verity than has Charlottesville City, there is much work to be done on the county budget and the appurtenant—and largely staff-driven— budgeting process. Unfortunately, as is the case in Charlottesville, elected officials are reluctant to suggest or even support commonsense proposals to reign-in expenditures. The concept of limited government is lost amongst grandiose, big-government visions and the accompanying community accolades often received by elected benefactors of taxpayer funds. Palatial public buildings, overly compensated government employees (salary and benefits), and handouts to politically favored “charities” show great opportunity for spending reform in Albemarle County.

The savings set forth and the resulting rate-drop could net the average Albemarle County homeowner $251 per year in reduced real estate taxation and at the same time deposit an additional $14M into the local economy. In reality, such changes are practically inconceivable given the lack of courage, foresight, and leadership shown in previous spending decisions ordained by Albemarle County’s elected and appointed officials.

(H/T to Steven Latimer for providing the red pen, and to Carole Thorpe for covering Albemarle County’s $36 paper budget fee.)

Review the Righteous Red Pen 2 Budget Analysis and Proposed Savings for Albemarle County:

This year, Charlottesville City Hall is “swimming in cash”—as it has been for the last decade and beyond, running up cumulative surpluses in the tens-of-millions of dollars and then allocating those funds to “pet” projects, outside of the standard budget process. But in their frenzy to spend every available collected cent, Charlottesville City Council has shown the hapless taxpayer no substantive relief.

In order to jump-start the proscribed “where to cut” discussion, The Schilling Show has proposed more than $13M in red-pen savings: these for consideration by the fiscally clueless City Council Democrats who in 2013 joyfully will fritter $146,183,446 of OPM (other people’s money).

While the list is by no means exhaustive, it is predicated on Constitutional principles of limited government, long forgotten (if ever known) by Charlottesville’s Democrat ruling class.

The city’s projected 2013 real estate tax collection is $50M. With each penny of the real estate tax dollar representing about $525,000 ($50M/95) these identified savings embody a potential real estate tax rate reduction of approximately 25 cents ($13M/$525k)—which would drop the current taxation rate of .95 per hundred to .70 per hundred. The resulting 26% ($13M) reduction in tax confiscations—while painful to profligate Democrat insiders and their political beneficiaries—likely would be a boon to the local economy and a blessing to economically struggling families in Charlottesville.

(H/T to Steven Latimer for providing the red pen!)

Review the Righteous Red Pen Budget Analysis and Proposed Savings (feel free to add your own):

There were many advantages to having a sheltered, upper-middle class background in Charlottesville. But one thing it didn’t teach me was what the adult world is really like in America across class lines. Even following college, I still believed most of the nation’s grown men behaved like the professional-level ones from my childhood, holding jobs and raising families.

So you can imagine how shocked I was when moving to New York City at nineteen. The men there were louder than what I was used to. Many led lifestyles—as transsexuals, or black nationalists, or bohemians—that would’ve made them freaks elsewhere. And, to my surprise, many engaged in a culture of indolence that seemed to permeate the entire city. On any given block, there’d be men hanging on corners, lying on benches, and standing in streets even as cars passed. Crazy ones would sing on subways, scream at pigeons, and use sidewalks as their personal toilets. At first I found this insolence fascinating, even hilarious, given it took place alongside the financiers and intellectuals that run our modern world. And back then I figured it was just another quirk of New York culture.

But its charm faded when I began traveling America’s other cities and found the same thing. And because in these cities it wasn’t tempered, like in New York, by the far greater presence of working people, it amounted to a glaring problem. This first struck me in Atlanta, whose downtown is surrounded by some of America’s most dangerous neighborhoods, and rife with homeless people. But after further travels, I found it existed to varying degrees in every major city.

Sit at a crowded public space inside these cities’ downtowns and you’ll see what I mean. There you’ll find inebriates, drug fiends, and other men lying around. An alarming number suffer obvious mental illnesses, and are homeless due to society’s neglect.  Others, whether homeless or not, have nothing apparently wrong with them, save that they are public nuisances—by ignoring their own hygiene, taunting women, arguing loudly, and yelling racist comments. But most just sit around saying nothing at all.

This has created a particularly bizarre atmosphere inside downtown public libraries. Rather than attracting scholarly types, most mock this original purpose by serving instead as lounges for the indigent. If, like me, you wish to use them for serious research, you better be able to endure loud conversations, trashed bathrooms, snoring men, and—always my favorite when buried over work—men who sit and stare blankly ahead for hours.

Of course, libraries could reverse this by disciplining against noise, or sleeping, or pointless loitering. But in a depressing symbolism of government priorities, many have policies that do the opposite, like allowing men to openly view porn on public computers. This way, ensured one staffer at a Portland branch, patrons can enjoy their “freedoms.” And such men indeed have, not only in libraries, but in other public facilities, so that visiting them often means entering a twilight zone of glazed-over eyes and lost ambitions.

“Coming Apart”

As a libertarian—and hardly a moralizer—I’m slow to interpret such widespread torpor as a sign of impending collapse. And because I’m young, I can’t fully compare my observations of these dilemmas with past ones. But I have to say this problem of public indigence, which is familiar to most urbanites, seems to me like a demographic crisis. When the Occupiers began their bratty tirade against the rich, I at least had to agree with them on one thing: America does have a class problem. And it’s defined by a vast underclass of men, many within this public sphere, who seem to lack basic cognitive skills. How they reached these conditions is endlessly complex. But one recent book, Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010”, emits some light.

In the book Murray uses census data to document the trajectories, since 1960, of two different groups of American white males, aged 30-49. One group, which he calls “Fishtown,” after a working-class Philadelphia neighborhood, represents the portion with high school diplomas or less, who are mostly in the lower 30% of earners. The other group, nicknamed “Belmont,” after a professional-class township outside Boston, represents the portion with higher educations, mostly in the upper 20%.

Murray begins by explaining that after World War II, not only were income discrepancies between these two classes narrower, but also their cultural differences. The two often lived in the same neighborhoods, shopped in the same stores, and sent their kids to the same schools. But following Kennedy’s assassination, these classes divided, and by the turn of the century were almost fully segregated. The upper class grew numerically and by income, while lower class incomes stagnated, accounting for the wide gap that exists today.

Many have blamed structural changes in the economy for this trend, but Murray uses a mountain of statistics to emphasize how cultural values also factor in. He begins, using pop sociology, by highlighting lifestyle differences in white- and blue-collar America. These observations so closely fit my own—following years of travel around the U.S.—that they could’ve come from my pen. Within this narrative, people in Belmont drink moderately, exercise daily, eat healthily, watch little TV, and read highbrow news publications. Meanwhile people in Fishtown practice all the stereotypical degeneracies associated with poverty. A third of them smoke cigarettes; many eat fast food regularly, and thus have higher obesity rates; and on average, they watch 35 hours—35 hours!—of television a week, mainly soap operas and reality television. Indeed their habits directly refute left-wing buffoons like Paul Krugman, who, writing from his own little planet, still blames class differences strictly on economic determinism rather than lifestyle choices.

In the next section, Murray digs deeper. He explains that the nation’s social fabric was once defined by four virtues: Marriage, Industriousness, Honesty, and Religiosity. These virtues were manifested through high marriage rates; high workforce participation; low incarceration rates; and high church membership.  The statistical peak of these virtues for both Fishtown and Belmont came in the early 1960s, before being attacked during the Cultural Revolution as symbols of rigidity. And while most of these attacks came from members of the elite, they scarcely altered the virtuous underpinnings of elite culture itself. From 1960-2010, the rates of Belmont males not in the workforce stayed below 5%, while the workweeks of those within it actually got longer. Their incarceration rate remained almost non-existent. Their marriage rate dropped slightly from 94% to 84%. And their regular church attendance, which even agnostics like Murray and I agree is an important indicator of social capital, went from 65% to 53%.

But for Fishtown, the Cultural Revolution meant sweeping social changes. The Fishtown marriage rate over this same time dropped from 84% to below 50%. Men outside the workforce skyrocketed from 5% to 12%; as did incarceration fivefold, to a full 1% of this group. Regular church attendance—once essential to community life in blue-collar neighborhoods—dipped from 57% to 40%.

This hurt Fishtown’s already-tenuous social fabric, and widened the income gap. And because, Murray notes, these downward trends are not unique to whites, but consistent across racial lines for low-educated and low-income males of similar age, they suggest disturbing trends for America. It means all the more men in their primes are either imprisoned or outside the workforce, and often without basic social bonds. They surely account for a large percentage of those I’ve found sitting lifelessly in public spaces.

What Caused This?

Some will use “Coming Apart” to reaffirm previous notions that mid-20^th century America was a stark morality tale between the innocent 1950s and decadent 1960s. But I’m glad Murray doesn’t succumb to this temptation. While he acknowledges that these four virtues predominated far more before JFK’s assassination than after, he doesn’t pretend that together they produced some heaven on earth in America. He rightly notes the persecution of women and minorities during the era. And he also notes some effects these virtues, practiced to extremes, had in stifling the nation’s white men. Borrowing from stereotypes then advanced by books like “The Organization Man,” Murray describes 1950s America as one of tight-knit communities centered on church and family, but also highly conformist. So he’s no more surprised than me that when these norms loosened in the 1960s, it led to a creative explosion across the U.S.

For example, look at how popular music changed during this time. In the Fifties it had consisted mostly of buttoned-up balladeers singing corny lyrics. By 1969 it had become a tidal wave of Dionysian ecstasy put to song, defined by the guttural screams of Led Zeppelin and James Brown. But I’m convinced this never would’ve occurred had certain postwar taboos remained in place. Instead music—and pop culture—would have continued with the sterile innocence of Dean Martin.

Murray believes this loosening of formalities enabled innovation across fields even more important than music. He writes that while in the Fifties a typical young couple would’ve remained in their hometown and married early–with the woman tending house and the man becoming a policeman or small businessman—by the Sixties such couples were avoiding marriage for higher education. What resulted were breakthroughs in science, engineering, finance, and the arts. This helped form our modern meritocratic upper class; and rather than just dividing America, writes Murray, has also improved life for the lower class. In what I found to be a striking admission near the book’s end, Murray himself writes that if given a choice, he’d sooner live in the America of 2010 than 1960, despite the cultural changes. This is because, thanks to Sixties reforms, America is not only more progressive, but more prosperous.

But Murray’s concerns are that over this age of progress, we’ve erred to the point of having no standards at all. Part of this is because our “hollow elite,” as he calls them, no longer hold the lower classes accountable, but cower in the name of “tolerance.” Isn’t public library porn, funded by taxpayers, a great example? If a free-spirited traveler like me can enter Chicago’s central library, walk to a row of computers, find a dozen grown men watching sex scenes, and feel mildly disgusted, what will mothers with children think? They may not say anything right then. But they’ll probably avoid the library in the future, just as, Murray writes, the upper class now avoids much of public life because of its decadence—the decadence this same class is scared to reprimand.

Another concern, addressed by Murray elsewhere, has been the entitlement state. It too was inspired by the Cultural Revolution, which rather than remaining a cultural phenomenon, soon became a governmental one, dragged by policymakers into the vortex of bureaucratic incompetence. Ignoring the maxim that governments shouldn’t legislate morality, these policymakers legislated their own bizarre version of it, wherein newly trending principles like “sexual freedom” and “class equity” were used to justify welfare programs incentivizing single motherhood and downward mobility. Such programs shortly preceded the statistical explosion in broken families, and continue to sustain our unemployed masses.

What to do about it?

I’m not going to list a bunch of policy solutions for this crisis, or even suggest government policies can solve it. But on the cultural front, I’ll echo Murray in saying that the return of the professional class and their values into public life would be a start. I’ll repeat as much in my upcoming book, which is about how America can revitalize its cities. As bastions of what’s usually best about diversity and culture—and tolerance—such cities have for too long tolerated blatant lethargy from many of their own people. And the professional class, feeling disgusted and endangered, has fled for the suburbs. But I believe for such cities to thrive again, this class must return, not at the mandate of urban planners, but at their own doing. Because not only will their reemergence add to these cities’ public coffers, thus improving services. It will create an atmosphere of virtue—particularly in the public sphere—where virtue is often now lacking.

But any way you go about, if America is to change, it will have to begin with a change in culture. Hopefully “Coming Apart” will start that conversation.

Schilling’s yearlong investigation resulted in Special Prosecutor, Diana Wheeler, being named to research procurement and procedural anomalies inside City Hall.

Barrick cited job “stress” as the primary reason for his departure from the $95,000 per year position, which he has held for nearly six years. Barrick will leave his post at the end of March.

Read The Schilling Show’s report on Barrick’s City Hall improprieties.