Posted Jun 1, 2009 at 7:16 AM
"The Town anticipates requiring the Phase II Stormwater planning be implemented on a Town-wide basis, though only required to do so for the areas classified as urban." -- Anticipates but still sitting on a back burner, one presumes. If most of the land annexed by the town was agri and is now urban (developed at maximum density) have we seen the making of a New "New Orleans" 9th Ward? The 100 of acres of parking lots with minimal plant growth and no grass islands looks threatening more than ugly and unsafe now. It is everywhere. Every new subdivision that has been stripped of tress is suspect. Glad to know the flooding on College was taken care of years ago. Yeah, right. This sounds like the town officials were highly selective about what information was used and even more selective in parsing out data Planning Commission would need to fulfill their responsibilities. A system failure from the top down. A shame since it was so supposedly important to town they clumped civil engineer with town manager who is also sign ordinance interpreter and zoning administrator and chief purchasing agent and has both the treasurer and law enforcement reporting to him. Now voters need to presume duties were all just minimally addressed. Those who have allowed this and been witness to this as elected officers or by appointment all need to be shown the door pronto. I remember hearing council talk about citizens not having all the information. It seems more likely council and Planning are those that are clueless. Totally, completely incompetent with empty titles and empty heads. Our house just sold and we will not be buying in this Burg again.
It rather looks like a 'hive' of government, with the Town Manager as queen bee....or, has it all been set up to look that way to have someone to blame? If we have Planning Commissioners 'creating' these types of documents and THEN being elected as Town Council members because of the 'wealth of experience', then we have a whole new type of poverty going on here. Poverty of will to do the work, poverty of what the job requires, poverty of information to make good decisions. Oh...the phrase about Town only being required to take care of 'urban' areas....duh...that was a cut and paste from the Montgomery County plan. Montgomery County doesn't have jurisdiction over those Town and Cities. It is up to the City or Town to do their own research. ALL of Christiansburg is urbanized area, there are no exceptions within Christiansburg. Another misleading statement due to ignorance or laziness.
Posted Jun 1, 2009 at 7:07 PM
You really need to break this up in installments. You cannot think most members of council can digest all this in one episode. If that were possible our town wouldn't be talking about these types of problems.
I have the word of one Planning Commission member that he and a large number of citizens are avoiding going to myvaresources.com because it is so negative about the Town Council and Planning Commission (go to htt://myvaresources.com and click on the audio/video link. Then click on the 6/1/09 Planning Commission Meeting part 3 to see what I'm talking about. If they won't look at the very documents they have created because they are 'negative', I certainly would not expect them to look at a blog, where Heaven forbid, opinions contrary to their own might be expressed. I write these for citizen information. If Town Council members read them, that's fine, but it's not my target audience. But you are right. I got so excited about some of the stuff I was finding that I made it pretty long. I'm sure there are some short (and more pointed) articles will come from this in the future.
Posted Jun 4, 2009 at 12:51 AM
What pitiful is that the "officials" can not see the difference between two different resources - because they are supported or done by YOU. An intelligent person can see this blog is opinion and information. Myvaresources is clearly a resource for people who are trying to understand what the hell is going on. That "official" needs to be removed by Council as its obvious he's interested in harming you instead of serving the interests of Christiansburg residents.
MyVAResources is a resource site that between 300 and 400 people are using each day. It was intended as kind of a one-stop-shopping location for sources of information. What is really important to me is that there are a lot of young people who are using it and learning out our government at national, state, and local level. Most of the links are there because people have contacted me to find out where these documents and other resources can be found. We live in a 'transition' time when the internet is available but not always a viable option. I feel that anyone who can help someone else learn how to use this tool is simply helping to empower citizens and government. There are still a lot of people, including my own mother, who don't know how to manage emails....but she sure figured out how to shop using google search:) It (the internet) is a rapidly changing and growing entity and some people get let behind in the knowledge of how it works. That is exactly the reason why we are seeing more young people becoming active in government, politics, and voting. And, that is a VERY, VERY good thing. They want to be informed, they want to participate, they want to be part of the process....YES!!!