COMMISSIONER COMMENTS :

• in a letter to the Spirit of Jefferson Farmer's Advocate
  January 2007
  

  I hope the School Board and its committee consider naming the high school after Charles Town's most accomplished native son - Martin Delany.
  
  In February, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln, after meeting with Martin Delany, wrote his Secretary of War: "Do not fail to have an interview with this most extraordinary and intelligent black man." Delany was, as a result, appointed to be the first black field officer in the U. S. Army.
  
  He was born May, 1812 a "freed black" to Patty and Samuel Delany and grew up near to the present-day Asbury Methodist Church property. Education and book learning were his life's triumph and protagonist. From the first time he and his siblings learned to read and write from a peddler's copy of "The New York Book for Spelling and Reading," his faith in learning enriched his accomplishments so that he eventually became a Harvard-educated doctor, co-editor of "The North Star" newspaper with Frederick Douglas, and a scientist who led his own self-financed, year-long successful expedition through West Africa that culminated in his delivering a paper before the Royal Society in London chaired by Prince Albert. He also wrote a seminal novel that scholars today have written is a more accurate depiction of the pre-Civil War antebellum South than "Uncle Tom's Cabin" or Herman Melville's "Benito Cerreno."
  
  The novel, one of the first three to be written by an African-American, was called "Blake: The Huts of America," and it chronicled the travels through the South (and Jefferson County) by a black firebrand and exhorter of rebellion. The important collection of authentic folk songs in this novel have been the subject of other dissertations.
  
  Delany once wrote: "Act. Act in the Living Present - but Act. Face Thine Accusers; Scorn The Rack and Rod; And If Thou Hast Truth To Utter; Speak The Truth, and Leave the Rest To God." Small wonder that as Delany always spoke out, he was almost killed by a so-called white mob in Ohio in the 1840s - and almost killed by a displeased so-called black mob in South Carolina in 1876.
  
  We share W.E.B. DuBois' puzzlement when he said to an interviewer in the 1930s - "His was a magnificent life - Yet, why is it we know so little of him?" As one who did a web site of several hundred pages and an hour long broadcast documentary on Martin Delany, I think he was forgotten because the library at Wilberforce College, with virtually all his papers, was burned in the late 19th century. And there was the need for history to catch up with this visionary who today is now called the "Father of Black Nationalism," because he wrote a book advocating that African Americans return to Africa and begin anew. When I think of Martin Delany I am inspired and I think of a good teetotaling Methodist with a strong hearty backbeat of African drums. His whole life is a testament to what belief in learning will give to anyone willing to seek it out.

  reprinted courtesy The Spirit of Jefferson

• in a letter to the Shepherdstown Chronicle
  January 2007



2007 could be the first of many good years if the governments of the County and five towns pulled all their oars at the same time.

Annexation and money from the video lottery are misperceived by the towns as solutions when, in fact, better cooperation with the county and closer study of the law and processes is the answer. A town cannot expand its way out of fiscal insufficiency because each new house represents a net cost to taxpayers over the long-term that shows up on the books of the town, the county and the school board. As for the $30 million from the video lottery the county and its towns have gotten since 1999 -- things change.

I think the County understands the problem a little more than the towns, by instituting full cost impact fees, establishing a farmland preservation fund, and setting up a density requirement of one house per fifteen acres within the county's rural zone. But these conditions and the awful land use ordinances and senseless red tape that typifies the county land use procedures - called "thirty years behind the times, and broken beyond belief" by professional planners - have prompted developers to besiege Ranson, and Charles Town especially with proposals to annex properties, literally miles from the towns.

So we come to the critical point -- the county's own comprehensive plan and its in place land use ordinances within the unincorporated areas - are being destroyed by counter land use policies that I believe the towns are illegally trying to effect within the county. All consistent land use rules will implode as a result. Imagine also trying to provide ambulance, police, or a fire response if you drive up Route 9 and every mile or so you are in a new jurisdiction? Where do I vote, who do I pay bills to? That is what is beginning to take place. This is the beginning of the end of any consistent, county-wide government. Not good at all.

All local governing bodies should begin with a realization: we must work together and not be played off of each other in a race to the bottom that will turn the county into what I have called "a monopoly game board on steroids." And the solution is close at hand and easy to grasp - cooperate.

As your commissioner I will always be for two things 1) transparent, open, efficient, consistent governance; 2) a vision of the county that preserves its character (open lands, woodlands, heritage homes, clean water), while making the county fiscally sound and encouraging of "character-friendly" revenue producing activity, especially at home, in tourism, on horse farms, and farms. That's my commitment.

So what should the county and towns do in response to the fact that we have 50,000 residents, 20,000 dwelling units and developers who want to build almost 20,000 more?

Consider the cost of services for a new house of about 2500 square feet; with 2.5 people; .72 school kids average each year over twenty years, 2-3 vehicles (over 40,000 are registered in Jefferson County); and a demand of about 200 gallons per day in water and sewer from either septic/well or public services. And don't forget they need ambulances. paramedics, fire trucks, fire fighters, sanitarians, police support, public health officers, building inspectors, animal control officers, etc.

And outside sources almost cannot pay for these costs. That means you the taxpayer is in jeopardy as the one who pays for all these homes' needed services, and I strongly oppose that.

Either the taxpayer pays or the one who wants to build pays because few other sources are able or willing. 1) The state owns the roads outside of subdivisions and is severely cash short and disinclined to fund any more roads in Jefferson County for quite some time after Route 9 is complete. 2) Schools? We know the state and even WVEA's non-support to locality pay for the teachers in Panhandle; 3) We know the legislature fiddles with the formula each year so more revenue from property taxes for schools stays with the state than should; 4) Our relative affluence has generally disqualified Jefferson County from receiving outright grants to build sewer and water plants, only loans Ð which you and I would pay back; 5) Few people know this most important fact: a 1931 state constitutional amendment puts a cap on revenue in county property taxes raised for schools or county or town so that no more than three per cent more from the previous year's total can be raised from taxes.

It must be said, in fairness, that the County's Assessor, the County Commission, and all but one town have kept the county's taxpayers significantly lower than where they could legally be raised to - over the past five years. We thus all are presently using video lottery funds to keep your taxes low for as long as possible.

Not everyone knows that County government does not have any real authority over the schools, except to properly collect and disburse impact fee revenues. I wonder how many new residents in our wonderful county know that our fire fighters are professional volunteers who rely on community support in donations, in great part. The need to cooperate is made trickier by a little known-fact that the county commission gives funding but cannot micromanage the offices of all the county's other elected officers: Assessor, Sheriff, clerks etc., excepting really egregious actions at which time we have the authority to intervene. If, for example, there is wrong doing in the use of funds, we would get involved because we, under the WV Code, are jointly liable for such wrong-doing. We can hire and fire our own staff who serve "at will."

I suggest we begin cooperating in a few specific ways:

1) The County is about to renegotiate what is called a non-exclusive cable franchise agreement with Comcast which annually gives a per cent of revenue that is about $400,000 for towns and county combined. I would like the County to establish a government, educational cable channel(s) shared with the towns and administered by a County-supported tech person(s). The revenues, which towns and county are presently spending on other things Ð could go into a fund that also supports the realization of high speed broadband service to the towns, an area within a mile of each town, along Route 9 and Route 340, and ultimately to all public buildings in the County and towns. The fund would also pay for an installer to bring the fiber from the curb to the premises if it is a public building. Private entities would pay for the service.

2) I think we need to better coordinate the provision of water and sewer so that Shepherdstown has, for example, its own designated service area. The County Commission can legally decrease the service of its own Public Service District;

3) Emergency services is an area needing a more cooperative approach;

4) Agreeing to a mutually arrived at land use plan for the county up to the town's boundaries. The town in question then would be given the authority to administer that land use plan within a mile of their town and have the authority to refine the plan to suit its own goals and philosophy.

One reason I am very hopeful for our future is we are developing a land use plan with a nationally recognized consultant that fulfills the objectives spelled out here and the tools to achieve these areas of cooperation are at hand. They just have to be in hand.

reprinted courtesy of the Shepherdstown Chronicle

• in a letter to The Herald Mail
  January 2007

  The year 2007 could well be one of the best years for Jefferson County.
  
  The Jefferson County Commission and our 50,000 residents will likely see the results of: 1) three years to complete our state-of-the-art 911 communications center with computer-aided dispatching, thanks to the leadership of our director, Jeff Polczynski; 2) two years of working to renovate the historic old jail in Charles Town into county offices; 3) a one-year study for management consultant Sarah Birnbach to prepare our first comprehensive human resources policy, job definitions, and required performance evaluations -- all woefully lacking now; 4) an indoor swimming pool for the public's benefit from a non-tax fund source; 5) what might be a threefold increase in the amount of not-from-taxes funding to be distributed to legitimate community organizations, such as Shepherdstown's sliding-scale day care center; 6) two years of searching to apply $1 million to buy a much needed new soccer field(s); 7) two years to institute community television channels for emergency notification and government information; 8) implementing what is called a green infrastructure plan with the help of a mapper who uses geo-spatial information techniques (GIS).
  
  Nothing will be more important than to complete what might be a two-year effort by the commission and ten committees of gifted and concerned citizens rewriting our land use ordinances which have been often described by professionals as "thirty years behind the times and broken beyond belief." We have had the pleasure of working with Lane Kendig, a planning consultant, well-known as the creator of what is called "performance-based" land use policies.
  
  People have had to live within a maddening maze of regulations that actually contradict or don't make sense at all. One builder was required to go repeatedly through a costly variance application with each new phase of his subdivision simply because one word in the ordinance was wrong and no one in county government would change it. I brought it to the Commission's attention and we fixed it. (In the ordinance, the word "front" was wrongly in the place of the word "back" in regulations describing setbacks for duplexes).
  
  If we work closely to make the most of Mr. Kendig's acclaimed approach (he won a national award for writing Loudoun's comprehensive plan in the early 1980s) the look of Jefferson County - its so-called "character" - will be preserved substantially. And this can be achieved even while large property land owners earn quite significant revenue from their land. The approach relies heavily on data describing natural features such as high-quality woodlands, sinkholes, and historic structures -- to "incentivize" any construction away from such resources. Any development is highly clustered to within as little as twenty per cent of the property while the remainder is placed in a permanent conservation easement. Numerous permissions to encourage "green" revenue producing activity on the land are included.
  
  We'll get there. But we will get to a great future sooner if the County Commission and the town councils within the county coordinate very deliberately in determining the futures of the lands surrounding each town. I strongly favor letting each town administered mutually agreed to land use principles in those areas around their respective jurisdictions. Each can refine these principles to suit their needs while not seriously conflicting with a county-wide land use plan. I also like the idea of the county supporting an unchallenged service area in these same areas around a town to the town's water and sewer board. Only when all the towns and the county think with one mind and vision and if we have well coordinated provision of services, will our people have the wonderful place to live and work that they deserve.
  
  All we have to do is remember who we are and what we have. We have a nationally recognized historic structure for every few hundred residents. Horses have been in our collective blood for over two hundred years. When John Brown was on the wagon to his hanging he looked up and saw the Blue Ridge and said: My God this is a beautiful country." These things add up to what we cherish - the county's "character."
  
  Last, the people of Jefferson are world champ volunteers and our greatest resources and keeping that community caring spirit alive is foremost. I don't mind people speaking out for or against me. Our residents are passionate about the county and so they should be. It's democracy and we're real good at that too.

reprinted courtesy of The Herald Mail