Had 4 people come to coffee on Friday. We’ll do it again in 2 weeks. Education Forward is moving along and we’ll see what the Superintendent brings back to the Committee. I hope she lights it up.
Had a meeting last night (on Halloween damnit!) with our search consultant on the City Manager replacement process. Our guy is doing a great job at helping the Council through the process. I’ve done my share of interviewing, hiring and firing but hiring a City Manager is a bit of a unique proposition. Looks like the schedule for this is going to be tight but we’ll probably get it done right about on schedule.
Election day is fast approaching! Don’t forget to vote. I went by the registrar’s office yesterday to do an absentee ballot and she indicated that she had already had several inquiries about next years Mayoral & Council elections. Don’t know whether those folks are I or D but there’s folks out there looking at running. If someone outside the Republicans runs a candidate it’ll be the first contested election since my first election. The last time I ran was uncontested and, after working my tail off the first time, it seemed kinda weird to not do much.
I heard an interesting, if random, fact at the VML meeting: 90% of the elected leadership in the US is volunteer (guessing that means not full-time). Put in stark terms it means that amatuers (of which I’m one) make most of the policy decisions that have a huge impact on you and yours. Even in a Dillon-rule state like Virginia where the state government doesn’t trust localities to make our own decisions, the state government is still run by volunteers/amatuers. That’s an interesting fact.
ALSO NOTE: next Ed Fwd. meeting is the 12th of November.
November 1, 2011 at 11:53 am
The City is hosting its the 5th Annual Neighborhood Conference on Sat., Nov. 19 from 10 am to 2 pm at the Manassas Boys & Girls Club, 9501 Dean Park Lane. Register for morning and afternoon workshops (code enforcement is one). Housing counselors will be available (pre-register). Register youth, ages 5 to 18, for Youth Café choices that include:
• “Youth Community Game Show” (Ages 5-17)
• “Club Tech” (Ages 5-17)
• “Fit U Sports Skills Challenge” (Ages 5-17)
• “SMART Leaders Social Hour” (Ages 10-17)
• “Career Launch” (Ages 12 & up)
• “Mobilizing Youth – Healthy Thinking, Emotions & Changes (Ages 12-18)
Applications for sponsors and exhibitors are still being taken for the exhibit hall, but space is limited. Admission is free, but donations of supplies are being collected for City Animal Shelter: paper towels, disinfectant wipes, dog/cat food, kitty litter or large trash bags. Register by calling Christen Zenich at 703-257-8315 or register online at http://www.manassascity.org/neighconf.
November 1, 2011 at 12:21 pm
I saw that there is a Special School Board meeting tonight posted. It isn’t marked CLOSED but decided to double check with MCPS. I was told that it is a CLOSED session and that I could find that it was closed in the agenda link. That would be great if the link would open and not error out.
Anyhow, are they allowed to have CLOSED school boad meetings?
November 1, 2011 at 12:34 pm
4kids: I got the link to work and it looks like it’s an explusion hearing.
About the closed meeting: I’m not an expert on FOIA law and how it applies to the school board but if it’s anything like the Council there are specific conditions under the law that allow public bodies to conduct closed meetings. Typically it’s personnel or legal.
November 1, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Thanks for the info.. If it is an expulsion hearing it makes sense for the meeting to be closed.
November 1, 2011 at 2:55 pm
I think it has gotten to the point where citizens are beyond feeling ignored. We always here that more Parental involvement/citizen input is needed but we are constantly left out of the loop. Members of committees are often hand-picked and end up being the same individuals over and over.
Andy: The November 12 meeting is at 8 AM?
November 1, 2011 at 3:10 pm
yep. pretty sure it’s 2nd floor conference room.
The good Dr. is going to present some solutions for the committee to consider. Sort of policy guidlines I’m thinking. We’ll see what she has to say.
Also, in that vein, a word of warning here (not singling anyone out): this ain’t going to be an I hate Dr. Pope thread. You want to say something bad about someone, say it about me.
November 1, 2011 at 5:12 pm
School Board & FOIA: Yes, it applies on all points of the Virginia Code (and would not matter if they are elected or appointed – they are a Board/Commission/Committee within a government structure).
Going into Closed Meetings to discuss personnel matters (employee or student) is one of the allowed purposes under the FOIA. If you would like to see material on the FOIA presented in an “almost” easier reading format, the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council has some great material from their 2011 FOIA Workshops.
In City Hall, our resident expert is our fantastic City Clerk Andrea Madden. As for me, I am not a lawyer, just a former Federal FOIA Officer and also the resident expert for the Prince William Commission on Aging.
November 1, 2011 at 10:10 pm
The idea that vast amounts of public-sector data should be publicly available at the click of a mouse is firmly ingrained in the minds of many citizens. And that demand has become even more pronounced as public officials make ever-tougher fiscal decisions spurred by the poor economy. At the same time, dwindling revenue makes it tough to fund new transparency websites and similar efforts. This struggle is particularly apparent at the state and local levels, where just more than half of the states and even fewer localities operate full-fledged transparency sites, according to federal government data.
November 1, 2011 at 10:12 pm
whoops, forgot link to the story at my posting of 10:10p.m. above:
http://www.govtech.com/e-government/Transparency-Demands-Cost-Governments-Money.html
Of course, what is not mentioned, is FOIA.
November 2, 2011 at 10:08 am
Tenacity has a point about citizens no longer being ignored, left out of the loop, and (at least in my reading and by my habit) wanting information about what is going on. This view ties in with my posting above about “Open Government”.
When you go to the City website to look things up on the various meetings, you can find under the Clerk’s Office all the Council Agendas and then the Minutes are posted after approved. An added bonus now is the Media Center where you can view Council televised sessions at anytime in replay – kudos to the City for creating that!
For Econ & Community Development, you can find the ARB, Planning Commission and Council’s LUC, plus all the Staff Reports. Fire & Rescue you can find all their stuff. Most departments at a minimum post their annual reports. But for Finance and Education Forward (the two most referenced in this blog from time to time) you have to dig through Archives.
Suggestions: either fix it so the link to the documents are off the calendar when you view the meeting announcement OR set the standard across the City Departments to align with the examples given above. We have no SOP for this, and it is a simple solution at this moment to “Open Government”. Cheapest is train the various persons who post to the Calendar how to set the hyperlink….and then work toward where on the website the various Committees aligned under their sponsor (i.e. Education Forward could be on the Clerk’s Page) have a rightfull home.
November 4, 2011 at 8:54 am
Devolution means the state would give up maintenance of secondary
roads , turning upkeep over to local jurisdictions.
“Devolution is just another word word for tax increase. This will force
every locality to increase property taxes “(Corey) Stewart asserted.
“Any member of our delegation … who votes for this is betraying the
interests of their residents and voters. That needs to be made clear.
Anyone who votes for this is a tax increaser.”
Manassas Observer (10-4-2011)
– The City of Manassas maintains its own roads but obtains funds from
Richmond based on our “lane miles” to help support that work.
We have neen informed by the City Manager that much of that is
also on the GA chopping block.
November 4, 2011 at 9:13 am
The council has been worried for several years that Richmond
would claim local cell phone tax revenue, especially after they recently
opted to collect it for local jurisdictions . Well,
apparently an even larger shark showed up and plans to snatch it
for themselves. Congress now is claiming the tax for themselves.
This, of course, will leave another big hole in our budget.
November 4, 2011 at 6:40 pm
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/mobile-technology/hang-up-on-new-cellphone-taxes-votes-us-congress/article2222294/?service=mobile
I don’t see anything about congress taking the cell phone taxes. The bill just doesn’t allow the state or local governments to increase them for five years.
November 5, 2011 at 4:09 pm
BPOL and M&T Taxes: Virginia Association of Counties (VaCO) as part of their legislative committee work, created a nice little spreadsheet for the Cities, Counties and Towns on the two taxes, and replacing it with a 1% Local Sales & Use Tax. For our fair City, if both were eliminated and replaced with the S&UT, we would still be short $175,973 which means it would either be a higher percentage than 1, or find the money elsewhere.
If interested, you can find the spreadsheet at VaCO Link below. Scroll down the page to August 12th, and the spreadsheet is the last of the four presentations.
November 5, 2011 at 8:23 pm
whoops…forgot the link earlier: http://www.vaco.org/LegNews.html
November 7, 2011 at 6:04 pm
Voting Robocalls: Got one today and at first, seeing it was out of Houston TX, thought “client” – nope. I like Senator Colgan as a fellow Veteran and his long time Statesmanship, but really? A voicemail from the Senator using a telemarketing firm in Texas??? Could have at least found a Virginia firm to do it.
November 11, 2011 at 7:13 am
I understand your point, but I think you misunderstood the statistic. The government is not run by “amatures.” It is run by citizens who are experts in their local communities, as it should be.