I was sorry to find that our Chief of Police, Chief Skinner, is going to retire.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for the Chief.  He mostly took it easy on me when I was new to the Council, patiently explaining the ins and outs of the policeing business.  He reserved his pointed comments for when I deserved it…:)  To me, the two things that show just how professional he is are these:

1.  As a business man and manager, I admire the quality of his staff.  One of the often missed marks (imho) of a good manager is his dedication to making himself dispensible.  That takes a confident and capable person and any organization is always better for it.

2.  As a Council member, I appreciated that I never had to worry too much about crazy things coming my way from the Police department.  Sure, there were problems from time to time but that’s the nature of the police biz in modern America. 

I hope the Chief enjoys his retirement.  Between his service in the Secret Service, Fairfax and Manassas, he’s earned it.

God bless.

There’s some inside baseball here but bear with me:  Before he left office, Kaine proposed freezing what is called the “local composite index”.  This is the formula that is used to determine how state aid is distributed for education.  It is adjusted once every 3 years (pretty sure it’s 3) to reflect changing demographics, etc.  Of course, our demo’s have gone down significantly since the last adjustment and we were due to get about $3 million more.  The incoming administration has elected to affirm this freeze.  We’re getting hosed here!  When we finally stood to benefit, they change the rules.  It ain’t fair and it is really hurting the schools.  With our change in demographics, we need that help.  Instead, those in Richmond are taking a decsion based on politics and keeping that money in ROVA…. leaving us to twist….again.  Wonder if they will give us any leeway on our mandates?

Funding for schools delivered by a long-established formula shouldn’t be a political football.  Here’s a good article about it that Randolph sent me.