The council is currently working to craft a 5-year forecast.  In a typical year the 5-year forecast would be done by November 15th and forwarded to our friends on the School Board.  What was to be the final worksession on the 5-year forecast was held this past Wednesday (no citizens in attendance).  The Council failed to reach a consensus.  This seems to have happened for a couple of reasons:

1.  The forecast documents were not distributed in advance of the meeting.  This meant that Council members had no time to consult with one another on the different scenarios.  Put differently, there was no time for politics and politics are necessary right about now.  The proposed tax rate increase was 9 cents.  I'm surprised staff would propose such an increase.  Safe to say, that ain't happening.  Council needed time to consult to figure out what was workable.

2.  This year is a little different.  The City is planning to sell a bond next year in order to build some roads and do a couple of stormwater projects.  The 5-year forecast prepared by the staff includes a suggestion that the Council raise taxes to support that bond.  I've been on the Council for 6 years and can't remember ever voting to raise taxes to support the general fund in a meaningful way.  Neither can most of my fellow Council members.  That means that it's kinda new and needs discussion. 

Of course, the elephant in the room is the evolving CIP process and how we craft the forecast to respond to that process.  It seems clear at this point that on either the City side or the Schools side something is going to get built: we have a lot of aging infrastructure and enrollment keeps climbing.  Do we put money in the forecast to support the construction of a school in a couple of years?  Does putting the money in the forecast now "telegraph" our intent?  Should it?

For my part, I favor a straghtforward, honest process.  I do believe we need to start doing some capital projects.  That's going to take money.  I do want the Council and Manager to scour the city budget so we can keep our costs low.  I want the schools to do the same.  I want the schools to know that, while we're prepared to pay for infrastructure, they need to keep a tighter lid on costs.  I don't want to achieve any of these ends by playing games with the CIP.  Let's put the funds into the forecast and pass the guidance on to our staff and schools.  It's the only way to have a healthy, community-based debate about the whole thing.  Further delay in putting this information out there only stunts the process.  

IMPORTANT:  The next 5-year forecast meeting is Tuesday night at 5:30.  If you have interest in CIP funding for schools, etc, you should be there!

IMPORTANT 2:  Here is a link to the staff proposed 5-year forecast.

Like so many other folks my age, one of my first jobs was delivering papers.  I well remember having to insert the sale sections, fold up the papers – had to do it tightly to minimize space in your bag as well as improved aero when you threw them – and the black ink all over the bag and my pants!  I rode my bike to deliver the paper.  If it was really lousy outside I might get mom to drive the route with me but that was rare.

The sad news is all over the web today that World Media Enterprises, the holding company that bought Media General, has decided to shutter our local paper.  It appears that, for now, this is the only paper in the fold to be killed.  My thoughts go out to the employees there, it cannot have been an easy place to work the past several years.  The Facebook page was a welcome addition but the website was poorly organized and just plain hard to use.  I'm sure that all of that combined to generate some serious uncertainty the past couple of years.

I am truly sorry to see the paper go.  I remember the articles back in the day – loaded with local content and flavor.  That was a different age and papers all over are still struggling to come to grips with how best to address the new (ish) digital order that has emerged.  I agree with those that mark the decline of our local paper but I can tell you from first hand experience that people did read the thing.  We could have ten Council meetings on painting City hall green and it wouldn't generate half the feedback that a single article in the JM would provide.  I think it a poverty that we no longer have a local paper.  A really great paper can serve as the hub for a communities identity as well as provoke serious debate on the direction of a locality.  The WaPo is still around but they generally only arrive on the scene when there's blood in the water, not to cover the mundane business of government in our little city.

I've heard from many folks over the years that feel that Council members (Board of Supervisors, etc) would be glad to see local papers go – that way there wouldn't be anyone watching – but it isn't true of any elected folks I know.  Honestly, it just makes our life harder.  It puts the City in the position that we have to push that much harder to get information out there and that information will have little or no analysis done on it.  It isn't the same as reporting, it's just a data dump and that's not nearly as useful to citizens.  In fact, you could safely argue that you really don't want the city in the position of doing anything other than just making the information available.  You don't want the government in a position of having to write the "news"!

On the digital front, there is the Patch but that website appears to be receiving less attention (at least Manassas Patch) than it has in the past.  Others have pointed out that blogs can fill the void.  I think that blogs might be part of the answer but they are no substitute for actual reporting by reporters.  Blogs are not, by and large, written by reporters whose mission is to strive to produce unbiased reporting on what they see and hear.  One might argue that "real" papers and "real" reporters aren't all that good at it either (and some don't even pretend) but there is a general presumption that they try.  After all, each has an institution to preserve and advance.  With bloggers that just isn't the case.  You can sit in your underwear in your basement and crank out a blog for $0.  You don't know with any certainty who is writing them and/or who is posting on the stories.  By and large, bloggers don't attend committee meetings where the gears of government turn.  It just isn't something that the blogs will be much help with: reporting on the machinations of government pretty much demands that you have paid staff to sit in those meetings and report on it.  Indeed, this admonition extends to my humble abode here:  I have tried in the past (and will again) to provide information on the budget but you shouldn't ever take my word for what happens during that process.  I try to be honest and straight about it but I'm essentially reporting on me!  That ain't good.  I think other bloggers try, to varying degrees, to present an honest case but there isn't that presumption of independence as with an actual paper.  

I will, however, end this missive by crediting the blogs – the early leaders were too conservative and bvbl – with unearthing and distributing information about the local political scene.  I know that when I was first elected, there were no outlets except for those two and the local paper has never even pretended to cover local politics.  It is in these niche areas that blogs can fill the void but reporting on gov't, outside of niche areas, is probably to tall an ask for volunteers….RIP MJM