My Side of the Fence

The danger isn't going too far. It's that we don't go far enough.

Category: City Stuff (page 9 of 49)

Two Things

1.  Osbourn lost last night.  I watched the game with my family and I’ve rarely been more proud of a team than I was last night.  Our fellas had only a couple of days to practice and we were very competitve early on but Hylton was just too much.  I don’t know who that kid was but he’s fast as lightning.  Congratulations OHS, it was a great effort.

2.  I’m recently reminded of one of my two favorite quotes of all time:  George Burns once said: “It’s too bad that all of the people who know how to run the country are busy cutting hair and driving cabs”.  That quote says quite a lot all at once and is more relevant than you might imagine.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Highlights and Open Thread

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.

Older posts Newer posts