Editorial
During Monday’s meeting of the Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors, a motion to move forward with taking part in the Virginia Public School Authority’s upcoming spring bond sale to finance the planned community recreation center failed on a 2-2 vote. Supervisors Chair David McDaniel characterized this nonaction, due to the negative votes by two of his colleagues on the Board, as “fiscally irresponsible.”
We concur with this view. As McDaniel pointed out, the supervisors voted 4-1, back in November, to direct staff to move forward with finding the best financing option for funding construction of the recreation center and to continue with having the project designed. This staff did. Costs to date have come to approximately $229,000 – $105,000 for financing expenditures and $124,000 for design work.
The previous Monday, March 23, the Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to proceed with participating in the VPSA spring bond sale. This vote followed an outpouring of support for the recreation center from most of the 30 speakers who addressed the Board during a public hearing. McDaniel, Leslie Ayers and Jay Lewis voted in favor of the financing while Steve Hart and Bob Day voted against it.
A very big wrinkle presented itself a couple of days later. Bond counsel, in conducting due diligence in preparation for the bond sale, discovered that Lewis, the Walkers Creek supervisor who made the motion on the bond sale, had neglected to take his oath of office prior to beginning his latest term on the board. He was elected in November to what was to be his third four-year term that was to begin in January.
County Attorney John Dreyden, in consultation with a couple of outside attorneys, found that Lewis had not been legally serving on the Board since Jan. 12, when the Board’s first meeting of the year was held. Therefore, the vote that was taken on the bond sale last Monday, March 23, was invalid. A new vote would have to be taken during the special meeting on Monday, March 30, in order for the county to participate in the upcoming spring bond sale. The deadline to take this action was March 30.
McDaniel and Ayers pleaded with Day and Hart on Monday to support a new motion to approve participation in the spring bond sale, but to no avail. Staff is nevertheless proceeding with pursuing financing for construction of the recreation center. This won’t change, unless the person who is appointed to be the interim Walkers Creek supervisor casts a vote to halt the process. If that happens, the money expended thus far on planning for the recreation center will have been wasted.
Authority for making the interim appointment rests with the circuit court. It is our hope that the person who is appointed to fill this vacancy will support moving forward with financing construction of the recreation center. This is a facility that has long been needed and appears to have the support of most citizens, judging from the large number who expressed these sentiments last week.
Even if the project moves forward, and the county does take part in the fall VPSA bond sale, costs are likely to be higher than they would have been if the supervisors had approved participation in the spring bond sale. Interest rates are probably going to be higher. Some fees have been expended that won’t be recouped.
The decision Monday to not move forward with the spring bond sale was indeed fiscally irresponsible.
