by: William Hay
It has come to my attention that a peculiar, or should I say a not so peculiar transaction is about to take place in my home county of Greene in the state of Virginia. Something that you would expect from federal agencies and not at the local level. Although I guess I am kind of naive and expect our local politicians who happen to be our friends and neighbors to behave honorably. This is not the case however when it comes to some individuals in our Economic Development Agency, the Board of Tourism and our Board of Supervisors.
It seems that there is a valuable piece of property on the Rt. 29 corridor in Ruckersville. This property which has road frontage on a highway that has upwards of 50,000 vehicles passing it daily is in the process of being purchased for use by the Economic Development Agency. The projected purchase price for this prime real-estate is $800,000 for land and a dilapidated building which by the looks of it should be bulldozed. However, the plan is to renovate the building using a budgeted $100,000. The proposed uses for this building are an office for the director Alan Yost, rental of a portion to the Chamber of Commerce and use any leftover space for temporary offices that start up businesses would have access to.
Let’s ignore the fact that there is no way this building can be renovated for the budgeted amount and look at how they plan on paying off a $900,000 loan. Rumor has it that they expect the Chamber to pay $1,200 a month in rent which they have not agreed to, and the rest of the money would come from short term rental of office space for businesses locating to Greene County. Last I heard there are not a lot of businesses knocking on the EDA’s door. Why should they expect that to change? What is going to happen is that Mr. Yost will get himself a nice office and the EDA will be struggling to pay off this loan.
As I mentioned above there were three agencies that had a hand in these shenanigans the other two are the Board of Tourism that happens to have a board member who owns this piece of property that has been empty for quite a while. Then there is the Board of Supervisors who seem to be turning a blind eye to this looming disaster. Of course, most of this is being done behind closed doors and as a result the county is going to end up being stuck with a million-dollar white elephant that the citizens of Greene County will end up footing the bill for.
The Democrats have this collusion conspiracy about the President; meanwhile, a faction of the GOP in Greene sees conspiracy behind every decision by Greene’s elected leaders — except for the one who’s actually on trial for felony charges.
Juan, do you factually know the guest is GOP or could he/she simply be a wise individual that has observed one corrupt government after another pull such stunts with taxpayer monies. It matters not whether those officials are GOP DNC, financial quid pro quo by government officials is corruption. If you think this is isolated to little old Greene County, you could also research the history of the Biscuit Run project. In closing one could believe that you acquired your posting methods from Ken. No matter the subject you two manage to invoke Trump in support of whatever spin you are selling.
Since we have elevated this to the top, Comey just pinned an oped in the NYT. He stated the “Trump sucked the soul out of people a little at a time. That of course is classic Comey. The real”sucker” however is the state of politics in this country displayed in every level of Federal government. It sucking the soul out of our country.
Who’s this Trump guy, Al, and is it possible he’s the most corrupt politician in the country? I could say that almost every time Democrats bring up Trump’s corrupt behavior you guys pivot to Hillary Clinton, whose behavior is not nearly as important because she is not the sitting president of the United States, by the way, although she would have been if Obama had figured out a way to prevent Russian influence instead of looking the other way because he thought their influence wouldn’t change the results, so you ought to be thanking him, LOL, run-on sentence, you’re welcome.
Anyhow, you guys are absolutely right to be mad as hell at corrupt Democrats, and have every right to complain that, as you see it, the federal government exercises way too much power. I might even agree with you that the regulatory state is too large. I even agree that progressives are way too lax and unrealistic and even hypocritical sometimes about immigration (although that hardly excuses Trump’s callous policies, borne out of obvious hostility – racism, in other words – to them as people). But what’s sad is that you look the other way at Republican malfeasance.
What’s also sad is that you refuse to distinguish political philosophy from character and motive, referring, for example, to people who vote for (and in many cases pay) high taxes because they think, rightly or wrongly, that they’re a tool for economic justice, as thieves. Of course most of your opponents operate on the same level, but when they go low, you go . . . ?
I could write a book, Al, but since I’m not one of the lazy Democrats of your dreams, I think I’ll go back to work. But it’s always nice being insulted by you!