Unless she likes him in which case she’ll incorporate him into her own corrupt world and protect him from legitimate investigative inquiries. Then he can pressure police departments to fire officers he doesn’t like, seek to have librarians fired if he doesn’t agree with their book choices, etc. etc.

I like her but she does take that same lazy approach towards government as George W does … “I’m good, you’re bad, what are checks and balances anyway, who needs that”.

The BOCS has zero visibility into the padding within each version of the budget. It’s a “trust me, BOCS, just trust me and go ahead, pick which version you think the county can afford…they’re all wonderful…trust me.”

The whole budget process is stacked in favor of the empire-building senior bureaucrats and against the BOCS and citizens.

Going back to my comment in the previous post, Gerhart, Peacor and Martino managed the budget over the past few years building in permanent spending levels on the assumption that the revenue windfalls from the housing bubble would be permanent. They told the BOCS that the Fiscal Plans they were proposing were sustainable. They were not.

It is so good to the ” Facts” admit that the BOCS led by Stewart has no idea of what goes on Fiscaly in PWC. Now the excuse is they are part time and must not be able to think. If they spent less time on their pet projects and more on the Fiscal problmes of the county they could do something. When they run for office they are going to do everything but once in office they do nothing but take care of thier personal desires. Gerhart has warned Stewart and the BOCS for the past couple of years about future problems but they did not want to hear it and turned a blind eye. Of course they NEVER CUT THEIR FUNDS do they. Did they run thinking they would be full time? PWC has gone way ahead of all the members of the BOCS ability to run or have the fiscal ability to understand what they are told. They should remeber if they put their head in the sand your brains might get sun burned :)))))

No problem for they will all get reelected if they run next time around. Just a measure of how much the citizens of PWC want to be told what they want to hear…

The PWC county government has been lead for years by an elitist group of liberal Democrats that collect generous salaries paid by us, the tax payers.

Mr. Briley ($285k in annual salary) and Mr. Friedman, confidants of Mr. Gerhart, use their roles in Economic Development to be first in line to cherry pick financial opportunities laid in their laps by developers, land owners, land use advocates, investors and bankers. This county gives new meaning to public-private partnerships.

Greg has exposed just the tip of the iceburg of corruption that looms in our local government.

Bring Sarah Palin to town! She’ll give Gerhart and friends a swift kick…right out the door! Shrink government COREY and give the power and money back to the people and we promise to make you Governor of VA!

“Just the Facts doesn’t seem to have a very good grasp on how the county budget process works. Our county executive has to work with what he is given by the BOARD.”

Furgs56 has it backwards. The Board has to work with what it is given from Gerhart and Peacor. Look at the budget schedule from last year:

March 1st – 9:00am Budget/Community Meeting
March 6th to 18th – Budget Work sessions – BOCS Chambers with County Agencies
April 7th – 7:30am Public Hearing – BOCS Chambers
April 15th – 6:00pm – CXO Recap
April 22nd – 5:30pm – Budget Markup
April 29th – 2:00pm - BOCS Adopts FY 09 Budget

The BOCS does not see the proposed Fiscal Plan until March at the earliest and must vote on the budget at the end of April – less than two months for the Supervisors and their budget committees to study and review the material Gerhart and Peacor give them, and then vote on the single most important thing they do every year. Moreover, the Fiscal Plan the BOCS receives is nothing but a summary document of what’s buried in the base budget with no details, and padded with nonsense about mission statements and performance measures (that Peacor concocted and are largely irrelevant). Remember also that the Supervisors are part-time people with other, full-time jobs. The same is true of the volunteers on the Supervisors’ budget committees.

On the County side, the budget process begins in the fall, essentially now. Gerhart, Peacor and Martino, and their legions of full-time staffers, along with the departments working on their budget requests, mobilize to structure the budget as they want it.

Once the budget goes to the BOCS, Gerhart structures the choices according to his priorities. Do you remember the pyramid thing he put on a PowerPoint slide this year? He defined the choices the BOCS had in terms of his priorities. The BOCS, in a perfect world, would have dug into the base budget to find cuts but given the extremely limited amount of time and resources they have, such a project is not feasible.

The whole budget process is stacked in favor of the empire-building senior bureaucrats and against the BOCS and citizens.

Going back to my comment in the previous post, Gerhart, Peacor and Martino managed the budget over the past few years building in permanent spending levels on the assumption that the revenue windfalls from the housing bubble would be permanent. They told the BOCS that the Fiscal Plans they were proposing were sustainable. They were not.

As many financial institutions are failing now because of incompetent bets made on the housing bubble, and the management of those firms is receiving pink slips, why should Gerhart, Peacor and Martino be exempt? They managed the PWC Government no more astutely than did the CEOs of Lehman Brothers, AIG, Merrill Lynch, etc. their organizations. Why are our incompetent managers not facing pink slips?

Oh yeah they are! Their lips are flappin’ - their evil is oozing - their heads are spinning…………and their words are empty.

Second, how about making sure our County grows “in proper ways?” Under Mr. Gerhart’s “leadership” the percent of commercial property in our real estate tax base fell from 21.6% in 2001 (around when Mr. Gerhart became County Executive) to 12.8% in 2006 (latest data point in this year’s revenue projection book). A strong commercial real estate tax base is crucial for economic development and to provide tax revenues that keep residential taxes in check. The proportion of our commercial tax base was lower in 2006 than all of the other surrounding jurisdictions and under Mr. Gerhart has deteriorated substantially from that low level.

Per Just the Facts above comments he puts all the blame on Gerhart and nothing on the BOCS.

The question could then be asked is Stewart who leads the BOCS and the rest of the members so incompetent that they no nothing of what goes on in the county?

A few months ago it was the illegal immigrants who caused the fall in the residential market now it is Gerhart. who will it be next month? Might the problem with is all over the US be the greed of lenders and borrowers who knew they could not make the payments and were betting on that lottery ticket to show up when they went to sell their home for double the money in a year?

Why would commercial want to come to PWC. Mrs Caddigan got her BIG BOX zoning change so that any store over 80,000 feet has to have parking all around it evenly. Well lets be honest that only applys to Walmart and Lowes, Best Buy, Home Depot and the like. Wagmans does not have to adhear to the laws of others. It took 9 months to get approval for West Gate shopping Center to hang banners on the light poles for Holiday Decorations. Per the Zoning Office if they change the design on the banners they will have to go thru the process again. It seems that everyone I have talked to who is trying to open a business in PWC complains about one thing and that is weeks and months it takes to get thru all the red tape of the zoning and building permit section of the county. what is supposed to take a week took 9 weeks instead.

why does this happen it is because the BOCS who hear these problems do nothing to change the laws or the way the county is operated. They want control of everthing and want the way things are and the real world says we do not need PWC and go else where.

Stewart just after he took over as chairman said about the Real Estate Market with out realizing his mike was on. “Why didn’t someone tell me this was going to happen” refering to the down turn in values. He and this board make the 4 Horse Men look intelegent and that takes a lot to accomplish.

Thank you for letting me send this very important email to you. I know you all are Virginians but I thought you just might know of a way to get this out more. I’m not from Az. either but I feel it is important none the less. We are all in this together. What affects one state affects us all. Thanks

Good day to you.

The connection to Obama is bogus, so I would think we will have a better case to make with the 60% of America that hasn’t trained themselves pathologically to foam at the mouth when anyone says “Obama” if you stop pretending that Byler is some type of player in Obama’s campaign.

C’mon…say it ain’t so!