A Final Webinar Round-Up in Albemarle
Albemarle’s third and final budget webinar attracted three people to their phones and computers last night. I was one. I was told the other two were not County employees. I asked. This attendance question was the only question I submitted during the 33-minute webinar delivered by Albemarle Budget Director Lori Allshouse and Communication Specialist Jody Lewis.
The Albemarle County FY17 Budget Discussion, the webinar’s official title, used the same 15 or 16 slides that County staff has used every time they’ve performed the Board of Supervisors’ (BOS’s) financial show. It was another professionally-presented Power Point performance.
However, to repeat my critique from five previous TAX INCREA$E Town Halls I’ve sat in on or listened to online, there were still no slides showing:
• Albemarle 3% tax rate increase from 81.9¢ to potentially 84.4¢;
• Albemarle’s legally advertised 4.07% effective tax rate increase;
• a list of and source for “community aspirations” that require funds;
• current median residential property values (Although, good news, I did not see that unhelpful slide about 2007 “average” home prices.).
The webinar’s two other community participants and I did get to hear Lori say that Albemarle County (I assume meaning staff and the six Democrat BOS members.) are “holding the line” on existing expenditures because “we’re being very thoughtful about the future.” What a wonderful debate topic between now — and for a long time to come!
The After-Dinner Webinar, the event’s official publicity moniker, did generate three comments and one other question other than mine during the Q&A session. The question was about how an individual resident benefits from each tax dollar spent in the budget. Lori and Jody’s answer focused on police protection and parks and recreation services and a suggestion to check out the dollar bill graphic at the following page on the County website: http://www.albemarle.org/upload/images/Forms_Center/Departments/County_Executive/Forms/Misc/Annual_Report_Final_for-web.pdf.
Meanwhile, the three comments texted-in by the public sounded, in my opinion, like attempts to steer Lori and Jody into some kind of political statement — something both women avoided adroitly and appropriately. The comments seemed to allege an over-funded Community Development Department, Obamacare being responsible for employee health insurance price hikes, and an Albemarle Land Use Plan disproportionately supporting the wealthy. I’m not judging these views on their level of accuracy nor anyone’s right to hold these views and ask about them. I’m just saying that Lori and Jody were professionally smart enough to leave these editorials alone and stick to their facts and figures.
On a separate topic, I do have a quick note to end with here, a mea culpa actually, about a previous blog post from Monday night’s TAX INCREA$E Town Hall at Jack Jouett Middle School. I should have checked the spelling of Economic Development Director Faith McClintic’s name. I now have it correct. I apologize, Faith, for branding you a McClintock. Neither she nor anyone else said anything to me about my error; I just discovered it by coincidence while out on some other round-up.
Q: “Wasn’t there a John Wayne movie about a McClintock?”
A: “Sure was, pardner — 1963 — when you were just a pimpled high school freshman spilling buttered popcorn on yourself instead of checking your homework.”