Buckingham County Board Meeting Disappoints

Last night’s Buckingham County Board of Supervisors meeting was a masterclass in bureaucratic paralysis—disappointing doesn’t even begin to cover it. Mercifully, we still have one actual adult in the room: Mr. Carter Allen from District 7, who played the role of lone hero and actually urged the Board to, you know, do something. He submitted a motion to drag the County Administrator and County Attorney into the fray, task them with monitoring this mess, hunting for legal, procedural, and strategic options, and—gasp—present an actual recommendation so the Board could finally “take action.” The motion passed unanimously, because even the do-nothings couldn’t find a polite way to vote against basic competence. Allen further declared, “This is the most important thing happening in this county in my lifetime.” Bold words for a room full of people treating it like a scheduling conflict for the annual chili cook-off.

Meanwhile, half the county sat there wondering why the hell no concrete resolution or actual steps materialized. This Valley Link Transmission steamroller kicked off its nine-county barn fire exactly six weeks ago today—dropping 120,000 terror letters on families like it was Black Friday at the eminent-domain store. Yet Buckingham is still shuffling its feet like it just woke up from a nap. The county attorney should have been neck-deep in this six weeks ago. What’s the hold-up, folks—waiting for the bulldozers to warm up?

And then there’s the email that really has the peasants clutching their pitchforks. Paul Garrett (District 4) responded to a concerned citizen’s note about the Board’s glacial pace with this pearl of wisdom:

“We are making sure that the resolution we make is not going to take away any of the bargaining with the entities. As my understanding of the Louisa resolution, the Valley Link has told them that if the State Corporation Commission approves the project, then Louisa will have no say in the particulars. We don’t want to come off too quickly, and lose any leverage we may have. In other words if we take a stand against the project and SCC approves it, once they start planning their route, we would have no influence on trying to help keep it off waterways or other important areas. If that is what the citizens want, then we can stand firm now and have no power to persuade them to work with us later.”

Oh, bless his heart. Translation, for those of us who didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night: elected officials apparently can’t pass a resolution opposing a for-profit LLC’s land-grab spree without magically forfeiting their God-given right to take legal action about the route details later. Because nothing says “strong negotiating position” like waiting until the private bulldozers are already on your lawn. Here’s a thought, Paul: maybe the county attorney should have been all over this legal nuance five weeks ago instead of letting Valley Link spoon-feed board members their own talking points. Or is it possible—just possible—that the company is straight-up sowing disinformation to keep the serfs nice and compliant? Either way, six weeks of dithering while families get terrorized is a hell of a strategy.

Buckingham citizens, contact your supervisors and light a fire under them, politely of course.

Here is a link with all of their phone numbers and email addresses for your convenience: https://www.buckinghamcountyva.org/administration/boards___commissions/board_of_supervisors/index.php

#BlockValleyLink