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Page 2 · column 1 of 5 · from the scan, no model involved
WHEN the News grumbled warnings about the dangers of the regional planning commission, and even urged Rappahannock to refrain from membership, regional bureaucrats assured everyone that the peril of another layer of government was so remote that it didn’t even deserve consideration. Planning districts were to be advisory only, helping local government become even stronger—and especially helping local government get in on all those nice fat federal grants floating around. As a matter of fact, the State of Virginia decreed that unless local governments agreed to join a planning district, they couldn’t qualify for those grants. That wasn’t exactly true, as things turned out, but the argument was compelling enough for all the rural holdouts in this area to finally give in and join up.
Now the planning districts are starting to do what they said they’d never do—they’re planning to ask the General Assembly for authority to implement programs. Not just plan them, mind you; they want the power to set programs in motion, and the power to operate them, too. Things like sewer systems and welfare programs. Things that used to be subject to local, not regional, approval.
WE THINK this would be a mistake, and let us trust that the General Assembly will turn it down. At a time of rising taxes and increasing strictures on individuals and localities, the one thing we don’t need is a new regional
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