Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 4 · column 3 of 7 · from the scan, no model involved
Pro Referenda
To the editor:
In your Valentine’s Day editorial you took the Rappahannock Public Action Committee to task for sponsoring the advisory zoning referendum bill in the General Assembly through Delegate Andy Guest. For your editorial you castigated referenda in general because you said they are “a form of pure democracy.”
You accused RPAC, at least by implication, of wanting to “make a quick switch of governments,” of trying to “Put our elected officials in an awkward position,” of trying to “revoke temporarily their license to govern,” of wanting to “rule directly at our pleasure,” and of committing “A breach of trust—the breaking of a pact,” (presumably the “Pact,” in your view, between the electors and the elected is: “We vote for you to do anything you want to do and we promise to remain silent while you do it”). All of this hyperbole based on a proposal for a strictly advisory referendum on zoning!
It was in a sincere desire on Mr. Frazier’s part and mine to avoid any such implications that we asked Andy Guest specifically to submit the bill enabling Rappahannock County to have an advisory, non-binding referendum. We deliberately did not ask for a referendum to be put on the ballot by the district judge on petition of only 15 percent of the electors voting in the previous presidential election (RPAC has collected almost three times that number on petitions already).
This is the way it was done here recently in the case of the referendum on the manner of selecting School Board members, thereby short-circuiting the Supervisors on the proposed referendum completely, all in accordance with the Virginia Code. What was and is your editorial position in regard to the School Board referendum?
Was this mandatory referendum a sabotage of representative democracy with an insidious form of “pure democracy”? I challenge the editor to find in his back numbers of the Rappahannock News one single word of criticism or complaint about that referendum!
If you are opposed to input from the citizenry on controversial and divisive subjects (which I do not for one moment believe), why do you continue your “Letters to the Editor” column
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