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.
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Public Forums
In spite of snow flurries and a meeting in the far reaches of the county several people showed up at Chester Gap last Wednesday for a forum sponsored by the Planning Commission to discuss natural resources and community facilities. ; It was not a large gathering, but it was apparently the right size for an exchange of ideas. The format allowed people to think big, and some did. They asked the planners for a senior center that could also serve youth, more recreation areas for youth, and decentralized dumpster sites that could also handle recycling and an exchange of usable goods.
If the planners add that wish list to the Comprehensive Plan, they run the risk of alienating the overwhelming majority of voters who were not present and whose primary goal for county government is to keep their taxes down.
Over and over county citizens bump into the reality that, with no large source of revenue other than real estate taxes, Rappahannock’s government is not likely to embark on significant expansion of available public facilities. Those who want these things need to explore ways to accomplish them that do not require government funds.
The county has a model day care center and a new public library building. They were built with no significant expenditure of public funds. Those who want a senior citizens’ center or a youth center, need to organize a private effort to bring these things to pass.
They also need to lobby the state government to allow the county to expand its taxing authority to tap into other sources of revenue.
Government Shutdown
The budget impasse between Congress and President Clinton is not without some benefits. The Commerce Department informed the Rappahannock News by fax that due to the government shutdown the Census Bureau would no longer be providing fax services. Since that service has several times meant that a dozen or more pages of the newspaper’s fax paper have been taken over by the Census Bureau printing pages of statistics and information that never found their way into the newspaper, that was good news.
95.6%