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By Malcolm C. MacPherson
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
For anyone who has ever groaned over the fiscal profligacy of federal and state politicians of every stripe, running up budget deficits with nearly as many zeros as words in this paragraph, the responsibility—indeed, the parsimony—of the Rappahannock County’s Board of Supervisors seems downright old-fashioned by comparison, and true.
In a recent meeting of the board, Supervisor Ron Frazier (Jackson District) questioned, with the county’s purchase of a new Ford 150 truck to be used by Animal Control, what was going to happen to the old truck. County Administrator John McCarthy readily provided the answer: It would be used by part-time control officer Jack Sharp until it was run into the ground.
Nothing would be wasted.
At another point in the same meeting on the budget, Supervisor Robert P. “Bob” Anderson (StonewallHawthorne District) said with the weariness of a widow facing foreclosure, “Well, we gotta pay bills.”
Time after time in their spending deliberations, the supervisors give an observer the impression that they are not spending someone else’s money or that the county’s pockets are bottomless, but that they are actually taking funds, in their minds, from their own personal bank accounts.
As they deliberate, the supervisors, who sit around a long rectangular table in the second floor of the county courthouse, rub their chins while leaning into papers filled with figures to determine what is justified and what can be taken out. They are not tightwads, but they want justifications. Their questions seem to nitpick, but are always informed and considered. Nothing is bought on impulse, nothing isn’t for the general well-being, and special interest groups,, while they exist in the county, do not get preferential treatment.
What is going on here?
County Administrator John McCarthy thinks he might know the answer.
“We are a small county, and the average person here can read our budget and grasp it,” he said. “It is not opaque, like in Culpeper and other big counties. This is fairly unusual.”
The supervisors are as close to their constituents as a phone call or an unannounced visit to complain and to discuss and to praise. They are visible and answerable unlike political representatives in few other places. In Rappahannock, there is nowhere to hide, even if they wanted to.
“The board is in close contact with the electorate here,” said Chairman Charles “Pete” Estes (Piedmont District). “Whereas when do you ever 1 ft
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