OPINION
A new party has begun in Russell County Virginia. The party is set to bring candidates to go against both Republican and Democrat party candidates. The new party plans to follow the Constitution of the United States of America, with a firm belief in running candidates that if they win will put the citizens over government. This is a new grassroot movement to put real accountability back in the hands of the people.
The new party will go by the name WE THE PEOPLE.
Jeff Hicks has started this party, and he plans to start meetings monthly. Jeff has started a Facebook group, and you can access that group by this link here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1604195214295629
The reasons for starting this party are many and Jeff plans and will work to get a candidate on the ballot for all county elections.
The reason he is starting this party is because of a long list of failures that have come to light in the last few years since the last election.
The failures are many but one of the failures that stands out is promises made, promises not kept.
Some board members pledged that they would reduce the board to five members instead of seven, which would save the county loads of money.
Some of the supervisors take health insurance costs more and more every year for all members that take the insurance. The price of health insurance continues to rise so the amount of expense for the supervisors continues to grow. Cutting two members out would likely be a big savings. Included in the savings by reducing two members would be the expenses for association dues and that intern reduces the hotel and meals expenses that the supervisors cost the county.
The taxpayer trusted the Republicans on the budget and taxes and what did they get for their trust: One of the highest tax increases in SWVA.
We have an administrator that is not transparent to the public and not even transparent to certain board of supervisor’s members. And with that not one motion to remove the county administrator.
Then they allowed the closing of the Dante Fire Department for what appears to be someone in the county government wanted to put a Dollar General in Dante. Why to this day no vote has ever been taken to close the Dante Fire Department. How much power are you giving the county administrator?
We had a debacle over the landfill issue. The public is still not sure about the transparency on that issue.
We have a mess at the PSA, and it appears there may be money missing from that department. Also, it appears they were collecting money from businesses when no service was being provided.
The entire board of supervisors is silent about what is going on. Their transparency is as weak as the county administrator.
Jeff mentions that we need a whole new board. Completely remove all current board members.
Can we get some board members that really want to be public servants? Right now, it appears we have board members that only want to get re-elected. They are playing let’s be quiet game and we will get re-elected. Instead of answering the tough questions that go along with the job. Back in the day supervisors served for no compensation and certainly no health insurance. There were no expenses for association dues.
There was no taxpayer expense for hotels or lavish meals. Can we get back to just being public servants and standing up for the people.
On a state level the Republican Party failed the citizens of the state with the questionable candidate lineup in the last election. This new party wants people that are led by God and make decisions based on Godly principles.
We encourage every citizen to investigate this new party dedicated to the United States Constitution and working for the people instead of self interest and county government.
