Supervisors Share Split Opinions on Stormwater Vote at Last Minute

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

James City County supervisors, who unanimously agreed earlier in the year to put a $30 million dollar stormwater vote on Tuesday’s ballot, have come out in the last days before Election Day as divided on their support for it.

The referendum would allow the county to borrow up to $30 million to pay for needed stormwater projects. At their May 5 work session, supervisors unanimously supported putting the idea to a vote. Chairman Jim Kennedy contends that there was a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ among supervisors not to share their opinions on the referendum with the public, but the two Democratic supervisors encouraged voters to support the measure over the weekend. Since that time, two of the three Republicans have come out against it, and the two opposing political committees in town have scrambled to disseminate their own opinions.

Thursday morning, Democratic Supervisors Jim Icenhour and John McGlennon sent an opinion piece to the Virginia Gazette in which they said that the recently proposed mandates by the Environmental Protection Agency would not necessarily lead to unbearable costs to the county as has been recently reported. They also pointed out a citizen committee had helped craft the list of important stormwater projects and they encouraged residents to support the referendum.

Icenhour told fellow supervisors about the upcoming editorial Friday afternoon, too late for Republicans to share their thoughts in the same manner.

Kennedy said he was angry and appalled that Icenhour and McGlennon hadn’t talked to the other supervisors to get their thoughts beforehand, and that they had broken the gentlemen’s agreement not to share their opinions that he and other Republicans had honored.

Icenhour says there was an agreement, but it was “not as expansive as Kennedy says. Any time you have an issue on the ballot, it’s a political issue. We just didn’t want it to be a partisan one.” He says supervisors aren’t prohibited (like staff) from expressing their opinions.

He and McGlennon shared their thoughts because “in the last few weeks, there was a sudden proliferation of letters against the referendum by people who are members of the Republican committee.”

These other letters connected the EPA and state struggles over the cost of the new Chesapeake Bay pollution restrictions to the upcoming county referendum. “It was grabbed up on as a method of discrediting what we’re doing at a local level," Icenhour said.

Some of the stormwater projects are based on federal and state mandates, according to what county staff has laid out in their discussion of the referendum, but others are to repair aging infrastructure and mitigate flooding problems.

“We didn’t attack fellow board members or those opposed to the referendum,” Icenhour says. “I just expressed an opinion to the public… there’s no requirement that we give them editorial input, or give them time to respond.”

McGlennon says, “I thought we all supported [the referendum]… I was baffled as to why we would put it out there if we didn’t support it. How is that good public policy?”

He says county staff can’t advocate for it, so that’s the job of supervisors. “We shouldn’t have put it up if we didn’t all approve of it. We didn’t know they didn’t support it.” The county has spent a lot of time and resources on sharing information about the vote, he pointed out.

“If [the idea] was to fix misinformation, wouldn’t it be better if it came from us all?” Kennedy asks. “It was about taking a position [on the Democrats' part]. I wanted the people to decide – no politics, just people deciding… I was very disappointed. I don’t like being taken advantage of.”

Since his counterparts came out in support of the referendum, Kennedy has since voiced his opposition to it. “We’re seeing more information from the EPA now… and it would behoove us to see what the requirements will be” before making an obligation, he said.

Another concern Kennedy has is that “many of the [proposed] projects are VDOT projects and are unfunded mandates.”

Republican Bruce Goodson has also recently voiced his disapproval of the referendum, which he plans to share with voters, he said. “I no longer support it, because there are too many uncertainties that have developed.”

Goodson is concerned that there are too many unknowns about what new mandates will be and where funding will come from. Recent estimated costs associated to the new EPA mandates have the county’s share at $39 million a year. “We don’t know where that money could come from – it could bankrupt the county,” he says.

He also feels that voters expect the projects on the stormwater list will get done, and he isn’t sure if that would happen now.

Supervisor Mary Jones is the only board member who will remain neutral publicly. “Before the [gentlemen’s] agreement, the administrator instructed the board not to advocate our position one way or another,” Jones said, adding that she willl abide by that agreement.

Kennedy confirmed that former County Administrator Sandy Wanner did ask the board not to “politicize” the issue and that staff would take the information to the voters.

Telling residents how to vote isn’t her job, Jones said. “The voters know best, that’s why we put forth the decision for them. I’m pleased that they’re engaged.”

Republican supervisors didn’t tell the James City County Republican Committee their thoughts on the referendum, so the group voted earlier in the year not to launch a campaign to oppose it.

In light of recent events, they are now scrambling to do so, and sent out a mass email Monday evening to encourage people to vote ‘no’ on Tuesday. Democrats sent out an email at the same time encouraging their supporters to vote ‘yes.’

Read stories about the estimated costs to the Triangle for the EPA pollution restrictions here and read a previous story on a poll of state residents on their feelings on saving the Bay here. Visit the county’s website for details about the referendum.