Tag: Joe Fitzgerald
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$1,900 an Hour to Close the Kids’ Wing
by Joe Fitzgerald What can you do that’s worth $1,900? Can you do it in an hour? I’d have to be paid $4 a word to make that much from this post, but I’m a fast writer. And then I’d have to write several thousand posts a year to make as much as a hospital…
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We Need to Listen
Mark Warner has raised the discussion of Biden’s future to a whole new level. by Joe Fitzgerald Virginia Senator Mark Warner is a cautious man. That’s not a negative in a world where public figures seem to have magazines full of tweets ready to load at a moment’s notice. He also trusts his own judgment.…
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Ignoring FOIA?
by Joe Fitzgerald I’ve wondered since college, if not high school, what happens when a public body decides to just ignore the Freedom of Information Act. I don’t know if that’s what the Rockingham County School Board is doing right now, but if they are, the criticism might be just the cost of doing business.…
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New Novel: Midnight’s Broken Toll
by Joe Fitzgerald All politics is personal. So it’s an open question why Mickey MacNamara runs for the state Senate. Is it to win the job or to hurt the man who holds the seat? The incumbent had a hand in the failures of Mickey’s father; Mickey has the time and resources to try and…
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The Letter
by Joe Fitzgerald “Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane.” Depending on your age, you may think of this as the opening to the Box Tops biggest and most iconic hit. If you don’t follow pop music, you may think any song that begins with “gimme” might be from a news story about a county school…
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The Cost of Not Voting
by Joe Fitzgerald If I were a more articulate man, I could explain what sorry shape the governments of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County are in right now. Rational people have little doubt about the county. The biggest government expense, the school system, is currently being run by people who do not know what they are…
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Which Side Are You On?
by Joe Fitzgerald Dartmouth’s basketball team voted this week to unionize. It’s a shame Harrisonburg’s police officers can’t. The basketball players will join the SEIU, Service Employees International Union, a kind of super union for people who don’t qualify for other unions. SEIU strongly supports health care and a higher minimum wage, making it a…
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Moving the Goalposts (for Banning Books)
by Joe Fitzgerald Everybody probably already knew what moving the goalposts meant, but with Taylor bringing in a new set of football fans, the sports-related metaphors can probably be used more widely. Moving the goalposts is of course a reference to changing the standards in the middle of a process. Latest example: the Rockingham County…
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Swallow the Money, Part 3 of 3
by Joe Fitzgerald VPAP and CFReports let you go from “How about that?” to “Oh, my God!” in 5.2 seconds. They’re attractive to the kind of nerds who used to go through the encyclopedia or the World Almanac. Yes, I did. Why do you ask? One local PAC became a subject for a dive into…
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Swallow the Money, Part 2 of 3
by Joe Fitzgerald There’s a donor in CFReports named “no name.” He, she, or it is listed on the report as “Name, No.” This same donor is called “Unknown Entity” in VPAP. Or perhaps “Entity, Unknown.” (VPAP and CFReports are described in Part 1.) This donor’s address shows up as Matt Cross’s house on his…
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Swallow the Money, Part 1 of 3
by Joe Fitzgerald When a governor was accepting gifts and amenities from a supporter some years back, the surprise for many Virginians came when it was time to indict him. The Feds had to do it, because he probably hadn’t broken any state laws, and eventually, after trials and appeals, he didn’t stand convicted of…
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Asleep at the Switch in Harrisonburg
by Joe Fitzgerald At some point while on the Harrisonburg City Council, I quit worrying about or getting angry about being misquoted by the Daily News-Record, and I got used to the people I met saying I wasn’t anything like what they expected. The expectations the paper created were just part of the gig. And…
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While Harrisonburg Slept, a Gadfly Arose
by Joe Fitzgerald Laura Dent is not a stupid person. She’s probably an honest person. But those aren’t qualifications enough to help run a city. You also have to know what’s going on. Frankly, she’s missed that boat a couple of times. Two issues I’ve written about repeatedly are uncontained school growth, which the Harrisonburg…
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It Wasn’t About Youngkin
by Joe Fitzgerald Deep in the hills of Southwest Virginia is a state Senate district where nobody works because the coal industry is increasingly mechanized. The district has all or part of eight counties. In Northern Virginia is a county where nobody works because they’re all employed by the federal government. The county includes all…
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Questions and Doubts (About the Nature of Some Politicians)
by Joe Fitzgerald When I had a meeting set up with (JMU President) Ron Carrier soon after I was elected to (Harrisonburg) City Council in 2000, someone warned me that he would change the time at the last minute just to show he was more important than me. He did, and maybe he was. But…