ReportCard! – Halifax County Board of Supervisors (3/26/15)

If the schools give out report cards every so often, so can SouthsideCentral! Let’s do a ReportCard on the Halifax County Board of Supervisors in this article. CAUTION: There’s a potential for more “F”‘s than an R-rated movie here.

If you don’t know that an “A” is tops and an “F” is failing, I can’t help you. These grades are based on their overall performance, with recent activity being weighted more than something that they did 6 years ago (as an example).

Let’s get started with the woefully dysfunctional Halifax County Board of Supervisors. We’ll go from district 1 thorough 8 in order.

• J.T. Davis: He supports Team Bowman. He’s stubborn and hasn’t done a thing to try and compromise the Board of supervisors’ logjam. But he does have some good points… he’s awesome at throwing his pen, and he can do it if he wants to! When we combine all of those good things with the bad things, it doesn’t change his grade one damned bit. We proudly give him an “F“.
• Tom West: He supports Team Bowman. He’s stubborn and hasn’t done a thing to try and compromise the Board of supervisors’ logjam. Halifax County can’t get rid of him this election and is stuck with him for two more years. When he was chairman, he wasn’t as horrible as now, but that’s when Team Bowman was in control. Now, he’s just a grumpy old man who isn’t getting his way. Did you guess the grade already? Yep. It’s an “F“.
• Hubert Pannell: Pannell is the man who’s caused all of these problems, but I mean that in a very good way. By knocking off the incumbent Ray Owen, he erased the Bowman-led majority down to 4 votes. He wisely wanted to stop the Bowman Express and has held up under heavy fire to become a leader of the resistance. I don’t have high expectations for any first-time officeholder, but Pannell has surprised the heck out of me. He’s still earning how things are done but I’m not holding that against him. The overall dysfunctionality of the board makes it hard to give anybody an A grade, but Pannell comes as close as anyone will. He gets a grade of “B+“.
• Doug Bowman: Captain Bluster got caught with his hand in the cookie jar when it comes to Jim Halasz and Stephanie Jackson. Now he’s pouty and is taking his ball and going home. He may claim that not running for re-election was his plan four years ago, but he sure didn’t say that during that election. If there was a “F-” grade, he’d get it. He’ll have to settle for a big fat “F“.
• Barry Bank: Unbelievably, Barry Bank was making sense as part of the resistance against Team Bowman for a while. He’s still on the correct side of that issue but he regressed back into being an elected embarrassment once he started talking. His latest speech to a group of real estate agents was a bomb, as they were shocked about what little good he had to say about Halifax County. His idea of the Halifax County Fairgrounds and Meat Processing Plant sends shudders down the spine of economic development. Since he’s got his heels dug in against Bowman & Friends, I can’t give him a failing grade… but I sure can give him a “D-“.
• Larry Giordano: He’s got two years experience over Hubert Pannell and still hasn’t shown me that he knows how things work in government much at all. His “no tax increase” pledge during his election went out the window quickly. It was a stupid promise to make anyway. He sure didn’t gain any respect when he tried to become Doug Bowman’s sockpuppet as Board chairman. Larry could make a difference in the logjam and that would strongly increase his credibility. Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen if it hasn’t happened by now. Two years in, nothing to show for it. That’s a well-deserved “F” grade.
• Lottie Nunn: The Queen of Virgilina sure could have done a lot digging into the Halasz/Jackson/Saunders/Love/Whoever coverup conspiracy because she was on the personnel committee when all that crap came up. that didn’t happen. Maybe that was an eye-opening experience for her, but nothing came out of it until Bowman was vulnerable to being yanked out of power. Well, what difference does it make anymore? She’s packing her bags and not running for re-election anymore. She’s against Team Bowman, so that’s good. She also takes care of her election district. Good things, bad things. It all averages out to a “C” grade for her.
• Bryant Claiborne: He’s been so smooth during the last three months, you’d think he’s a lawyer. Oh yeah, he is one. Claiborne is a powerful, impressive and friendly man. So it’s oddly humorous to see him jumping into this mudbog with his sleeves rolled up, ready to throw mudpies. He’s fighting for a good cause and knows how to needle the opposition. He isn’t working towards a compromise though, but then nobody else is either. He leadeth the resistance, but all of the godliness, prayers and bible quoting doesn’t move the Board of Supervisors towards doing the job they were elected to do though. I giveth Claiborne a “D” grade on the report card.

That’s it. This group wouldn’t get promoted out of kindergarten. We’re going to have ReportCard! articles on all of the Southside region’s elected boards in the coming weeks.