SouthsideCentral was LIVE! at Danville’s Municipal Building for Tuesday’s Danville City Council meeting. The meeting started 7 PM, and we stayed until the end of the work session. This article is now complete, so enjoy the recap. Let’s get started!
We’re underway. Gary Miller is chairing the meeting tonight because Sherman Saunders will be late. Miller leads the prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance.
Julie Brown, chairperson of Danville-Pittsylvania Community Services gives the annual report for the organization.
We heart Julie Brown. She’s got board members Frank Wickers & Gracie Mays in the audience with her tonight. Executive Director Jim Bebeau is also here.
On this side of the audience, Jim Bebeau & Frank Wickers are in the front row. Gracie Mays is sitting behind them.
Here’s the other side of tonight’s audience.
Erik Nicklow & Tommy Goddard, HELLO!
We’ve got a good attendance tonight. Another Tunstall High School group is here observing tonight’s meeting.
We heart Brenda Bowman!
Outgoing Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors chairman Brenda Bowman says her goodbyes to council. SouthsideCentral plans on attending Brenda’s last Board of Supervisors meeting in two weeks. I hope she goes out with style after all she’s gone through in the past four years. And by “style” I mean both middle fingers high in the air and pulling the fire alarm on the way out. Yes, I told her that. Heh.
Sherman Saunders arrived at 7:05 PM and took Gary Miller’s normal spot. Ken Larking has been named interim city manager by a totally expected 9-0 vote. Larking has done an excellent job since Joe King didn’t come back to the office, and I’ve got to believe that he’d be a strong favorite for the permanent job.
All nine council members heap well deserved praise on Bowman. Gary Miller proposes a resolution praising Bowman and Council passes it 9-0. City Attorney Clarke Whitfield says that the city will put that on an official proclamation and give it to Bowman for memories.
Public comment section is up next.
Tommy Goddard highly impressed me tonight.
Tommy Goddard is up first, and he continues asking about shooting incidents that police aren’t issuing media releases about. He’s making it clear he’s not insinuating a coverup. Fred Shanks asks questions as well. According to my last conversation with Police Chief Philip Broadfoot, every police report that is taken is plotted on the city’s “Police 2 Citizen” website.
Goddard makes an excellent impression this time and he’s well received by council.
On to regular business. The minutes, consent agenda, board appointments all pass 9-0. The consent agenda was home detention monitoring grants and the acceptance of $24,000 to build a Riverwalk Trail park beside the Danville Plaza Shopping center.
Here’s a list of all the appointments made.
- Frederick Meder – Building Code Board of Appeals.
- Jarrett White – Building Code Board of Appeals.
- Reappointing: Samuel Thomas – Building Code Board of Appeals.
- Reappointing: Gus Dyer, III – Building Code Board of Appeals.
- Gus Dolianitis – Employee Retirement System.
- Reappointing: Krystal Farmer – Fair Housing Board.
- David Totten – Fair Housing Board.
- Reappointing: Michael Scearce – Planning Commission.
- Reappointing: Robert “Q” Jones – Planning Commission.
Alonzo Jones massacred Gus Dolianitis’ name, but nobody cared.
New business is up next. First reading to get grant money for litter control, the food truck ordinance and the request for $800K of Tobacco Commission money for the new precision machining program at GW will all pass.
Sheila Baynes & Michelle Bush, HELLO!
A little debate about the food truck ordinance now. It passes.
On to the precision machining Tobacco Commission grant application, John Gilstrap asks if there are jobs available for students who graduate with this certification. Telly Tucker steps up to the podium.
I can tell that Telly wants to yell out “HELL YES, JUST LOOK AT WILLIAM GENTRY’S COMPANIES!”, but he remains calm. He probably also wants to yell “WE NEED THIS TO ATTRACT A COMPANY TO THE. MEGA PARK, YOU BUNCH OF IDIOTS!” but he remains calm. Heh.
We’re at the 75 minute mark. That blows my 35 minute prediction. I’m blaming that on the Brenda Bowman Goodbye Tour.
Sherman Saunders Gets It. He tries to point out the economic development impact. The discussion turns to will GW students be guaranteed a FastForward to the Year 2 DCC program.
Danville school superintendent Stan Jones takes the podium.
Stan Jones & Telly Tucker Get It.
Fred Shanks says that needs to be in writing before council votes on this.
Noooooooooo. There’s enough room at DCC for these students, provided they do a good job at the high school level. The discussion gets absolutely idiotic when John Gilstrap asks if this program will attract black students. That was the sound of my head exploding because the race of the student doesn’t matter one damned bit. If an orange student with polka-dots wants to learn precision machining and get them an almost-guaranteed job, more power to them. Alonzo Jones quickly shuts this asinine race discussion down by saying he’s spoken to black students and they’re interested.
All of these concerns have been discussed in two work sessions with all nine members saying they were supporting this grant request. I want these last 20 minutes on my life back.
It finally passes 9-0. Around the horn time and most talk about all the upcoming Christmas events in Danville. Lee Vogler mentions Michelle Bush (Embracing Danville’s Positives) in tonight’s audience. Let’s move to the work session.
Interim Utilities Director Jason Grey is up first.
Jason Grey tells council what the Utility Commission voted on recently. Appalachian Power already has the transmission lines to service the Berry Hill MegaPark area, so Danville Utilities is going to give Appalachian the MegaPark territory.
Danville Utilities is now going to require a pressure test to restore natural gas service to a building that hasn’t had gas service in 120 days. That’s common sense safety.
There were other utilities related things, but I had to return lots of phone calls and messages. Sorry, folks.
Here’s tonight’s work session audience. We’ve lost Tara Martin somewhere.
Nope. She’s gone. Boo.
In the around the horn session, Sherman Saunders mentions that Danville United will cease to exist at the end of the year. He says they’ll talk about it at the next work session. That will be too late to take official action, so it seems that the organization will naturally disband. That’s disappointing.
And we’re done. Thanks for reading the most detailed recap of Tuesday’s Danville City Council meeting… only here on SouthsideCentral!
Tunstall High School students visits City Council meetings to learn something. That is a good thing.
I’ve seen the students from THS at Council meeting at least 3 times this school year. This is a great idea and I find it interesting that the county schools are sending their students to visit Danville City Council. Are they also attending Board of Supervisor meetings? It would be nice to see some GWHS students at a meeting since a lot of the discussions really do affect their lives in school and out.
We’ve had individuals come from time to time that attend GW or Galileo but certainly Tunstall has done a great job in sending entire classes to visit. We enjoy having them.
I Would like to see some statistics on where the last group of precision machinist who graduated from DCC ended up. No formal survey was ever taken to find what interest GW students had in precision machining. We are certainly putting the cart before the horse here. Training students for jobs that don’t exist seems to be a rather futile effort. Gentry’ company has what maybe 15 precision machinist? DCC will graduate about 50 or so this spring. Tell me where they are going to work? Not here is the answer. We are spending millions on a futile attempt to train students for jobs that don’t even exist and are not likely to exist anytime soon. Much better to give students a more rounded flexible degree in industrial maintenance where they are exposed to a widen range of skills. I would call job bust on this one but since no jobs exist it’s hard to bust it…..
I have a lot of problems with this program also. If it were being implemented 10 years ago (or even 5) it would make more sense. The first students to graduate from GWHS in this program will be in 2018 and then they will finish up at DCC in 2020. We need to be thinking down the road and preparing for the jobs that will be needed in 2020 to 2030. Yes, there may still be a need for precision machinists but wouldn’t it be nice if for once Danville could say, “Hey, look at us we prepared for the next generation of jobs not the past or present.” When the future comes we’ll be standing here ready for the past once again. And, one more thing to bear in mind, these students at GWHS will still have to pass the requirements for graduation and will have to pass the academic requirements to get into DCC. It won’t just be a pass on the core subjects because they are in this program.
GW students used to attend Council meetings. All Government students were required to attend a Council meeting. That changed in 1969 when students were in attendance at a meeting in which problems with integration were being discussed. The meeting was heated and one council member in particular was making false comments fueled by racism and was confronted by student, Allen Turner. The next day, a picture appeared on the front page with the Councilman pointing his finger in the face of the student and the student was pointing back. At the following meeting another student stood up and challenged the racist views of some members of council. After that, GW government students no longer attended council meetings. This is per Allen Turner, participant