RandomThoughts! (10/7/17)

Since my new system worked great, let’s get things going (again) with a RandomThoughts article.

We haven’t pulled a Big Board out in a long time. Get ready to cough as I blow the dust off it.

We won’t have as many graphics and title cards as before here on SouthsideCentral until I can access some archived files. But who cares about that for now? Well, not me at least.
While I’ve been semi-retired on SouthsideCentral, I’m proud to report that I haven’t lost my talent for pissing off people who need to be pissed off.
The first Pittsylvania County split elections are less than a month away, and we’ve only got a few that have been mildly interesting. The Dan River school board has the incumbent and two highly qualified challengers. I’m not close to making endorsements yet, but all three candidates will do a great job. In the Callands-Gretna board of supervisors race, Barbara Hancock should have a decent chance of winning against Ben Farmer, but she keeps making unforced errors. Strangely, I’m having a hard time finding people who are still undecided in the election so it’s possible that unforced errors won’t even matter. That seat used to be important because nobody could predict who Jerry Hagerman would align with each month. Now that there’s a solid four vote majority without Hagerman, there’s no balance of power swing remaining.
Speaking of upcoming elections, Danville City Council will have four seats open in May 2018. I’ll say the same thing that I did in the 2016 elections (and was totally correct). SouthsideCentral predicts Alonzo Jones, Gary Miller and James Buckner as SAFE for re-election. And yes, all three of them will run again. I’d love to see John Gilstrap run again, but he’s already said that he won’t.
Danville Transit’s Reserve A Ride system has turned into a great way to get people to work, medical appointments and any other trips needed. However, due to an insufficient number of drivers (and buses), the system is cutting off service once 300 trips have been booked. This has to be remedied by City Council and the city manager. The Reserve A Ride system is a selling point for economic development and growth. SouthsideCentral calls on the city to do whatever it takes to get the help needed to return the service to its previous levels.
The Wendell Scott Foundation is working on a great idea. They would like to have “Home of Wendell Scott” signs put up at city entrances. I’m totally in favor of that, yet I’m totally opposed to the other part of their plan… they want the city to pay for those signs. Nope. I can’t go for that. The Wendell Scott Foundation is a foundation. They’re good at fundraising. Instead of just collecting a petition signature, they should be collecting $5 and a petition signature. They’d easily have the money needed to have the signs made, and I know that the City of Danville will be glad to get the Foundation the space needed to put the signs up.
Dammit. I miss Laurie Moran.
Sheila Baynes is the only losing 2016 Danville City Council candidate to have kept a high public profile, and she deserves this commendation for getting involved in numerous community initiatives and events. She’s built the resume needed to be a serious challenger in the 2018 city council elections.

Holy crap. Long thoughts, short thoughts. Lots of thoughts. But they’re all RandomThoughts!

We’ll have more SouthsideCentral content coming up over the next few days!

Thanks for your support, folks.