The first James City County Board of Supervisors meeting of each year allows time for a pre-budget public hearing for the fiscal year 2014 budget; this year only one speaker had suggestions for how to appropriate the county’s revenue.
“I would like to see you start paying down some debt,” said James City County resident Ed Oyer, a frequent commenter at supervisors’ meetings. He continued, “I think that when we come up with more money than we know what to do with, we don’t need to spend it, we need to reduce the debt…that would be beneficial to everybody in this county, including the board.”
The county will hold a budget retreat on Jan. 26 and County Administrator Robert Middaugh will present his budget to the board. The board will then hold a public hearing and a few work sessions on the county administrator’s budget in April.
Stonehouse Supervisor Jim Kennedy said the first meeting in January gives citizens the chance to “talk about things they’d like to see us spend money on and the irony of this is that we had one person speak to it this evening, which can be interpreted as a good thing or maybe a bad thing…but we hear from people throughout the year.”
Kennedy said someone contacted him today about the budget and he asked the person to come to the meeting to speak but the person didn’t attend the meeting.
“It’s always good if you come out every year…I encourage citizens to do that in the future,” Kennedy said.
