A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, I heard someone say that if local governments couldn’t get something right, the least they could do was be entertaining.

And as true as that can be, I must admit that last week, District 4’s Rudy Butler did a little bit of both.

Butler, love him or hate him, does, at the very least, bring an interesting angle to most meetings. And last week, as he flashed that sense of character that many hope and long for from public officials, I couldn’t have agreed more.

The long and short of it came down to Butler’s frustration regarding one of the ordinances the board was looking at Tuesday night.

Little things have a way of coming out in open meetings and can sometimes inject an otherwise usual session with some fireworks.

Butler’s point—that county staff didn’t respond the way the board had directed and should be called out for the mistake—was completely logical.

His way of expressing himself, though, is a throw-back. He simply called it like he saw it with no spin and no need for ‘wordsmithing.’

Last month, Butler did the same thing, this time to the Virginia Department of Transportation over the six-year road plan.

Essentially, he wondered aloud what point there was to a six-year secondary roads plan if projects were on the plan for more than a decade and a half. Some things had been on the plan longer than he had been on the board, Butler told those at the meeting.

What good is a six-year plan if it takes 20 years to get something through? And to that end, he wondered why the county should even bother with approving the plan, as it does annually, if it doesn’t appear to mean much.

Calling out VDOT or members of county staff is one of the main functions supervisors serve. People elect their leaders to act in their place, to move on an issue where they can’t.

In these instances, he was saying, at the bare minimum, what at least one person in the audience was thinking.

Butler has his own way and it’s not up to me or you, unless you’re a voter in District 4, to say he’s right or wrong. The bigger point is to appreciate it when officials come out, in public, and say what they really mean.

Too often, those same elected representatives get so caught up in the ramifications of who they might offend or upset that they don’t act the same way in public as they do behind closed doors. Their fear of saying the wrong thing overshadows their desire, and duty, to say what they think.

And so in turn, a tough situation—people getting to know their potential leaders—gets worse.  Here? Butler did the kind of straight talking we should all want for those we elect to represent us.