And I’m not talking about the kind that jingles in your pocket, but the kind that is unfolding in county government.

Or perhaps better said, has the potential for unfolding.

The organizational meetings of the two boards that most affect the lives of Goochland citizens last week started off on a semi-celebratory note. The mere fact that the two went to the effort to schedule their initial meetings on successive days so that one could attend both of them was encouraging. Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, School Board on Wednesday, it seemed like an outbreak of common sense was threatening to take hold.

At the BOS, they promptly chose the only incumbent from the preceding board, District 3 Ned Creasey, to be chair, with District 5’s Ken Peterson as vice-chair. Hard as we tried to get some inside dope on who would be picked we failed, as no one was telling before the vote, unlike over at the School Board, where shortly after the election the new crew made known that Beth Hardy would chair and John Wright would play back up.

And at the BOS, they adopted language that indicates they will return to the agreement about rotating the leadership, although Creasey said that no one would be forced to chair the board who doesn’t want to. More common sense there.

The School Board promptly changed their meeting time to 7 p.m. for all regularly scheduled meetings and workshop meetings, a welcome change for someone like myself who has shown up for at least one 6:30 workshop meeting at 7, thus missing the only citizen comment period of the night. More common sense. And, after hearing a request during the citizen comment period that students and their families waiting for disciplinary hearings not be directed to the GHS office to wait for the end of the public meeting, which meant that everyone leaving could see who they were, the School Board asked administration and the GHS principal to change this. Yet more common sense.

Still, some things stayed the same. Assessor Glenn Branham’s report on declines in county assessments prepared the new BOS for the fact that revenue from real estate taxes will be down as they prepare a new budget and the initial budget presentation at the School Board showed a possible $600K shortfall.

But another welcome change was the questions put to the superintendent during the budget presentation. For instance, an inquiry by John Lumpkins elicited a dollar figure for the savings that would be gained for each day’s reduction in the number of school days per year ($100,000 per), according to Superintendent Underwood. With a shortfall looming reducing the number of days of instruction could be a viable option.

So far so good for the two new boards.