After last week’s Planning Commission meeting it has become apparent that the county has little use for the mandate that the county create and add to its Comprehensive Plan any Urban Development Areas. The commissioners openly discussed what amounts to a delaying action, which, while making them compliant with the requirements, is designed to basically kill time until next year, when hopefully the whole thing may go away.

Whether the Urban Development Area concept is a part of a United Nations scheme to mangle the concept of private property as some contend, or merely an attempt to make it cheaper for VDOT to maintain the state’s roads, it really makes no difference what the General Assembly’s motive was when it saddled localities with the mandate last year.

Goochland doesn’t like it and is evidently prepared to drag its feet, waiting for the General Assembly to get the message and amend or abolish the requirement next session.

As one speaker told the commissioners, he didn’t move to Goochland to have four lots per acre put next to him. Even those who might want to see some areas of increased density seem to bridle at the state telling the county what it must do in this regard.

If the GA in its wisdom should see fit to make the requirement optional it would be a fine example of government wasting the peoples’ time and money for nothing, as county staff has been working on a UDA plan, holding community meetings (at which it became known most folks were against the concept) and making presentations to two boards, when they surely could have been doing something else of more importance to the county.

Here’s hoping the GA will get the message next year and make the whole matter optional, or abolish the concept altogether.

The Palen challenge

A surprise development arose last week as School Board candidate Penny Palen made known she would attempt to enjoin the sitting School Board from taking any action to modify its already existing two addendums to Superintendent Linda Underwood’s contract, which in its original form expired June 30 this year. Or to offer another extension, although School Board Chairman Ivan Mattox said no such intention existed when asked.

Palen maintains the two extensions are invalid, since the law as she reads it says superintendents’ contracts must expire on June 30, whereas the two extensions bear different dates.

We’re not lawyers here but we wonder what might happen if a judge should rule that the extensions are indeed not valid. Would the judge allow a temporary extension? Schools attorney Andrea Erard said she could not comment until served, so we will just have to wait and see what develops.