Java Jive

Citizens Telephone Cooperative, Floyd County's largest private employer, is strapped for cash and talking layoffs, cutbacks and trouble for the future.

At a recent company meeting, Citizens executives told employees that the company must raise revenues or it will cut staff, salaries and services.  The situation is so bad that Citizens is considering taking sales personnel off salary and putting them on commission and sending a strong message to others that they might want to think about seeking employment elsewhere.

Over the last few months, Citizens has quietly outsourced many of its services that once were local. Many service calls now go to a call center in Montana, the company switched its web hosting domain registration to GoDaddy, a Scottsdale, Arizona, computer giant and its cell phone service, launched with fanfare a couple of years ago, is actually rebranded from Verizon.

Citizens's problems stem from too-rapid growth, expansion into counties outside its traditional service area and a general slowdown in the economy. The company spent far more than anticipated in deploying fiber optic lines throughout Floyd County and on a wireless broadband service in the New River Valley.

As a cooperative, Citizens is supposedly owned by its customers but the customer-owners have not been told of the company's recent problems and employees were advised to avoid discussing the situation with the very people they actually work for. Those same employees have endured cutbacks in benefits from a company they feel cares more about the bottom line. Some disgruntled employees have filed suit and their cases were settled, quietly, out of court.

Floyd Countians pay more for most telephone services than residents in more populous areas like Montgomery and Roanoke counties. Our DSL Internet service, while extraordinary for a rural area, is more expensive than faster service in urban areas.

As customer owners of Citizens, we deserve more information about the company's problems. Citizens needs to be open and honest about the uncertain future it faces. We own the company. We need to know.

Floyd's "let somebody else take the risk" town council is at it again, demanding unbelievably high letters of credit from each town business participating in the grants that help fund the downtown rehabilitation and trying, as usual, to avoid taking any real risk itself.

From behind closed doors, which is the way the government likes to conduct its business, comes word that the Town Council has decided to demand the letters of credit which, in effect, says they want business to bear most of the cost and the risk for the strategy.

This places such onerous requirements into the deal that only a fool would want to participate.

We've seen this crap before from the Town Council. I remember an early meeting on Floyd's downtown revitalization project. Rob Shelor, council membe  and probable mayor to follow the resigning Skip Bishop, whined about the town having to invest $100,000 in a program that would bring $1 million to the community in grants and loan programs.

Todd Christianson, the state official charged with getting the grant through the system, told Shelor that if he didn't want the money he lots of other communities standing in line to invest in their town's future.

Shelor finally gave in but he continues to be a thorn in the side of any business that wants to bring tourists to Floyd.

Many business owners put their homes and future at risk to borrow the money to take a chance on Floyd's iffy business environment but the town government wants to avoid risk and claim the credit.

Hopefully, those who want to see a farmer's market in Floyd will proceed without the town's involvement, leaving the town council where it belongs -- out in the cold.

To say Town Government can be duplicitous is kind. It is exactly this kind of double dealing that has long plagued both the Town of Floyd and county government.

Details, of course, are sketchy because the Town Council uses one of the many loopholes in Virginia's antiquated Open Meetings Act to conduct its business in executive session -- in other words, secret.

In this election year, voters are calling for change on the national level. Last year, voters in Floyd County registered their anger at county government by sending two incumbent supervisors and the sitting Commonwealth's Attorney to the showers.

Maybe it's time to for the voters of the Town of Floyd to consider a similar house cleaning.

Blue Ridge Muse found itself on Floyd's most-wanted list this week because the forgetful owner forgot to renew the studio's business license.

Went down to the Town Hall to pay up and had to fork over an extra 10 bucks as a fine to get legal again with the jurisdiction.

Learned the "Most Wanted" list isn't all that exclusive. Many businesses in town have to be reminded to renew that little cardboard certificate that goes up on the wall.

One of them was Town Attorney Jim Shortt: The man charged with collecting overdue license fees. Question: Did Shortt write himself a threatening letter?

Too often, I get wrapped up in a project at the studio and suddenly realize it's close to 10 p.m. and haven't eaten dinner.

In Floyd, eating late can be a problem. Most restaurants close by 9 p.m., leaving you with a choice of Hardees or a convenience store sandwich.

The folks at El Charro, the new Mexican restaurent in the basement of The Winter Sun, defied conventional wisdom by staying open until at least 10 p.m., seven days a week. I've dropped by at 9:45 p.m. on a weeknight to find their kitchen open and several tables filled.

El Charro has proven that, given a choice, local residents will come by for a sit-down meal later in the evening. Other eateries might want to take note.

Colleen Redman over at Loose Leaf Notes reports overhearing this exchange at the Floyd Post Office:

Animated Woman: If Obama is president the black people are gonna take over. They’ll line us white people up and shoot us.

Postal Clerk: I think you should go home and go back to bed so you can wake up again.

Good God. We hoped that kind of red-neck ignorance had long vanished from the landscape but apparently it hasn't. When Hillary Clinton surrogates like former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro and Philadelphia Governor Ed Rendell offer up racist comments as part of a choreographed campaign of fear mongering it is little wonder that ignorant comments like the one Colleen overheard at the post office still exist in our society.

 Racism has long found its roots in the ignorant who fear what they don't understand and manifest that fear in hatred towards others.

It does not belong in Floyd County, it does not belong in Virginia, it does not belong in America and it certainly does not belong in our political system.

Floyd's Town Manager may be headed for the door after a year on the job.

Rumors have circulated recently that Mike Maslaney is about to leave the job he took last Spring but those rumors became public Tuesday while Maslaney delivered his monthly report to Floyd County Supervisors.

Little River Supervisor Virgel Allen asked Maslaney if rumors that he was leaving were true.

Maslaney stared back at the board like a deer caught in headlights on a country road.

Finally, he stumbled over an explanation, saying that "the town board and I are discussing changes that would best serve my needs."

The affable Maslaney is a high-profile town manager, often seen out and about checking progress of the  the downtown revitalization effort, jawboning with local citizens and usually wearing a broad smile.

But the smile masks a difficult time dealing with the town's less than proactive council where some members see progress as a threat to their little turf kingdoms. Others have criticized Maslaney for what they see as a conflict of interest: he is a partner in the Village Green project and served as chairman of the management team that oversees the revitalization grant.  Others cringed at Maslaney's high profile in a post where the previous job holder also mowed town land and worked on the trash collection truck.

Most, us included, applauded Maslaney's approach to his job. He is guiding the town through a difficult period. His departure, if one is imminent, will be a loss.

The buzz aound Floyd for the past few days has been the strange case of Jeffery Martin Young, a 30-year-old county resident charged with assaulting a Slaughter's Grocery Store employee last week with his car and a club.

Now a White Jeep Wrangler owned by Young may be the vehicle that ran down and killed Roanoke County attorney Thomas Farrell near Starkey last week.

Young wasn't driving the Wrangler when witnesses said he roared out of a parking spot at Slaughters on Jan. 30 and struck one of the store's employees as she left work. He then attacked her with a club before workers at the store and county deputies subdued him and packed him off to jail.

On Monday, Roanoke County police located a White Jeep Wrangler owned by Young. It has damage on the front and shards of reflective material that came from the running jacket worn by Farrell.

According to witnesses at Slaughters, a number of customers drove off without coming to the woman's aid when she was under attack in the parking lot.  Bad enough that we may have a killer among us. We apparently have cowards as well.