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Jim Gannon: 'The Rappahannock Decider'
Jim Gannon is quoted in the July 3 edition of the Rappahannock News: “I plan to continue doing what I have done since I launched The Rappahannock Voice nearly two years ago—covering whatever I think is the most important news in the county and explaining what it means.”Now let's look at coverage of the Board of Supervisors' meeting in the July 10 edition of the Rappahannock News. Mr. Gannon begins by flaunting the $511,00 cost of the project. He decided that we didn’t need to know that what’s really on the table is an agreement for $285,000 plus interest. Mr. Gannon wants us to know that the cost is spread over 10 years. He decided that we didn’t need to know that it is the payment that’s spread over 10 years. The cost is spread over the life of the project. There’s 25-year full-coverage warranty.
Mr. Gannon summarizes what officers of the sports-booster organization said. He tells people that I said the system meets tight limits on light pollution in other areas but leaves out the part about those limits being several magnitudes tighter than our own because he decided that isn’t important. He decided that we didn’t need to know about endorsement from the International Dark-Sky Association.
Then Mr. Gannon quoted opponents at great length: Monira Rifaat, Paul Farmer, Bill Gadino, Ron Maxwell, Tom Junk and Monica Worth. Others spoke in favor: Jim Oyster, Ritchie Burke, Camille Racer, Hank Gorfein, Sharon Kilpatrick and others. Mr. Gannon decided to leave them nameless and summarized their input with just six lines. Mr. Gannon decided that they aren’t important and their superfluous comments would confuse a populace that, having collectively just rolled off the back of a turnip cart, lacks the intelligence to sort things out.
Do we really need our very own Decider to decide what we need to know and explain what it means?
John Diley
Amissville
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