ForumGarden

A January 22, 2006 front page article in the Martinsville Bulletin reports "City vision statement drops county reference" that was in place for years. One official was quoted in the article about the move being "petty" as there is thought to be discord between the city and county.

There is a local practice of linking city and county entities. For example:

Martinsville-Henry County Chamber of Commerce

Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corporation

Martinsville-Henry County Social Services

This is not the first time such discord has surfaced. The local Chamber of Commerce withdrew from "the Coalition for Economic Progress... that it helped to create." as reported by the Martinsville Bulletin newspaper on September 12, 2003 simply because the Chamber didn't like someone assigned to the coalition. That seems petty too.

Does anyone else know of similar conflicts around the South East?

www.martinsvillebulletin.com

www.martinsville.com

I haven't seen much of that where I live. There's a small town surrounded by the county like ya'll, but things seem to run pretty good here. Thanks for putting up the information. Ya'll seem to have more than your share of problems. That's to bad, because I think it just puts Virginia in a bad light. It kind of makes people think of the "Hatfields and Mccoys" and we need to get away from that kind of thing.

I can talk about this situation, as I live in the area. This has been going on for some time. Every year, the county and city have a joint luncheon that's usually sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce where officals make speeches and everyone smiles and shake hands. Afet the luncheon, it's back to going after each others jugular vein.

Some here feel there's a type of "shadow government" behind the scenes that's made up of power elite that are not elected, but are calling the shots. A lot of local folks I have talked to feel that if the elected officials were left alone by the power elite to just do their work, things would be a whole lot better. In the meantime, us little folk get lost in the shuffle. Now this petty act of taking the words "Henry County" out of the city's vision statement. That's sad.