A letter to the editor in this past Sunday's Current section brought former public school superintendent Fred Morton to mind. He had some experience in military school as a youth, and served in an intelligence arm of the U.S. military during Vietnam. "Out of pocket" meant that something was incongruent, out of place, or not as it should be and a term both staff and students became familiar with.
The "Ernie Wade for President" letter to the editor was out of pocket. One, it was written by a Roanoke resident rather than someone living in Christiansburg or even Montgomery County. Two, the writer declared he'd never met the councilman. Three, the writer stated he read the May 21 Current article about council's vote on the town budget -- yet the Current is not published in Roanoke, rather is specific to the New River Valley.
By reading that single article, the writer "came away with the impression that he (Wade) is a responsible, sensible, realistic representative." This must have been based on one paragraph within that article: "Earlier this month, Wade said he would vote against the budget if the Blacksburg Transit money were included because the town needs to tighten its belt during the recession. Though he maintained his no vote, he said the town using more than $500,000 from its reserves, not Blacksburg Transit's expansion, was his main reason. "I think before I could support a deficit budget I'd need to know how we're going to turn it around next year, and so far we don't have a plan for that," Wade said."
The writer, however; made no mention of the other councilman who also cast a "nay" vote for the new fiscal budget.
The writer went on to say he wandered to the town's official web site and read Wade's bio. He was thus able to deduce exactly why Wade's vote "made sense" and therefore served town residents with "valued decisions with the greater good firmly grounded." (The bio's provided for council hardly qualify as Cliff Notes, much less giving details necessary to draw such insightful conclusions.)
For 19 years, Wade participated in approving the town's annual CIP expenditures, and has four years experience helping to craft and approve the full budget. This is to say, then, that during all this time (23 years), the town never pulled funds from reserves before? Never rolled unexpended taxes (allocated but not used) right back into the next budget? Did the writer review the town's entire budget while visiting the web site?
Maybe "firmly grounded" means no bus service is the greatest good? Or the writer simply supports anyone who says no to "unnecessary" services?
While anyone serving in public office should be respected for the time they give to a community, it is harder to pass this respect over to a writer who hasn't directly interacted with the individual he's promoting, hasn't attended a single council or planning meeting for the Town of Christiansburg, and isn't a resident of the locality.
We suggest this writer do all of the above, and once residing in Christiansburg he may also want to know how a community pool morphed into an $18.8 million debt with an initial $1.5 million yearly operating budget. While he's at it, the writer can ask about the town's plans for tourism and economic development, community engagement, and historic preservation. Or why it it took so long for council to get a business plan for the aquatic center. After this, the newly minted resident can start a discussion about this council member running for national office.
Otherwise, the writer's statements are out of pocket and appear instead to be the start of a political campaign or promoting a party platform. If the writer were more informed, he might have been aware Christiansburg elections are nonpartisan. Residents can ask the Roanoke Times Current editor why this letter was deemed relevant, too.