Comments: Okay, Ace could not resist the song (listen to the words in the song) but it described the meeting of TIC in April when the Investor of the Canadian uranium company ask the TIC to fund the socioeconomic study of uranium mining and milling, the meeting was just crazy and the Investor's statement was bizarre! Can you trust any state boards of Virginia when it comes to uranium mining, how many investors of the uranium mining company are sitting on these state boards that could influence the members of VA Leaders plus the number of the Uranium Mining lobbyist handing out monies to VA leaders to buy their votes to blow up VA hills for uranium mining! No to Uranium Mining and Milling!
Tom McLaughlin | Letters to the Editor
The News & Record
April 29, 2010
Clowns to left of me, jokers to the right, here am I stuck in the middle with you :
Ace comments: Looks like anyone on the TIC?
Last week in this space we took issue with a Virginia Tobacco Commission vote to fund a study on the socioeconomic effects of uranium mining in Pittsylvania County.
As readers may recall, the Executive Committee of the Tobacco Commission, headed by Del. Jerry Kilgore, voted to spend $200,000 on a study sought by the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission, headed by Del. Jerry Kilgore.
The motion might’ve gone down to defeat had the matter come up before the Southside Economic Development Committee, as originally scheduled, since the Southside committee is largely comprised of politicians and citizens who live downstream from the proposed uranium mine and, coincidentally, are not named Terry Kilgore.
That scenario was scratched when the Executive Committee, headed by Terry Kilgore, swooped in and assigned the vote to itself. But never fear, because the Executive Committee’s action will come up when the Tobacco Commission meets again today in Roanoke. The full commission is chaired by, you guessed it, Terry Kilgore.
So boo on Terry Kilgore.
But let’s give the Southwest delegate credit for one thing: His sins aren’t as egregious as some.
That, anyway, is the takeaway from another sordid Tobacco Commission tale that surfaced in the wake of the April 15 vote on the socioeconomic study.
It turns out Buddy Mayhew of Pittsylvania County, the member of the Executive Committee who made the motion to fund the study, is also an investor in Virginia Uranium Inc., which wants to dig all that uranium out of the ground at Coles Hill Farm. Isn’t it a rather glaring conflict of interest for Mayhew to vote on a matter in which he has a direct financial stake?
Reported the Danville Register & Bee last week: “Virginia Uranium Inc. investor Buddy Mayhew says if he had to do it all over again, he would not recuse himself from the Tobacco Commission committee vote to fund a statewide, socioeconomic study on uranium mining and milling.
“’I was given clearance (by the commission’s attorney), and I had a clear conscience,’ Mayhew said during an interview Wednesday. Mayhew declined to reveal how much money he has invested in VUI,” the Register & Bee reported.
Further down, the article continues: “Mayhew said his attorney had told him there would be no conflict of interest since the Tobacco Commission’s money is going to the Virginia Coal and Energy Commission and not to Virginia Uranium Inc. An attempt to contact the commission’s attorney, Frank Ferguson, was unsuccessful Thursday.”
As an entity of state government, the Tobacco Commission is advised by the Attorney General’s office.
However, on basic political and common-sense grounds, I think the term that best describes Ferguson’s advice is “laughably bad.”
All that aside, however, the machinations show once again that the Tobacco Commission isn’t only clueless about how to revitalize the regional economy, it’s also a bit thick when it comes to thinking about how its actions might be perceived.
Read more:
http://www.thenewsrecord.com/index.php/opinion/article/blinkered_thinking/
