Editor, Smithfield Times

I am annoyed by various things that occur at the courthouse when resources are used toward things that seem to be unnecessary. I’m a small government gal. Unfortunately, this feeling of annoyance isn’t uncommon. Two fairly recent examples involved development of the new logo “Local Roots/Global Reach” (which isn’t as good as the old logo) and development of the ‘Voices from the Isle’ electronic newsletter. I suspect we spent a pretty penny sticking that logo on all county equipment, paper products, etc. We’re also paying someone for their time to develop that newsletter each time it goes out.

Annoyance morphed into utter disgust and horror upon receiving the latest ‘Voices from the Isle’ email. How I got signed up for this, I don’t know. I didn’t unsubscribe because I feel some obligation to see what they’re putting out there.

Government propaganda is thriving and we aren’t even in Cold War era Russia. They’ve developed this nifty ‘Fact Checker’ section sporting the unnecessary new logo. It is our one-stop spot to get the facts as seen by the county government financed by us, the taxpayers.

I had this crazy idea that our free press in this country was supposed to be our watchdog. Our local government tried to stop advertising the public notices in our local papers (Smithfield Times and Tidewater News) and now we can just get all our information from the county’s own presses.

This is scary, folks. I also found it interesting that this same edition linked to an interview with EMS folks from Smithfield about how great the controversial facility use agreement is, among other things. Could the next edition include interviews from Windsor and Carrollton department reps to make the story a bit more balanced? Leave the unbiased fact checking to the citizens, not the government, Isle of Wight.

Kara Hearn
Smithfield