Sheep surplused without incident
City and county School Board members flock to special MTC meeting
By Deb and Joe Fitzgerald
It is said that one may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a goat, but even the Rockingham County School Board has to draw the line somewhere.
The county board has hired a lawyer who was suing the city board; exaggerated its financial stake in MTC; demanded a meeting to spend $70 million or so with barely a week’s notice; and insisted that the city give up its voting rights on the Massanutten Technical Center board, but without calling a meeting.
Communication on those issues has been fraught, often carried out in competing press releases, but when it came time to sell some sheep, representatives of both boards were able to meet in person. And on the topic of the sheep – at least for the ten minutes it took to declare them surplus – everyone was on the same page. The discussion was clear and honest, with no one trying to pull the wool over anyone else’s eyes.
The collegial meeting was friendly, as such things go. City board member Andy Kohen and county member Matthew Cross even exchanged a fist bump, although it was initiated by Cross and Kohen’s heart did not appear to be in in. Regardless, nobody tried to ram anything through at the meeting.
Cross was perhaps giddy about being endorsed for reelection this week, on his third try, by the Republican committee in his district. (Separating sheep from goats, by the way, comes from the Biblical Book of Matthew, no relation.)
With the number of doctorates and advanced degrees city School Board members hold, they definitely have the advantage in number of metaphorical sheepskins, but they still deferred to their more rural colleagues on the topic of actual sheep.
In a brief discussion of the need for the sale, MTC director Kevin Hutton said there are not enough students enrolled in the agricultural program that cares for the sheep, and there is currently not an instructor for the class in question. In addition, there were safety and transportation issues in getting students to and from the location of the agricultural program.
There was a brief discussion of how the agricultural program might go forward, whether at the current MTC, at a proposed but not agreed upon new campus, or at a separately purchased farm, but no member except Cross mentioned the possible facility.
That facility, with bids solicited by the county with no city input, has been the subject of public exchanges between the boards, but no actual meeting. City officials have deferred such a meeting until all of their members can attend, as the city’s share of the proposal would be more than $15 million.
It is believed the sheep will bring less than that at auction, and were a more appropriate topic for a hastily called “emergency” meeting than the county’s planned new technical education center.
The other animals involved in the program have already been sold. Meanwhile, the sheep have resided at the farm of county School Board member Jackie Lohr, who is this year’s chair of the MTC board. Although she called and chaired the meeting and moderated the discussion, she abstained from the otherwise unanimous vote to declare the sheep to be surplus property. The board authorized Lohr to sell the sheep on their behalf, presumably trusting that she won’t be fleeced.