People have been telling Scott Seaton that he should have just kept his mouth shut.
Shouldn’t have made an issue of how Augusta County, Staunton and Waynesboro have been charging residents fees to get their pets out of the local animal shelter when they shouldn’t have.
Shouldn’t have kept pressing when it seemed that the county administrator, county attorney and fellow board members seemed to be slow walking the matter into oblivion.
“I would have cruised to an uncontested election,” said Seaton, whose Wayne District seat on the Augusta County Board of Supervisors is up for re-election this fall, and is the only one on the ballot featuring a challenger, a guy who told News Virginian reporter Bob Stuart last week that he’d been talked into running against Seaton by two members of the Board of Supervisors.
Seaton is also facing a formal censure by the BOS, which voted last month to approve a resolution of censure against the doctor and military veteran, but it’s since been acknowledged that the dates of the alleged misdeeds being cited as the basis for the censure – that Seaton revealed supposedly confidential information from closed sessions to the local media – were wrong in the original resolution.
The discussion of a proposed clean-up resolution at this week’s Board of Supervisors meeting turned into a comedy of errors, with board members disagreeing on how to fix the dates, and revealing other perceived slights that they have against Seaton that seem to be more the real issues motivating their effort to give him a slap on the wrist.
And then there was the comical effort to try to ask Seaton for copies of recordings that he’d made of their closed sessions that may or may not be factored into the censure issue, depending on who it is doing the talking, which was basically the majority saying, Voluntarily turn over the evidence that we need to be able to hang you.
Seaton’s response, in essence, Make me, was the perfect note for him to play in response.
As the other elected county leaders stumbled their way through what to do next with the botched censure, Seaton blistered his colleagues for trying to, in effect, silence him.
“That’s the power people in government believe they have. Instead of listening to constituents or other representatives, they try to get you fired from your job or run someone against you for your office,” Seaton said.
“The Wayne District voters did not elect me to sit by and remain silent. Though I was untested in government, they elected me hoping I would solve problems, just like I have for my patients for the last 24 years,” Seaton said.
“I am not the problem on this board,” Seaton said. “I have been accused of not being a team player. I will assure you that I’m not here to close my eyes and coast to electoral victories. I’m not here to cover my ears and refuse to listen to the cries of county residents. I’m not here to stay silent and vote with the majority so that we can go home earlier. I’m not here to be another monkey that hears no evil, sees no evil and speaks no evil.
“I was not elected to be a ruler,” Seaton said, “but to be the intermediary between an often-oppressive bureaucracy and the people I represent, to represent their interests and not the interests of the government, and to empower people with resources that help them navigate their struggles. And when reelected, I will continue to protect their rights.”
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Chris Graham
