Yes that screen shot picture is real. I went to last week’s Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors meeting and thought Westover Supervisor Ronald Scearce was wearing one of his vacation shirts. That’s what it looked like from where I was sitting, but I found out the next day that he was wearing a clown shirt.
Maybe the madness will end soon, because tonight there is a scheduled closed session for the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors to meet to discuss the applicants for an interim appointment to the Bannister district seat, which has been vacant since Jesse Barksdale resigned for personal resigns. Things have been chaotic ever since. We can all hope that finally the board members will come together, put aside their own disagreements with each other, and make a decision that is best for the entire Bannister community and the whole county. However, as news of this meeting first broke, Warren Team member, Ron Scearce instantly grasped for a reason to oppose it, writing on Facebook, “I told you Vic couldn’t help himself! He is already reneging on the “Closed” meeting and wants to conduct another public circus from what I hear.”
Scearce often serves as an attack dog for boss Bob Warren, making outrageous comments against perceived team opponents, while Warren can sit back with plausible deniability. Hopefully, though, this was just a reactive comment, as it’s a silly argument. It’s going to be a closed meeting.
County politics has turned into public chaos in the past few weeks, making the area look like its headed for a train wreck, maybe even worse than was seen in the last months of Warren Team rule. Since Jesse Barksdale left, the board has been split 3-3, with the former Warren Team making moves to try to get back the power they lost in the last election in a landslide. Specifically, out of all the candidates that have put in for the position, so far, they have shown interest in only one of them – and that is former Warren Team member Dr. Charles Miller, who got crushed in the last election, getting less than 33% of the vote. No other candidate will give them everything they want except him, and that is all they have cared about so far.
If you are new to following the county politics I explained all of this in depth, with a bit of the history of how we got here in a long article I posted on October 10, 2022.
The Warren team already has boycotted one meeting a few weeks ago to discuss the applicants on the grounds that they needed more time to look at their applications. Then when a public hearing was set to allow the candidates to present themselves, two weeks ago, and for the Bannister District citizens to come and express their wishes, they shut down the meeting. Supervisor Bob Warren used the excuse to justify his actions that the Virginia state code about interim appointments says nothing about public hearings in them, as if they are the same issue, when obviously they are not. Warren didn’t care if this bullying was embarrassing for the county, making it look like a backwards place.
At the meeting, one of his team members, and himself, expressed fear that if the public talked it would look bad for one of the candidates, mainly Dr. Miller. They showed an intense fear of what the public might say and so far have stymied the process in order to force a judge to make a choice for the BOS, in a hope that they would just force Miller on to everyone for them.
But last week, in the public comment period of the regular BOS meeting, several of the Bannister applicants spoke and so did many of the Bannister residents. So, we got to see what they had to say.
You can watch this comment period at around the 24 minute mark of this video:
While Dr. Charles Miller did attend this meeting, he did not speak.
In fact, not a single person spoke in his favor, so evidently he couldn’t even get anyone in the entire Bannister District to come and support him and felt no need to explain why people should even want him to serve.
Nor was there a single letter to the editor in this week’s issue of the Chatham Star Tribune in favor of him holding this position either.
As for the Warren Team, at this meeting, the only citizens who spoke in their favor were Jim Scearce, the brother of Ronald Scearce, and his wife.
Jim Scearce ranted and raved against Chairman Vic Ingram, talking about the Department of Social Services Board.
Earlier this year Jesse Barksdale resigned from it, and then, as Chairman of the BOS, Ingram appointed himself to take his place.
After that move, Ronald Scearce appointed Jim Scearce to the DSS board, where he used his position to attack Ingram.
On October 14, 2022, Ingram announced that he was going to resign from the DSS board. The Chatham Star-Tribune reported on this and then Jim Scearce went wild on Facebook attacking the reporter, calling her fake news, with a jumbo of distortions, on Facebook.
It was really vicious and much worse than anything the Scearce brothers have ever said about me.
I understand when they get mad at me and call me names, as that is their style and I’m writing what are essentially editorials, commenting on what people are saying, but the Chatham reporter is doing straight news stories and there was nothing wrong with her reporting.
I could not understand what about the article made him so upset.
If you want to read it for yourself you can read it here.
Really, you should subscribe to the Chatham paper to keep up with what is going on.
On Facebook, both of the Scearce brothers tend to lash out at anyone who asks them questions or doubts what the Warren Team does, often making wild claims in the process.
For instance, here is one crazy claim that Jim Scearce made recently.
There is no FBI investigation into Chairman Vic Ingram as Jim Scearce claimed and no reason to think that the area newspapers are engaged in covering up things to hurt either of the Scearce brothers. There simply is no evidence that there ever was an FBI investigation or any reason to think there was grounds for one either.
This is just a recent example of the endless smears and attacks against organizations and people that Warren team members make that has turned the county politics into a circus. They like to make crazy Facebook posts and comments and then get fake accounts they control to like them, to make it look like they have support and try to bully everyone.
At last week’s meeting, Ronald Scearce decided to wear a clown shirt, I guess, to mock the other members of the BOS he does not like and those that came to the meeting who do not support his team or Dr. Miller.
Please stop the madness!
Maybe the Warren Team can prove everyone wrong tonight – or just one of its members can break ranks – and make a compromise for the good of the county.
Isn’t that what politics is about?
We can always hope.
-Mike
