There was an event that took place this past Saturday in Shepherdstown that managed to escape the notice of the local press. The Convention for the Constitution was organized though the cooperative efforts of several local organizations: The Blue Ridge Patriots of Berkeley County www.blueridgepatriots.com led by Kandi Montini, We the People of Jefferson County https://www.wtpwv.com led by Patricia Rucker and the West Virginia Campaign for Liberty under the auspices of Jessica Hayes of Falling Waters and Gina and Chris Anders of Shepherdstown. Yours truly served as the emcee. The organizers originally planned for 100 attendees, but the final count was over 150, completely filling the Senator Robert Byrd Room at the Clarion Hotel. Clearly there is keen local interest in the subject matter.

Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself Bo Diddley song title

To paraphrase from a Robert Burns poem written in 1785: The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry and leave us nothing but grief and pain, for promised joy. In the lyric from John Lennon’s song “Beautiful Boy”, one of the last songs he ever wrote, is one of my favorite quotes: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”. Jefferson County has a Comprehensive Plan and it is in the process of being updated as required by state law. In the West Virginia Code, chapter 8A is entitled Land Use Planning. According to Article 3 of that Chapter, once a county adopts a Comprehensive Plan it must be updated every 10 years, and our updates are due next year.

There is going to be a new Sheriff in town, eventually. An interim Sheriff has been named, but the selection of a permanent successor, well, that’s where things get complicated. Included In the agenda for the Jefferson County Commission meeting this week is discussion regarding the selection of the successor. According to counsel for the Commission in the minutes from last meeting, there is no process for succession outlined in the West Virginia state code; it is up to the County Commission to “design a process”.

Sometime back I was invited to speak at a civics club. Its members consisted of parents and their teenage children - and the purpose of the club was to study the Constitution. The subject matter of that day was the Bill of Rights. It is widely believed that several important states, Virginia in particular, would not have ratified the Constitution without assurances that there would be a Bill of Rights.

In my last column I discussed ongoing attempts by the federal government to nationalize education through programs created under the auspices of the Department of Education. Hundreds of billions of federal tax dollars have been spent on programs such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top to entice states to adopt programs and standards emulating from bureaucrats and private interests in Washington. The results have not lived up to the hype while wasting copious amounts of taxpayer money.