Editor, Gazette-Journal:

After reading last week’s Gazette-Journal article on the submittal of the Mathews County budget, I realize that another year has passed; but more importantly, another Mathews County budget cycle has commenced without any independent oversight or review.

Last year’s suggestion of a County Citizen Commission at the Board of Supervisors (BOS) budget meeting fell flat, but was responded to with, ”You can form your own citizen committee to review the budget”; and we all know where that would land. At that same BOS meeting, the final quip was a snarky query by one of the BOS, “Can you recommend any cuts to the budget?”

Of course, the notion was moot because no in-depth review of the proposed budget was available to us unwashed. So, here we are, another “baseline” budget. But you must know this: a member of the BOS was provided with the framework and sources of authority for the formation of a commission to review the...