Be part of historic event

Eagle editorial
Published: October 30, 2008

Compared to other places, Madison County generally has a strong voter turnout for presidential elections. Although Registrar Diana Eanes declined to make any specific predictions on the turnout for this Tuesday’s voting, when asked if she thought it would be a higher percentage turnout than the 75 percent of the county’s registered voters who cast ballots in the 2004 Bush-Kerry race, she replied, “Oh, sure.”

Signs certainly seem to be pointing in the direction of big Madison County voter interest in the Nov. 4 contests. Five-hundred-and-fifty people newly registered to vote in Madison County over the past year —  that’s a large number for rural Madison County.

A tsunami of letters to editor on the McCain-Obama race in particular hit The Eagle in recent weeks, easily spilling over four pages in the last edition before our campaign letters cut-off. Campaign signs line every major highway through the county and election talk is overheard at most every Madison eatery.

Barack Obama is now reportedly ahead in most polls. He also collected more votes than any other candidate — Democratic or Republican — in Feb. 12 Virginia primary voting in Madison County (more Madison voters went for Mike Huckabee than John McCain).

Still, who can say what will happen Nov. 4? Madison voters have a tradition of bucking both national and state trends in presidential voting. For example, in 1964, more Madisonians voted for Barry Goldwater than Lyndon Johnson, despite LBJ’s landslide win nationally and unusual win statewide in Virginia, which typically votes Republican in presidential elections.

While The Eagle is not endorsing a presidential candidate in particular, we are encouraging your involvement in the upcoming election, which promises to be a historic one.

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Madison County officials should not despair over failing to receive any “hits” after listing the old Criglersville Elementary School property for sale on various real estate Web sites. Due to nationwide economic events, this is actually expected.

The worst thing county officials could do is panic and unload the valuable property at a fire sale price —  as some feared was happening last year when officials entertained a church’s offer of $100,000 for it —  even though its most recent assessment is $854,000.

Even if, over time, no buyers with attractive offers emerge, the 5.7-acre Criglersville site has excellent potential as a county-owned riverside park. It has the only public athletic field in the northern part of the county and has tremendous potential to showcase the beautiful mountain trout stream —  the Robinson River — that flows along its southern side. Officials have in the past erred by focusing on the site’s out-dated main school building, rather than on the land beneath it and its prime location for a park.