By Wesley P. Hester
Media General News Service

Chesterfield County resident-watchdogs have come together with the goal of keeping residents better informed.

Midlothian resident Lisa Quigley recently read an op-ed piece by Mike Harton, an education consultant, in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on the topic of school leadership in Chesterfield. She liked his message and decided to shoot him an e-mail.

Discovering that they were nearly neighbors, the two became fast friends and arrived at a common conclusion: The public wasn’t getting all sides of local issues.

And the Chesterfield Coalition for Informed Citizens was born.

“What we want to do is try in an unbiased fashion to research issues and put the facts out there and not try to influence their decisions or opinions, just allow them to make informed decisions with the facts,” Harton said of the growing group.

Harton, who sits on the comprehensive-plan steering committee, also served as president of Responsible Growth Alliance of Chesterfield, which saw its former leader, Marleen K. Durfee, elected supervisor in 2007 before dissolving. Other resident groups such as Hands Across the Lake and Bermuda Advocates for Responsible Development continue to keep an eye on growth.

Quigley added: “All this is based on the belief that if people are better informed, they’ll be more engaged. And if they’re more engaged, they’ll be more responsive to facts than innuendo or rumor or what they hear at the bus stop.”

Quigley pointed to this year’s contentious school budget process and the resulting fallout between members of the School Board and the Board of Supervisors. She called it a prime example of an instance in which the public was led astray by special-interest groups and emotions rather than relying on facts.

In coming months, the 12-member group plans to tackle issues related to the county’s comprehensive-plan process, the school and county redistricting processes and ongoing transportation issues. The members already met with the county’s elected leaders to explain their mission.

“I think it’s great any time citizens take an active interest in the government,” said Midlothian District Supervisor Daniel A. Gecker. “These are important times for the county, and the more people we get involved in making our decisions going forward, the better off we’ll be.”

“We’re not a little village anymore: We’re the fourth-largest locality in the state,” Quigley noted. “We need factual, up-to-date information that we can respond to as citizens.”

The coalition plans to launch a Web site and explore other methods of sharing information with a goal of unifying residents across the sprawling county.

“Sometimes we’re segmented by what’s in our own backyard and we don’t look too far beyond that,” Quigley said. “This is the best place I’ve ever lived. We have an unlimited ability to be anything and everything as a county, and we can only improve based on how well we engage as citizens.”

Wesley P. Hester is a staff writer for The Richmond Times-Dispatch