Covington Newspaper General Manager Criticizes Alleghany Journal Editor   March 14, 2018 Dear Editor, First, please do me the courtesy of having this posted on the Alleghany Journal’s Facebook wall, as I have been unable to post there myself, for some unknown reason. In reading your recent editorialized coverage of the goings-on in Clifton Forge, I’ve got a question that I’m burning to know the answer to - for a guy who supposedly knows as much as you claim to know about all-things proper governance and how it should be correctly undertaken, why hasn’t your name ever appeared on a ballot for Clifton Forge Town Council or on something as simple as a volunteer committee assignment? Are you too good to pick up trash or give monetarily to a cause such as the Pink Tie Gala or volunteer to provide your many decades of “successful” business-owning experience to other small businesses who may be starting out and could really use that “winning formula” that’s made you so successful? In what little coverage I follow of yours, you seem to have an unhealthy (borderline creepy) obsession with Mayor Carl Brinkley and Town Manager Darlene Burcham that you don’t have with other area public officials. Is there some personal vendetta you have against these two individuals in particular? Is the way you cover Clifton Forge government an indicator of some sort of unprofessional animosity you have for the town and its leaders? If yes, why don’t you run for and get on town council and then you can really “show them” how things should be done and run “Darlene” out on a rail, if that is, indeed, your “end game?” I’m sure your “followers” are as curious as I am as to your end game as far as Clifton Forge Town Council is concerned. Do you want Clifton Forge to give up its charter and become something akin to Selma, an unincorporated community? Would you, then, want Iron Gate to follow suit and “give up” its charter? Maybe it’s none of my business, and it probably isn’t. From my seat here in Covington, I have learned the hard way what it’s like to put the reporters notebook down and actually have to be the one receiving the criticism and not the one giving it. It takes an actual leader to be the one receiving the criticism and not the one screaming at the wind from the outside looking in. Give it a try sometime. You’ll learn you’re not as omniscient as you seem think you are. Only My Best, David S. Crosier Amelia's Daddy!!!

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