Angelica Ramos
Contributing Writer
MONTGOMERY COUNTY – The Montgomery Board of Supervisors voted to approve the censure of District A Supervisor Sara Bohn on Dec. 16, 2024.
Bohn was censured during the Board of Supervisors meeting due to “the consistent failure of Board of Supervisors member Sara Bohn to attend in person, the meetings of the Board of Supervisors, as well as her absences from meetings of the Montgomery County Public Service Authority and of the New River Valley Community Services Board, to which she was appointed”, according to the resolution of public censure.
Many citizens spoke at the Board of Supervisors meeting in support of Bohn, stating how helpful she’s been as their representative as well as their opinions on this public censure.
“Very simply put,” Matthew Pickett, Montgomery County residents, said, “is that I used to have Sara as a representative and I have since I’ve moved to Riner and I feel strongly that you know 10,000 or 6,800 or whatever the voter count is and their families, their children who you ostensibly represent who cannot vote, they should be the ones that make that decision. That’s why we have elections, and I think it would be unfair for somebody that’s not in their district, who doesn’t vote for these people to effectively sort of limit their free speech, maybe not entirely, but somewhat. That just doesn’t seem like the most effective thing to do, and I think optically it just doesn’t make sense.”
Other residents said Bohn has been open regarding the struggles her and her family have gone through in the past year and expressed sadness and disagreement with the public censure.
“Just to remind you,” Cletus Bohan of Elliston said, “that life happens sometimes, and we can’t always help that, but we just have to go on and do the best we can. So, I ask you to please not chastise Sara Bohn for going through life.”
Chair Mary Biggs read the resolution of public censure aloud. Bohn was removed from the boards in which she was appointed to but is still on the Board of Supervisors and requests she be more active in the duties in which she was appointed for. Biggs did clear up some confusion from citizens regarding whether or not she’d be able to speak during meetings and not be able to vote. Biggs said Bohn will still be able to speak and vote.
“If my attendance is 90% or above,” Bohn said during the discussion regarding her public censure, “for all of my meetings I would think that that would be okay considering personal reasons that I’ve been going through for the last two years, the divorce that I’m going through with my husband which has been very difficult and I haven’t hidden that from you and I’ve always been an open book”
She went on to also say that she missed time due to a wedding in her family as well as a death in her family. Her family also went on a trip to visit relatives in foreign countries, which Bohn said only happens roughly every 20 years, this trip was not a frequent one and she was not in charge of the dates chosen for said trip.
“I didn’t think that it would be,” Bohn said, “that attending virtually, was a bad thing. Up until that point, no one ever told me that attending virtually was a bad thing.”
