The Commonwealth Regional Council will regain an important member of its team effective July 1 because Cumberland County plans to reclaim its lapsed membership in the regional planning and economic development organization.

The Board of Supervisors is including the dues payment of $15,700, which hasn't increased since the CRC's birth in 2005, in the County's 2011-12 budget.

Excellent decision, Cumberland, and one that has been greeted with enthusiasm by the CRC, who will be able to count Buckingham, Cumberland, Prince Edward, Charlotte, Lunenburg and Amelia as its member counties.

That is good for the CRC and its mission, which means it is a helpfully positive thing for those localities because no county is an island entire of itself, as John Donne said of man.

If one locality suffers then we, as a region, are less than we were. If the people of one county lose their jobs then we are all diminished as a region.

Therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for all of us-but if we team up and pull the bell rope together we can turn a tolling bell into the soundtrack for our regional success story.

Cumberland's step is noteworthy and in the right direction.

-JKW-