At their first meeting of 2024, the five-member Board of Supervisors in Greene County selected Marie C. Durrer to serve as chair and Davis Lamb as vice chair. The two have the most recent seniority as the three other members of the Board have just joined.
“First I want to welcome our new board members,” Durrer said. “We started tonight as official business, Mr. McGuigan and Mr. Goolsby and Mr. Lamb even though he’s been with us before, I want to welcome you as well back to the Board.”
Durrer was nominated by Steve Catalano who was appointed to fill a vacancy in the Stanardsville District last November following the resignation of former Supervisor Abbie Heflin.
Durrer herself was first elected to the Midway District in 2017 when she defeated incumbent Jim Frydl 867 votes to 858 votes. Frydl is now the county’s planning director and zoning administrator.
Both Lamb and Catalano received nominations for vice chair, but Lamb was selected for that position.
As soon as that vote was taken, Supervisors went into executive session to discuss personnel matters, the acquisition of real property for a public purpose, consultation over legal matters and current lawsuits.
During matters from the public, the Culpeper District’s representative to the Commonwealth Transportation Board appeared to ask to be put on a future Board agenda to discuss the recent approval of the 500-unit Blue Meadows development. Part of the development is within the Town of Stanardsville and the other is in Greene County and VDOT is concerned about a 3-2 vote last year to not request a third entrance to the new community. (learn more in the Greene County Journal)
“The development would generate approximately 4,670 additional vehicle trips to and from the development onto the adjacent street network,” said Darrell Byers. “That number of additional vehicles would create significant congestion and delays at the entrances and on U.S. 33 business if the development only has two access points.”
Byers said VDOT would support a third entrance onto the limited access section of U.S. 33. A majority of the Board has to agree to make a formal request to allow that connection.
The next four speakers called for additional scrutiny on the project to build a new reservoir at White Run. The last Board got an update on water supply planning efforts on September 26 and learned construction could cost as much as $100 million.
“How much money has been spent to date? How much more is approved? Are there outstanding invoices?” asked Jennifer Lewis-Fowler, speaking as a citizen and not as Greene County’s registrar. “Greene County citizens deserve accountability and transparency for all of its endeavors. If the county continues to move forward with the reservoir project, there are many concerns from one neighborhood’s standpoint which we will be raising at future meetings.”
Later in the meeting, Supervisors adopted their by-laws after a discussion about changing the public comment section to provide an opportunity for questions asked to be answered at the meeting. There also will be a change to allow speakers representing a group to have additional time yielded to them so they can make a presentation longer than three minutes.
Administrator Cathy Schafrik suggested returning to the vote at the next meeting with more precise language.
“One possibility is that you all could not vote on this tonight and redline and that way the verbiage is what you intend it to be,” Schafrik said.
Next, Supervisors were assigned to various boards and committees. Monroe District Supervisor Tim Goolsby will be the Board’s representative to the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. Goolsby was elected as a write-in candidate with 159 votes. He’ll also sit on the Planning Commission.
Francis X. McGuigan was elected in November to the at-large district with just under two-thirds of the vote. He will be the Board of Supervisors liaison to the School Board.
The three new members join the Board after the county created its own water and sewer department after leaving the Rapidan Service Authority.
“Since taking over from RSA, we have encountered some significant and unexpected challenges,” reads the website for the new department. “We were not able to obtain any customer data until transition, which meant we were unable to upload data, configure the billing system, or test in advance.”
Those challenges involved overcharging customers and having to make adjustments. Schafrik said the Board would soon receive a briefing.
“There will be at the next Board meeting on January 23rd a presentation from the water and sewer department specifically around the billing, so that’s coming,” Schafrik said.
Supervisor Catalano had several items he wanted to talk to the Board and began with a call to create one workgroup to review the county’s land use taxation and another to review business use and personal property taxes. He wants those to have met by the time the budget review begins.
Catalano and Goolsby will be on the group to review business taxes and Lamb and McGuigan will review land use taxation. After a motion to formalize those ad hoc groups, Catalano requested a work session.
“I would request that the Board schedule a work shop with staff regarding the formulation of the fiscal year 24 and 25 budget,” Catalano said. “I would like to make sure that the Board and staff are lockstep in kind of the general thought process of the budget for next year and also that perhaps the Board takes more of a front role in formulating that budget.”
Catalano said he wants the Board to interview staff about their requests. A meeting date was not scheduled at that time. Catalano also wants full Board review of every decision to be made about the water impoundment project.
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