Greene Supervisors to review what went wrong with water bills 

The second meeting of the Greene County Board of Supervisors will begin at 5:30 p.m. with a closed session followed by an open session at 6:30 p.m. They meet in the public room in the administration building in Stanardsville. (agenda)

Three of the five members on the Board are relatively new to office, though Steve Catalano of the Stanardsville District has served as a Supervisor before. He and the two newcomers elected in November are promising more scrutiny on spending and have a new set of eyes on the county’s plans to build a reservoir at White Run. I wrote a brief summary of their first meeting.

After matters from the public, there are two public hearings. The first is for a special use permit for a home business at 287 Welsh Run Road. (staff report)

The second is for the Planning Commission’s recommendations on the five year Capital Improvement Plan. In September, the appointed body adopted a list of 12 priorities with the the White Run reservoir being the top one followed by improvements to the water distribution system in Stanardsvillle.  

All of this would cost money and the CIP is a way of getting a handle on the finances. The current draft anticipates nearly $346.9 million over that time, which would no doubt require additional revenue from local taxpayers. 

Next will be a presentation from Davenport Public Finance on utility billing in Greene County’s nascent Water and Sewer Department. The department is blaming a lack of cooperation from the Rapidan Service Authority for failing to help prepare the county for its takeover on June 23, 2023. 

“Well before the changeover, the County had requested user information in order to prepare for the impending changeover; however, that request was never fulfilled,” reads the presentation. “The only data RSA provided the County was the final read data from June, and a supposed list of active customers/meters.” 

The presentation documents what went wrong and what Davenport has done to help correct errors. There’s a very detailed description of how billing works and what steps have been taken to get back to a 30 day billing cycle. (view the presentation)

Other items from the meeting:

• The consent agenda contains a request to seek a federal RAISE planning grant to help identify a parallel road network to U.S. 29 in Ruckersville. (staff memo)
• Supervisors will officially adopt by-laws which included changes to public comment periods. (resolution)
• There’s a resolution of support for pre-application for potential Smart Scale applications for Greene County including a Restricted Crossing U-Turn Intersection at U.S. 29 and Route 616 (Carpenter’s Mill Road). The other would make changes at the intersection of U.S. 33 and Greenecroft Boulevard. 

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