Nelson agrees to fund additional Sheriff’s Deputy for speed enforcement

Since taking office as the Nelson County Sheriff on January 1, Mark Embry has made it a priority to keep public highways safe.

“The U.S. 29 corridor and the Route 151 corridor see the most law enforcement activity due to the amount of traffic that we see in those areas and we’ve seen the amount of crashes that have come through that,” Embry said. 

There were four fatalities on U.S. 29 Nelson County in August and Embry wants to step up enforcement activity. He needs the personnel to do it. 

“We are very fortunate and blessed to have a fully staffed office and that our deputies are doing the absolute best they can do,” Embry said. “But at the end of the day, the reality of it is they can’t be everywhere at one time.”

Embry said his deputies often get pulled away from traffic enforcement and so he asked for funding for a dedicated position that would only serve U.S. 29 and Route 151 during school hours. The position will begin on January 1, 2025. 

Last December, Supervisors rejected a request to install speed cameras in the school zones.  Central District Supervisor Ernie Reid voted for that initiative 

“Putting financial resources into the department, into staff, into having a physical presence instead of a camera and lights on these corridors is, I think absolutely the best that we could possibly do and I think that this would be money well spent,” Reid said. 

Funding for the position will come from forfeiture assets and court fines. The yearly cost for the position will be $76,426 according to a staff report.

Before you go: The time to write and research of this article is covered by paid subscribers to Charlottesville Community Engagement. In fact, this particular installment is from the October 10, 2024 edition of the newsletter. To ensure this research can be sustained, please consider becoming a paid subscriber or contributing monthly through Patreon.