Fauquier County Supervisors and Staff
At the Fauquier County Board of Supervisor’s public hearing on 1/10/13, there were some notable items on the evening’s agenda.
The Board passed a resolution supporting Sunday Hunting on private property, a bill that was introduced and championed by Scott Lingamfelter in 2012 and which he is the co-patron in this year’s version of the bill in the General Assembly.
The Board also passed, on a 3-2 vote, a school bond adding over $4,000,000.00 to the Fauquier High School remodeling slush fund. This was quite a remarkable reversal of events. A little more than one year ago the Board of Supervisors AND the School Board promised all of the citizens of Fauquier County, in a very public debate, that they would not be spending another dime for this school remodeling effort for 15 years. Both Boards at the time said they would make the funds that were allocated work.
And to top that, when the members who would later vote against the school bond pointed out this new bond would not be the end of the slow bleed called the Fauquier High School renovation project, those who voted for this additional money could not refute the fact that the $4,000,000 will not be all the funds needed to complete this project.
Now one might think this meeting could not possibly have anything worse than our elected officials backing down on their solemn promise on the FHS renovation funding, but then one would be mistaken.
It is regretful that School Superintendent Lewis, who never saw an anti-bullying program he did not like, is no longer here. If he had heard the discussion by our leaders when they discussed the alleged merits of the BOS Resolution condemning Delegate Lingamfelter’s “Boneta Bill”, we are sure he would have recommended a course of reasoning less intimidating to the area’s farming community.
Center District Representative Granger, in an apparent swivet, led the indignant discussion by offering what could truly be called a threat. He stated menacingly that this bill, if passed, could change the land use tax assessment of farmers. He went on to say “The Boneta Bill” would make farmers no different than businesses in downtown Warrenton for taxation purposes.
Since it is the Board who decides county taxation requirements, this statement has a far-reaching affect. Of course, if this was the thought of just one supervisor, one could take some solace in the fact that there would have to be two other votes to make this taxation change a reality.
Any doubt about the seriousness of this threat was soon erased when every other Board member affirmed Granger’s rhetoric with hardy affirmations. “I agree with Chris” was heard several more times.
Since 1971, Virginia has sanctioned Agricultural and Forestal Districts for every county. The Virginia Department of Forestry states, on its webpage the purposes of land use tax assessments are:
Small farmers across the state, who are by all accounts, struggling to make ends meet, would be devastated by the loss of this land use designation.
Martha Moore, Vice President of Governmental Relations at the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation, in speaking to this issue, said “Without land use assessment the tax burden would increase so rapidly that the land would not be able to be used for agriculture or forest operations. There would be development at a rapid pace rather than at a planned pace.”
When told about Granger’s statement, “Boneta Bill” supporter Mark Fitzgibbons was incensed. He said of Granger’s statement “It is a threat. It is bullying and intimidation. This will only prompt the next pitchfork protest, but this time it won’t be with mock pitchforks. These supervisors need advice from adults, perhaps therapy, perhaps a spanking over the knee.”
When Delegate Lingamfelter’s office was contacted, they did not want to go on the record with a statement, but Delegate Lingamfelter did say he had assured all the Fauquier County Board Members they would, if desired, be given ample time to testify in Richmond before the Agricultural Committee, the committee deciding on the fate of the bill.
As of today, we have no word as to whether or not the Board will be taking this opportunity.
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Rick Buchanan
January 17, 2013 at 3:17 pm
Max,
I was there at the meeting also and I heard Granger say just what was reported by FFC.
I was also one of the four out of the five people who stood to speak on the issue that thought more time and study was needed to come up with both a complete and economical strategy to really complete the remodeling of this aging school. Two supervisors agreed.
I am a general contractor and I know when you cut a job up into pieces, the project costs more.
Think of it this way. While the economy was booming, Kettle Run was built for, I believe, $78 million. That is the entire school, including cafeteria, athletic fields, gym, auditoriums, classrooms, etc., etc. We have built a few classrooms at FHS for $32 million. We have wasted millions on natural stone walls, imported German terra cotta tiles that also require a special wall system, and my favorite, student lounges. Who the heck has time in high school to use a student lounge? I sure did not.
So I have an idea. Why not allow business to come into the county so we can get the government off the backs of homeowners and onto thriving businesses? Why not put service into service districts so we can have a place for those businesses? If we did that, we might be able to afford the architectural award-winning structure you seem to have in mind.
Now let me tell you the dirty little Fauquier secret. We don’t have service for business because the PEC and the CFFC don’t want it! And they run the county. They would rather strangle the county’s revenue base, ergo the school budget, to keep more humans out of the county. More people in the county – less land to chase the foxes. Besides, those dirty humans ruin the viewscape.
jcivitas
January 17, 2013 at 1:19 pm
Max,
You may be right about the goals of PEC; they seem to figure out all kinds of ways to keep people from coming to Fauquier County.
We can’t speak for the Supervisors or the School Board; we can only report and comment on what we hear from them regarding schools, or any other issue.
What we have said about the schools is that the FHS renovation did not need to include LEEDS standards, and things like expensive German tile on the outside facade to provide a quality education for County children.
The majority of the School Board and the previous Superintendent disagreed, and proceeded to expend a tremendous amount of money that does nothing to further the education of our kids.
We believe the schools should teach academic courses, vocational and technical courses, Agricultural courses, whatever; but leave the social diversity, tolerance, and all the other political social agenda curriculum out of the schools. Do you agree?
We would tend to agree that Chris Granger is a huge improvement over Terry Nyhous, but on this issue we believe he is wrong.
He is attempting to scare farmers by telling them their tax advantage will go away if a farmer is allowed to sell products on their farm incidental to agriculture.
Please explain how that is going to happen?
All the forces aligned against farmer’s rights keep saying someone is going to open a used car lot, or a furniture store, or any number of straw man arguments. The 50% rule in the bill prevents this, and enforcement is no more difficult than the current zoning laws that the county seems to have no problem [over] enforcing.
Hope that isn’t too terse for you.
Please reply.
Max Williams
January 17, 2013 at 10:41 am
Lee District farmer here again. I attended the BOS meeting last week, as I have heard so much on this site. I will respectfully disagree with some of the statements made above.
Having lived and worked here for a long time, I find it nice to have a sup who gives a dang about schools. The last BOS and SB left us a pile of dung that someone had to clean up. It seems that my and the Cedar Run sups opinion of schools line up with the PEC and CFFC–”keep the schools marginal and nobody will want to come here.” It also seems this may be the point of view of the FFC?
I also have to call your reporting of the land use taxation statements made by Granger. I heard him say that he worried that if the bill passed, Richmond would be back next year to take away the ability of a county to offer land use. I’m not a rocket scientist, but I do know that Richmond sets the rules a county uses for this tax break.
I did some checking and found out that of the current .97 tax rate, about .17-.18 go towards land use. That means the tax rate would be .80 if Fauquier did not offer land use–also found out Richmond allows a county to offer or not offer this. I’m guessing the sup who does not have a farm in the district, would be re-elected for life if he cut his town folks taxes by .17 (20%)! So I have to ask, why is it a problem that he is worried about not being able to offer this incentive to folks like me?
I will stand by for a terse response like last time, but had to ask the questions. I’ve seen all of this before and it seems that FFC and PEC have some things in common–keep the schools down and only worry about the big guys? Welcome to Fauquier.
Gregg Jones
January 17, 2013 at 8:19 am
Its obvious Fauquier County is getting a lot of attention that is not wanted. Only the voters can remedy this. How many lawsuits are now filed against Fauquier?
mike hawkins
January 16, 2013 at 11:27 pm
Sounds like a 6 year old throwing a temper tantrum well if this goes thru I’m gonna I’m gonna take my toys and go home(raise our taxes) well yall can roll on and don’t let the pitch fork hit you in the ass on the way out yall have bitten off WAY more than you can chew!