Frederick and Warren officials meet with citizens impacted by boundary mistake

Warren County Board Chairman and impacted North River District Supervisor Dan Murray offers a friendly hand to Assistant Frederick County Administrator Jay Tibbs as Opequon District Supervisor Robert Wells watches. Photos/Roger Bianchini

It appears a Frederick and Warren County “border war” will be averted – not that any threats of such were hurled during a February 28 meeting of officials and citizens from both counties. However, some tension was detectable among residents of the Foster Hollow Road area straddling the county line during a late Thursday afternoon meeting at the Warren County Government Center.

“I figured Warren County would fight for us in this,” Pat Grizzle said of her and husband Joe’s desire to remain the Warren County residents they thought they were.

“But the reality is you were never in Warren County,” Warren County Administrator Doug Stanley, who presented a power point overview of the situation to open the meeting, pointed out. Also involved in the discussion was Assistant Frederick County Administrator Jay Tibbs.

“So, what’s going on – are we going to be changed or are we going to be staying where we’re at? What’s going on, we’d like to know,” Joe Grizzle said of the predicament he and wife Pat, along with about 10 others present and some not able to attend because of work schedules, now find themselves in.

The predicament is that some residents of the neighborhood accessed by Foster Hollow Road from the Frederick County side who have believed, in some cases for generations, that they live in one county have now been told they live in the other.

The inaccurate platting of the parcels was discovered in the run up to the November 2018 election when county registrars realized a number of people in that neighborhood were voting, not only in the wrong precinct, but in local elections in the wrong county.

“I want to keep voting, but if you don’t know anything about them you’re just taking a guess,” Carroll Hawes said of the predicament he found himself in last November when informed he should be voting – not to mention paying taxes and accessing services – from Frederick County.

John D. Christian Sr. is on the other side of the equation from Hawes, having lived his life believing he and his family were Frederick County residents and are now being told they are not. Christian noted a long family history tied to Frederick County and expressed a strong desire to maintain that tie.

“I thoroughly understand this is an emotional issue – this is what you attach yourself to, if you’re a resident of Frederick or a resident Warren and somebody sends you a letter saying we’re moving your precinct and you’ve got to change,” Warren County Administrator Stanley observed of the passion tied to impacted citizen comments.

Warren County Administrator Doug Stanley summarizes where the impacted Foster Hollow Road neighborhood is, and isn’t legally at this point in time.

Stanley noted Warren went through a similar situation on its southern side with Rappahannock County several years ago. And it took about three years to create a winding boundary adjustment giving and taking property (and tax revenue) to and from both counties in order to accommodate citizen desires to be where they believed they had been for years.

The Frederick-Warren situation apparently arose years ago when one or several large parcels straddling the Frederick-Warren County line were subdivided initially, and for some involved to this day, among family members.

So while the county line created in 1836 when Warren County was established has never changed, subsequent subdividing of original large parcels along the boundary put all or portions of newly created lots in the wrong county. It was observed that boundaries were once established by how many steps a surveyor’s horse took around properties in question, while now cameras on satellites in space that can provide details into homes on involved properties – a notion that brought a shudder from some present – have created a Global Positioning System (GPS) verifiable at the cutting edge of multiple technologies.

But in the end it is a human problem that humans must solve.

And in this case it appears both Warren and Frederick County officials are willing to work toward a solution similar to the one Warren and Rappahannock worked out.

When it was noted that Frederick County might lose some tax revenue – $15,000 was mentioned as a possible amount – from accommodating the wishes of all impacted citizens in both counties, Frederick County Supervisor Robert Wells, whose Opequon District is impacted by the miss-platted parcels told those present, “It’s not about money – our intent is to do what we can legally do without impacting you people.

“It sounds like a great solution,” Wells said of a plan to adjust the boundary in a manner accommodating the wishes of those on both sides of the line who have believed and been treated legally in the past as if they were on the other side.

Wells and his counterpart on the Warren County side, North River District Supervisor Dan Murray agreed to take the case for the suggested solution accommodating citizens wishes to be readjusted into the county they have lived their lives believing they were in, to their respective boards.

It was noted that public hearings on a boundary adjustment proposal will have to be held by both county boards of supervisors. When a mutually satisfactory solution is approved by both boards, the boundary adjustment will then have to be approved at the Circuit Court level.