After explosive criticism from Farms POSF supporters, County Supervisors settle down, more or less, to its meeting agenda

Warren County Board of Supervisors Chair Cheryl Cullers opened Tuesday evening’s regular meeting open session by commenting on how pleased she was to see a good turnout of people present for the May 17^th meeting. By the time the Public Comments on non-agenda items near the meeting’s opening were interrupted to move into the 7:30 PM Public Hearings portion of the meeting, she may have had second thoughts on her greeting of at least a portion of that crowd.

Okay, this part of the crowd wasn’t problematic as the board acknowledged the County’s EMS workers for National EMS Week. Royal Examiner Photos by Roger Bianchini

For it appeared a number of them were there to question the Board’s reasons, methods, and motives surrounding issues related to a transferring of responsibility for direct management of Shenandoah Farms Sanitary District road and other maintenance projects away from the elected Property Owners of Shenandoah Farms (POSF) Inc. Board. The supervisors authorized advertisement for volunteers to be appointed to a Farms Sanitary District “advisory board.” It was 7 of 8 speakers, and then 5 of 6 writers of messages read into the record by Board Clerk Emily Ciarrocchi, who was highly critical of the board of supervisors in this regard. The other two addressed other issues.

But more on that in a forthcoming Royal Examiner story.

For now, we will focus on the meeting’s scheduled action items.

Public Hearings

The bulk of the evening’s action agenda was comprised of seven public hearings. Two, including an Ordinance Amendment to allow Conditional Use Permitting (CUP) of a “Day-Child Care Center (Nursery)” accommodating more than six children on Agriculturally zoned land, related to the Rivermont Baptist Church’s initiative to create such a child Day Care Center utilizing its existing Fellowship Hall building across Catlett Mountain Road from the church. A vacant lot across Figgins Road would also be used as a “non-commercial” playground and recreation area for the Day Care Center, the staff agenda summary noted.

A need to accommodate the use to serve working families in the Fork District was cited by the church in its permitting application. The County Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval of the church plan and use. The board followed suit with 5-0 votes of approval on both the ordinance amendment and Conditional Use Permitting for the church Day Care Center.

New Planning Director Matt Wendling, right, and Zoning Administrator Chase Lenz, explained various CUP requests to the board during seven public hearings.

Four CUP requests for Short Term Tourist Rentals were unanimously approved without Public Hearing Comment or opposition expressed by any neighbors. Those Short-Term Rental CUP requests, in order of presentation, were by:

Soloman A. Stavis at 9 Oak Hill Drive in the Oak Hill Subdivision in the South River District;

Jared Smith at 31 Henry Way in the Blue Mountain Subdivision in the Shenandoah District;

James B. & Jeonghe C. Lal at 280 Overbrook Lane in Shenandoah Shores in the Shenandoah District. During the presentation, it was noted that the Lals were Christian missionaries whose work in Malawi, Africa, took them out of the country for extended periods of time, during which they wished to rent the property on a short-term basis;

And the final Short-Term Rental CUP request was from Rocky Quach for the property at 524 Freezeland Road in the Cherry Ridge Subdivision in the Happy Creek District. During discussion of this Short-Term Rental request, it was noted that the applicant currently resides in San Jose, California, and would hire a “local property management company” to handle the operation and property maintenance. The rental focus would be aimed at families with amenities for infants, including high-chairs and a portable travel crib, made available as part of the rentals.

A final CUP request was from Richard W. Durkee for non-commercial Private Use Camping at two vacant lots in the Riverview section of the Shenandoah Farms Subdivision. The staff agenda summary explained that the applicant’s family has owned the lots in a Special Flood Hazard Area since the 1960s. The original home on the property was “substantially damaged” by Hurricane Agnes in June 1972 and consequently removed. Durkee’s CUP request would facilitate construction of a single accessory structure of up to 216 square feet for the storage of recreational and property maintenance equipment. Staff observed that the applicant “plans to have a recreational vehicle and utilize a port-o-john” while camping at the property seasonally.

Like the six public hearing requests before it, Durkee’s was approved on a unanimous 5-0 vote by the board.

Cardinals beer sales and property acquisition

If the public hearings went off without much, if any board discussion or any expressed opposition, not so for two other action agenda items. First was a Consent Agenda item pulled for discussion on the Valley Baseball League Front Royal Cardinals management request to be allowed to sell beer at Cardinal home games at the County-owned Bing Crosby Stadium. That led to a largely guesswork board exploration of the alcohol content of various beers and of putting a cap on the strength of beer to be sold at games. Walt Mabe suggested a 3.2% cap while admitting no background knowledge on relative strengths of beers.

During a May 10 work session presentation to the supervisors on the team’s plan, Cardinals Vice-President Alex Bigles noted that no higher alcohol-content craft beers would be sold, and extensive security and sales measures would be established to prevent overindulgence and impaired driving away from the stadium after games. Those measures included sales staff training on signs of intoxication, a limit of two beers per customer sale, available breathalyzer testing, and free bus rides from the stadium, as well as no beer sales after the start of the seventh inning of the nine-inning MLB developmental league games.

‘I thought we covered this at the work session a week ago,’ FR Cardinals Board President Donna Settle, seated, and Cards Vice-President Alex Bigles at the podium, may have been thinking after nearly a half-hour of grilling on beer strengths and sales dynamics by the board on what had initially been submitted by staff as a Consent Agenda item after in-depth discussion a week earlier.

As that discussion wore on Bigles noted the County had to approve the team’s request to sell beer to allow its state ABC (Alcohol Beverage Control Board) license to be applied for. A turnaround on ABC licensing of as much as a month was estimated by Cards representatives, who said they were pointing to a late June start of the new concession sales. With the board stuck on alcohol content guarantees, Interim County Attorney Jason Ham did a little research with his phone and told the board that mainstream U.S. brand name beers were rated at 5% or below.

After a half-hour of discussion and suggested adjustments to the presented Consent Agenda motion, board attorney Ham did a proxy reading of his rewritten motion into the record for the board. On Vicky Cook’s motion to approve the motion as read, seconded by Jay Butler, the board approved the Cardinals’ beer sales request at an alcohol content of “5% or less” by a 5-0 vote.

Then it was on to the final agenda item of the evening, authorization for staff to move forward on the purchase of an East 2^nd Street residential lot at a price of $212,000 that would complete County ownership of the block on which the Warren County Government Center (WCGC) lies. That led Delores Oates into a brief treatise on small government to justify a vote against authorizing the purchase. “We own too much property,” Oates reasoned in arguing against the purchase based on political ideology directed at shrinking governmental functions and apparently future property and space needs.

Delores Oates cited political theory favoring ‘smaller’ government in prefacing her vote against the purchase of a final piece of property on the WCGC block.

However, Board Chair Cullers pointed out that a state-mandated staff position was currently officed in a storage space in the WCGC, indicating an existing need for more space in the county governmental center complex, not less. Vicky Cook’s motion to authorize the purchase passed by a 4-1 vote, Oates dissenting.

And after two hours, the open meeting was adjourned at 9 p.m. See all the board’s business, including the latest chapter in the evolving story about the future of Shenandoah Farms Sanitary District project management and decision-making advise, in the County video.