County approves Lake FR road & drainage study, rejects other proposals

After a limited March 7^th meeting agenda comprised of only “Consent” items and a Closed Session after which two committee re-appointments were announced – Carol Kissinger to the Parks & Rec Committee and Stacey Wilson to the Youth Advisory Board – the Warren County Board of Supervisors adjourned to a work session.

Well, first there was a VDOT update:

• the mild winter has put the Morgan’s Ford Bridge construction ahead of schedule, although a wet spring resulting in high river flow could turn that around, VDOT’s Edwin Carter warned;
• some Guard Hill Road safety questions were posed by North River Supervisor Dan Murray, who also thanked Carter for VDOT’s cooperation on Warren and Frederick Counties joint desire to eliminate tractor-trailer traffic from Reliance Road.

And a public concern was expressed by Wells R. Bill about ongoing traffic safety issues on Browntown Road – “They are playing Russian Roulette with that road,” Bill told the board of speeding motorists and what he termed “an alarming” number of flare residue in the road recently indicating traffic accidents – at the meeting’s outset.

Well R. Bill tells the board that drivers are ‘playing Russian Roulette’ with speed on Browntown Road. Photos/Roger Bianchini

And one consent item was removed for discussion, a proposed $21,750 contract with Racey Engineering for a road and drainage study for the Lake Front Royal Sanitary District.  In response to a question, Assistant County Administrator Bob Childress said that only a portion of one subdivision road, Creek Road, was likely eligible to be considered to be taken over for maintenance as a state road by VDOT.  Childress also told the board that about 2 miles of Lake Front Royal’s 6.5 miles of roads were paved leading to extensive drainage issues on the remainder of the road system.

Told that $10,000 was included in the current lake Front Royal Sanitary District budget that could be applied to the project leaving only the $11,750 balance to be included in the coming Sanitary District budget cycle, the board unanimously approved contracting Racey for the study.

Then it was into a three-item work session.

Early tax payment discount

There was no enthusiasm for consideration of offering a discount for early payment of county taxes brought forward by Shenandoah District Supervisor Tom Sayre.  If not enthusiasm, there was some humor applied to the discussion.  Fork District Supervisor Archie Fox drew laughter when he opened the discussion by suggesting a 10-percent discount on early payments.

More seriously, Sayre said he was only thinking of a one percent, or even a half percent discount.

County Administrator Doug Stanley told the board that as far as he could tell, no jurisdiction in Virginia offered such an early-payment tax discount.  Sayre countered that some jurisdictions in his home state of West Virginia had offered them with some success in stimulating early payments.

County Administrator Doug Stanley, paper in hand, crunches the numbers on first of several work session items involving guess what – MONEY.

Stanley replied that there might be some benefit to smaller towns with a cash flow problem, but that for larger municipalities the negative impacts on budget preparation and unknown losses on projected revenue streams made the idea counterintuitive.

Seeing the lack of enthusiasm, Sayre suggested putting the idea on hold until his colleagues became “more comfortable” with the idea.

Chairman Linda Glavis replied, “I’m not comfortable – my question is, where do you make up the money?”

Fire & Rescue staffing study

Then it was on to results of staff’s looking into a staffing study for the entire County Fire & Rescue system, which includes 10 companies.  The notion of the study was generated by a January 3 work session discussion of staffing issues at South Warren Volunteer Company 3.

Stanley presented the board with four proposals received, ranging in cost from $21,750 to $46,500.  Happy Creek Supervisor Tony Carter noted that he had pushed the system-wide study idea forward; but had hoped for a cost of $5,000 to $6,000 at most.  With numbers four to nine times his anticipated cost staring him in the face, Carter told his colleagues of even the low end proposal, “At this price I’m not willing to proceed (with the outside study).  We have this info coming from our companies – and while I thought a set of outside eyes would be a good idea, not at this price.”

His colleagues agreed.

Town code initiative

During discussion of items for this month’s town-county liaison committee meeting, County Building Code Director David Beahm filled the board in on the Town of Front Royal’s initiative to establish a Property Maintenance and Rental Inspection Program.  At a February 13 work session a town council consensus appeared to be to proceed with establishing codes designed to protect renters and establish town-wide standards on property maintenance.

Beahm appeared at that work session to discuss logistics of the town’s idea.  At the March 7 County work session, Beahm presented the supervisors with an outline of what it would entail if the Town asked the County to handle its inspections.

“The council asked if the county would consider taking it on – I wanted to make you aware of that,” Beahm told the board.  He said the Town had estimated a 1-cent tax increase (real estate) to cover the cost of its code inspection program – “I think they might be a little light on that with staffing and the amount of work,” Beahm said of what he anticipated would be a two-position department were the Town to create its own.  At a recent town work session it was estimated that a half-cent increase would produce $55,000 of revenue, so the Town would be anticipating around a $110,000 cost based on those numbers.

Beahm noted that when implemented, the Town plan would place an additional burden on whoever’s attorney handled prosecutions based on the new code. – “Well, if it’s in the town it should be the Town attorney,” Glavis commented.

County Attorney Dan Whitten noted that when he had worked in Richmond there had been one full-time attorney attached to such code enforcement, of course that was in a 28-inspector department for a city with a population of over 200,000.

“It would make sense to take it on if it paid for itself,” Tony Carter said.

However responding to a question, Beahm said such departments generally do not pay for themselves.

County Administrator Stanley noted that “over 60 percent” of the town’s residences were estimated to be rental units.

Faced with these numbers, there was a general lack of enthusiasm for the idea of having the County Building Inspection Department take over the additional work tied to the Town Property Maintenance and Rental Inspection Program.

And just under an hour and half after the 9 a.m. meeting began, the REAL FUN began as following a short break the board entered a second work session – this one on the public schools and outside agency budget requests for the coming fiscal year – see related story to be posted shortly … numbers, more numbers ………