Ramsey boundary adjustment, school surplus, COVID-19 & tourism occupy county supervisors – and citizen asks to save the municipal golf course

On Tuesday evening, at its second regular, virtual meeting of May, the Warren County Board of Supervisors passed a Resolution denying local developer Chris Ramsey’s request for a 20-acre boundary adjustment into the town limits of Front Royal.

The May 19 vote appears to end a four-year effort, resurrected with new parameters last year, to facilitate residential development along Guard Hill Road with access to lower in-town water and sewer utility rates and lower developer utility connection or “tap” fees. The Town had endorsed the request in forwarding it to the County for consideration.

The Resolution cited the request as inconsistent with the County Comprehensive Plan call for continued Agricultural uses in the area; as unnecessary to accommodate recent in-town growth rates into the foreseeable future; and a likely creator of traffic issues on winding and hilly Guard Hill Road and its intersection with the Route 522/340 major north side entrance way into Front Royal.

Socially distanced members and staff present at WCGC listen to remotely connected member weigh in during May 19 Warren County Board of Supervisors meeting. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini

The vote to deny on a motion by North River District Supervisor Delores Oates, seconded by Cheryl Cullers, was 3-0 with two abstentions. Both Board Chairman Walter Mabe and Archie Fox abstained as they indicated they would at earlier work session discussion of the matter. Both Fox and Mabe have indicated potential conflicts of interest due to long personal and/or business relationships with Ramsey.

The Resolution declining the boundary adjustment noted the 2015 friendly boundary adjustment of Front Royal Limited Partnership’s 604 acres into town to facilitate coming residential development that adhered to state Urban Development Area guidelines of construction adjacent to existing residential and central utility access.

The potential of development of as many as 1200 homes there off Happy Creek Road on the town’s east side was observed to be able to accommodate in-town residential growth at the recent annual rate of 25 homes per year for “the next 25-50 years”.

Actually the County might have to amend that prediction to “the next 16 to 32 years” in the wake of FRLP principal David Vazzana’s amended development plan presented to the Town Planning Commission May 6. The new FRLP development proposal reduces the residential aspect to 400 to 800 units on 207 acres, with the remaining 397 acres proposed for alternate uses (see Royal Examiner’s early May story: “FRLP presents evolving development plan despite uncertain financial times”)

Whether it’s 25 to 50 years or 16 to 32 years, the county board feels the Town of Front Royal is good to go on land for residential development in the coming decades, which is why the County agreed to boundary adjust FRLP’s 604 acres into town over five years ago. This is a graphic from the FRLP presentation on its amended plan to the Town Planning Commission this month.

Finish A.S. Rhodes now, save money

Also on Tuesday, the board authorized the return of $1,076,200 in surplus Public School funds for the coming fiscal year. The Warren County School Board had requested a refund of the full $1,623,021 surplus from FY-2019. However, county staff’s initial recommendation due to negative revenue impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic crisis and use of $1.2 million of the County’s Fund Balance to meet the School’s current budget request, was the return of half those FY-19 reserves, or $811,511.

The approved amount adds $264,689 to that half surplus total to facilitate completion of the A.S. Rhodes Elementary School renovations currently underway. As staff noted in the agenda packet summary, “It does make sense to fund the full request for the A.S. Rhodes renovation project”. As previously discussed during work sessions, continuing renovations to completion now while contractors are on-site will reduce costs; and delaying completion into another Fiscal Year budget cycle will likely see higher costs in general tied to the remaining renovation work.

In the agenda summary County Administrator Doug Stanley explained that past boards have “encouraged WCPS (Warren County Public Schools) to conserve funds with the ability to have those returned for one-time capital purchases” and that “on a few occasions the schools have had to use them for operational uses”.

The vote to approve the return of the half-reserve amount with the additional funds to complete the A.S. Rhodes renovations, on a motion by Cullers, seconded by Fox, was unanimous.

COVID-19 matters

While the Town and County ponder attracting Northern Virginia tourists still dealing with state-ordered restaurant and other business closings due to their higher Coronavirus contamination numbers, testing of our own population still show relatively low numbers, but our first deaths from the pandemic.

The board also dealt with a number of Coronavirus pandemic-related matters Tuesday. They included the adoption of ordinances:

• “Deferring penalties and interest on certain Warren County taxes (real estate, personal property and machinery, and tools) until August 6, 2020”. This applies to taxes only that come due on June 5 this year. On August 6 a 10% penalty or $10, whichever is higher, will be imposed on those taxes that still have not been paid;
• Continuing the Emergency Ordinance declaration facilitating “continuity in the government of Warren County” during the pandemic crisis by authorizing electronic meetings without public attendance, but with the submission of public comments by electronic means for an additional 60 days as required by law. The initial ordinance was adopted on March 24. Responding to a question, County Deputy Emergency Services Manager Rick Farrall estimated a mid-June date when the governor’s Phase 2 reopening guidelines would kick in, perhaps facilitating a return to some semblance of publicly attended municipal meetings;
• Certified Board Chairman Mabe, County Administrator Stanley, and Chief Financial Officer Stimmel to execute receipt of federal Coronavirus Relief Funds (CRF) totaling $3,504,154 through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act approved by Congress and signed into law by President Trump. It was noted that “Counties must ensure that an equitable share of the CFR funds it receives are shared with and granted to each town within its jurisdiction” and that all involved municipalities’ portions “must be spent in accordance with the same requirements” and that “the same documentation must be retained for audit purposes”. (I’d like to cover the meeting where town and county officials discuss exactly what “equitable share” means.)

Tourism options reprise

At an approximate one-hour work session that began at 6 p.m., county officials heard Joint County-Town Tourism Advisory Committee Vice-Chair Kerry Barnhart’s PowerPoint presentation on options for the future of Tourism marketing in the community. It was a duplicate presentation to the one made to the Town the previous evening. See that presentation and Royal Examiner’s story on that Town work session in the related story “Town points toward Memorial Day weekend expanded East Main St. opening”.

Supervisor Oates suggests the County and Town sit down together on the front end of consideration of a future path on tourism in wake of Joint Tourism Committee Report, rather than waste time on unilateral discussions of a joint marketing effort.

Following Barnhart’s presentation, Supervisor Oates suggested a joint meeting of County and Town officials to discuss how best to proceed forward with a joint Tourism marketing strategy.

“My concern is we’re going to continue to chase our tails with going around in circles without having all the stakeholders in a room and confirming what it is we would all agree to,” Oates told her colleagues, adding, “And we need to do it sooner than later because I agree with Kerry that the circumstances of COVID have put us in a very interesting position where we actually can benefit from the folks that want to get out of the city and come into our area in the near future.”

There appeared to be a board consensus to proceed in that suggested direction to facilitate quicker movement forward on coordinated tourism marketing while localities to our east, in particular, remain in pandemic “Phase Zero” continued business closings due to the severity of the COVID-19 Coronavirus outbreak in Northern Virginia and the D.C. Metro area.

See these discussions and other business conducted, and electronically submitted citizen comments including an impassioned plea for the survival of the County’s municipal public golf course from Front Royal Golf Club Committee member Chris Lang, in the video, courtesy of Dewayne Coats, Warren County.