Supervisors Tackle Light Agenda — But First There Were Public Comments on Non-Agenda Items (hint – public reading material)

Before the Warren County Board of Supervisors headed into what at least appeared to be a fairly routine agenda, with three “Unfinished Business” items — delayed votes on two Conditional Use Permits on Short-term Tourist Rental applications and renewal of the “Animal Impound Agreement” with the Humane Society of Warren County and its Julia Wagner Animal Shelter — there was the matter of Public Comments on County business not on the evening’s agenda.

And what 20 citizens rose over the course of the one hour of time allotted to such comments was the board majority’s decision to only partially fund Samuels Public Library for the coming fiscal year due to the call for the removal of 134 books by the “CSL” group (CleanUp Samuels Library) of 53 members and like-minded, often self-identified local Catholic Church-based, supporters over allegations of pornographic sexual content.

At issue for the 20 Public Comments speakers, all of whom indicated support of full library funding, was whether the content of the cited books is actually pornographic or simply deals with alternate sexual identity issues that children at or approaching puberty may face in their teen years. And the judgment of a number of speakers, some citing the reading of entire books at issue in the CSL removal effort, was that rather than pornography, the books they encountered offer life-affirming emotional support to children who may from internal developmental patterns as opposed to outside grooming, self-identify as an emerging part of the “LGBTQ+” community.

Several speakers emotionally referenced past suicides of loved ones facing those sexual identity issues from the very lack of cultural and emotional support they believe the CSL group is now trying to remove from the community’s public library. The sixth speaker Kelsey Lawrence (20:25 video mark), read a letter from Bridget Randolph on the loss of her sister Rose to suicide at age 19 over, at least in part, just such issues. (see that letter in our OPINION page, Letters to the Editor, under the header “Every human being deserves to be educated in the truth“).

Kelsey Lawrence arrives at the microphone to represent what she termed ‘two strong women who were unable to speak for themselves’ at Tuesday evening’s meeting. See the text of that letter in our Opinion section as referenced in text of story. Below, Samuels Library supporter Stevie Hubbard is apparently not a supporter of ‘political consultant’ Thomas Hinnant, believed to be pictured on her T-shirt commenting on the $20k Delores Oates paid Hinnant for work on her campaign for state delegates seat.

Local activist Stevie Hubbard opened the Public Comments portion of the meeting at the 3:30 mark of the linked County video. She was wearing a T-shirt that read “Got $20k? — Delores Oates does” with a jail mug shot of a person believed to be Oates’ state delegate campaign consultant Thomas Hinnant at a younger age. As has been previously reported by Royal Examiner, Oates paid Hinnant $4,000 a month between January and May of this year after Hinnant contributed $500 to her campaign fund last year. Since landing here last year, Hinnant has been vocal in supporting the book removal initiative and in opposition to the SVGC rezoning application of Richard Runyon. Hubbard critiques Mr. Hinnant and Ms. Oates relationship to him at the 4:30 linked video mark.

See all the Public Comments between the 3:20 and 1:05:20 marks of the County video. And while several speakers urged the supervisors to approve full funding of the library budget that night, no action in that regard was added to the evening’s agenda.

Agenda items business

In its regular business, the supervisors approved two Short-Term Tourist Rentals they had delayed votes on from the June 27 meeting pending receipt of property management plans. Those CUP applications, from Yesl Cho and Roman Semenov, were both approved by unanimous votes in the wake of receipt of those property management plans.

There was a great deal of discussion regarding the Warren County Sheriff’s Office’s (WCSO) involvement in its Animal Control Department’s aspect of animal impound related to Humane Society of Warren County (HSWC) operations of its Julia Wagner Animal Shelter as the County’s animal impound facility. The primary issue appeared to be that the county government assure that the WCSO “initiate good faith training” of its Animal Control operations. Sheriff Butler has broached the idea of eliminating Animal Control as a department and simply dispatching the closest available deputies on duty to animal-related calls. Whether that is even allowed by state code has been an issue of discussion.

Ms. Oates noted that with the sheriff being an elected position, rather than appointed like the town police chief, the sheriff’s department is essentially an independent entity that “makes its own rules” on training standards and operations, albeit while being largely financially dependent on the county government. But in the wake of the HSWC signing off on the adjusted agreement, on a motion by Ms. Oates, seconded by Mr. Mabe, the board unanimously approved the updated the Animal Impound Agreement with HSWC. See that discussion beginning at the 1:31:10 video mark.

A seven-item Consent Agenda was also approved after three items were pulled for additional discussion. Pulled for discussion prior to their approval were: Amend Board of Supervisors Policies and Procedures; Approval of the Virginia Department of Aviation’s 2022 Master Agreement on Terms and Conditions for Accepting State Aviation Funding Resources; and Award Recommendation for 5 New Asset Replacement Vehicles for Sheriff’s Department. Those somewhat extended board/staff conversations come after the 1:42:00 video mark where Chairman Cook calls the Consent Agenda to the floor — dare you.

Click here to watch the Board of Supervisors Meeting of July 18, 2023.