Warren County Board of Supervisors candidate raises questions about new fire & rescue station

Leslie Mathews, candidate for South River District Board of Supervisors ask questions about the Rivermont Community Replacement Fire and Rescue Station. Phot and video by Mark Williams, Royal Examiner.

FRONT ROYAL — Leslie Mathews, a lifelong Warren County resident and one of three candidates running to fill the county’s South River District Board of Supervisors seat in the November election, asked sitting supervisors to explain some of the details around a soon-to-be-built fire and rescue station.

“With your approval of the construction and the groundbreaking of the new $5.6 million Rivermont Fire Department, I have some questions,” Mathews said during the public presentations comment period of the supervisors’ June 18 meeting.

Mathews is referring to the new Rivermont Community Replacement Fire and Rescue Station, a 15,250-square-feet facility that will be constructed on a 5.7-acre parcel of land at the corner of Rivermont Drive and Stokes Airport Road near the Front Royal-Warren County Airport.

The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously at its March 5 meeting to award the construction contract to H&W Construction Company Inc., which bid at a total price of $5,602,198.25. The board members also authorized County Administrator Douglas Stanley to execute the contract on the county’s behalf and approved funding for the project, including 5 percent for contingencies amounting to $280,110.

The supervisors’ approval was subject to final approval of the project and site plan from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which gave Warren County staff clearance for the project during the week of April 22, according to the Board of Supervisors’ May 7 meeting minutes.

Stanley explained during a Sept. 18 regular supervisors meeting that the well for the facility already had been drilled at the fire and rescue station’s planned location. And he reported that the county had submitted a Notice of Proposed Construction or Alteration to the FAA to approve the project due to the property being part of the Airport Layout Plan and having been purchased in the 1990s using Virginia Department of Aviation grant funding.

The Virginia Department of Aviation requires that the county reimburse the state 80 percent of the fair market value for the land. Warren County has requested that the department waive that requirement as the fire and rescue station will provide services to the airport. If the county’s waiver request isn’t approved, then Warren County may have to pay the state for the land, Mathews said, citing public reports.

Mathews then presented her questions to the Board of Supervisors and publicly for the record. She asked:

1. “Did Warren County receive permission from the FAA to remove this property from the airport’s layout plan?

2. “Did Warren County reimburse the state 80 percent for the fair market value of this property?

3. “What is the reimbursement costing the Warren County taxpayers?

4. “Is or was the reimbursement an additional amount to the $5.6 million?

5. “Was Warren County given the $40,000 from the Rivermont Fire Department when it recently sold its old location to a local builder?

6. “Why were Warren County tax dollars used in the summer of 2018 to drill a well on this property when the county did not even own it?

7. “Does Warren County now own this property lock, stock and barrel while the construction of the new Rivermont Fire Department is currently happening?”

“I’d like to have all seven questions answered,” Mathews added. “I would very much appreciate that. I’m very concerned” about this situation.

“We’ll make sure we get the answers to you. I’m not sure it will be this evening,” Board Chairman Daniel Murray responded.

Board of Supervisors Meeting June 19, 2019

In fact, the board did not answer her questions during the remainder of the Tuesday meeting, but Mathews passed along her email so that board members could respond to her directly.

In general, the new one-story fire station will have three drive-through bays, overnight accommodations, community meeting space — to house the Fork District polling/voting location, among other uses — and additional support space for the countywide fire and EMS response system and volunteer station needs.

The Warren County Department of Fire and Rescue Services and Rivermont Volunteer Fire and Rescue held a June 13 groundbreaking ceremony for the station, which has a projected life span of 50 years, according to fire officials, who said the joint capital improvement project has been developed to meet the critical needs of both the Rivermont community and to address the safety concerns of the deteriorating conditions of the existing station.

The needs of the fire and rescue operations also have outgrown the existing station, which is not adequate to support career staffing or overnight volunteer staffing activities, fire officials said.

The Royal Examiner’s camera was there: