Warren follows Frederick in approval of boundary adjustment

Warren County Administrator Doug Stanley points to a map indicating what was, and will now be following joint county approval of a boundary adjustment agreement between the North River and Opequon Districts of Warren and Frederick Counties. Royal Examiner Photo/Roger Bianchini . Video by Mark Williams.

After hearing from people on both sides of the county line, all urging them to approve the submitted Warren-Frederick County Boundary Adjustment as presented along Foster Hollow Road, the Warren County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the suggested agreement.

The unanimous vote accommodating the wishes of people who have incorrectly been listed in and paying taxes to, schooling children in, and voting in one county and state electoral district while actually being in the other for decades and sometimes generations, was achieved with less effort than on the other side of the municipal government divide.

Discussion indicated an earlier 4-3 split in favor of the agreement by the Frederick County Supervisors. Warren County Administrator Doug Stanley said the dissenting votes in Frederick came from elected officials who appeared to favor not changing a straight county line apparently lost to surveyors for over half a century that has at least theoretically been in place since Warren County was created out of a division of existing counties, including Frederick about three centuries ago.

However in the end the municipal majorities on both sides of the county line adhered to the expressed wishes of impacted residents whose community ties, while perhaps legally mistaken, were deep emotionally and in some cases professionally.

The boundary adjustment must now be forwarded to involved circuit courts for judicial approval.

One speaker who had long believed he had been a Warren County and Sixth State Congressional District resident and voter all his life, Sammy Campbell, told this reporter following the meeting he hopes the judicial approval comes quickly so he can vote in the upcoming November election for candidates he is familiar with.

See the public comments, board and staff discussion and vote in this Royal Examiner video: