TOP STORIES
Washington Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company turns to the internet to raise its profile and explain its role
By James P. Gannon
The Washington Volunteer Fire and Rescue company is breaking new ground in communicating with the public by launching a website to raise its profile in the community and explain the crucial role of volunteer emergency services in a small, rural county.
The all-volunteer Washington company, which began serving the community in 1939, leaped into the Internet Age this week with the launch of its website. The initiative reflects the company’s realization that many people in the community, especially relative newcomers to the county, don’t understand how volunteer emergency services work, what they do, and how they can be sustained.
The website was designed by volunteer Sylvie Rowand, using ideas, information and photos from officers and other members of Company 1, as the Washington volunteer company is known. Rowand worked for free and the website was created and launched at very little cost, she said.
“We wanted to have a presence on the web to let the community know what we do,” Rowand said. While the county’s volunteer fire and rescue services may be well understood by long-time Rappahannock residents, she said, “we have many new people moving into the county and they are unfamiliar with volunteer services….We need to reach out to these people who have not lived here for a long time and are not familiar with what we do and how we do it.” Read more »
Deadline to register to vote is Monday, October 6
Rappahannock County citizens who wish to vote in this year’s general election on Nov. 4 must be registered in the precinct in which they live by no later than 4 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 6.
Registrar of voters Nancy Newlin said the registration office, located on Gay Street in Washington, VA, adjacent to the Rappahannock County Court House, will be open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. this week.
For questions about eligibility and registration, call Newlin at (540) 675-5380.
Planning Commission begins to mull long-range planning to guide Rappahannock’s future
By James P. Gannon
The Rappahannock County Planning Commission, which normally keeps busy just reacting to proposals from citizens involving land use and zoning, is going to try to do something more ambitious–actual long-range planning.
While it might seem obvious that a planning commission would focus on planning, the fact is that this body of local government is normally preoccupied fielding proposals from local residents or businesses on specific land-use questions. But thanks to a relative lull in applications–partly due to current economic conditions–the commission wants to take a deeper look at trends that will shape Rappahannock in coming years and decades.
Such a longer-range focus may explore such issues as changing demographic trends–such as the “graying” of Rappahannock by aging of the population–and the impact of such trends, such as possible continuing decline in the school-age population and the increasing need for services for seniors, including greater demand for round-the-clock rescue squad services.
The Planning Commission began informally discussing ways to explore such issues at its monthly meeting Sept. 17. County Administrator John McCarthy noted that the county’s Comprehensive Plan must be updated every five years, and that work on the plan should begin next year.
The Comprehensive Plan spells out goals for the county regarding development and land use and serves as the basic blueprint for future growth. The current plan, adopted in November 2004, puts the question this way: “Where are we; where do we go from here; what do we become?” Read more »
Recession, Depression, or ‘What, me worry?’
How are you reacting to the credit crisis, Wall Street turmoil, Federal bailouts and financial woes? Cast your vote in our Financial Panic Poll, in the poll box at the bottom of the column on the left. Vote early (but not often), before The End comes.
Early voting begins in Virginia, but not yet in Rappahannock due to lack of ballots
By James P. Gannon
Voters in Virginia and some other states began casting ballots for president in the 2008 election this week, but the process has not yet started in Rappahannock County because printed ballots aren’t yet available.
Monday marked the official start of early absentee voting in Virginia but Nancy Newlin, Rappahannock County’s Registrar of Voters, said she is still awaiting the arrival of printed ballots, so actual voting is not yet possible here. Newlin said she expects to receive the ballots by early next week.
Asked what caused the delay, Newlin said the Richmond printing company producing the ballots is overwhelmed. “I ordered them in July, but the printer is overloaded,” she said. “I am sure he is working around the clock, but you can only produce so many at a time.”
Newlin said her office is taking applications for absentee ballots used in early voting, and she already has received more than 100 such applications, far more than usual. “That’s really high for Rappahannock,” Newlin said. “We have lots of applications from students–much more than we usually get from college kids.” Many voters in the military services also are applying now, she said. Read more »
Old sawmill site in Huntly to become business HQ for septic company, under application given OK by Planning Commission
By James P. Gannon
Seizing an opportunity to clean up a Rappahannock County eyesore, the county Planning Commission recommended approval of an application to convert a Huntly sawmill property to the business headquarters of a septic-system pumping business.
The planners voted unanimously Wednesday evening to approve a special exception for Chris Boucher of Hume, VA, to operate a contractor’s office, shop and yard on the property currently occupied by Dove’s sawmill. The 4.6-acre site fronting on Route 522 in Huntly is an unsightly jumble of rusted machinery, aged and worn buildings, piles of logs and scattered lumber and appears inactive.
Boucher, who lives and operates his business in Fauquier County, has contracted to purchase the property for $289,000 from owner Edith T. North, but the contract is contingent upon his receiving county approval to move his business, All Star Septic, to that site, at 1568 Zachary Taylor Highway.
The property has been rented to sawmill operator John Dove, who has agreed to vacate it by next December 1, according to information provided to the Planning Commission. Read more »