September 2021 Board

Goochland supervisors got a look at the county’s new ladder truck before their September 7 board meeting. This apparatus will be used to save lives and protect property for all homes and businesses in the entire county. (Note to the commenter who contended that “a single mom with two kids” is paying for a ladder truck to protect Capital One buildings.  Cap One, whose 2019 value assessed value was 3.69 percent of the total value in the county, is Goochland’s largest taxpayer. Real estate taxes help pay for the county services provided to all residents. Local government services are not funded with fairy dust. All property owners pay the same tax rate.)

Items on the agenda included a resolution celebrating the life and community service of Lawrence Bolling Nuckols who represented District 4 on the Board of Supervisors from January 1972 to December 1991 and passed away on March 21, 2020. A native Goochlander, Nuckols began work at the ESSO gas station in Centerville when he was 14 and bought it a year after graduating from Goochland High School. He was a life member of Centerville Volunteer Fire-Rescue Company 3 and served as a magistrate/justice of the peace for eight years. Read the full resolution on page 109 of the September board packet on the county website goochlandva.us.

Goochland Fire-Rescue took delivery of a new tanker for Courthouse Company 5 earlier this year replacing a 20-year-old truck, which was donated to Charles City County. Jimmy Johnson, Charles City Director of Fire and EMS personally thanked the Goochland supervisors on behalf of the Charles City County officials for the surplus apparatus, which will fill a void in its emergency response fleet.

Johnson said that the timing was perfect as his organization badly needed a tanker. D. E. “Eddie” Ferguson, Jr. Goochland Fire-Rescue and Emergency Services Chief explained that members of the fire service work together throughout the region helping each other out as they are able. Johnson said that Charles City County will be there to reciprocate with mutual aid if needed.

Goochland Day

Interim County Administrator Manuel Alvarez, Jr. reminded everyone of the revival of Goochland Day on September 25. It will begin with a short parade on River Road West starting at 9:30 a.m. See https://www.goochlandday.com/ for complete details. Kudos to those who have worked through Covid to make this happen.

River Road sewage spill

Alvarez said that the Department of Environmental Quality issued no penalties on the county for the July 27 rupture of the Tuckahoe Creek Service District force main that dumped 300,000 gallons of untreated sewage into Tuckahoe Creek and the James River. The department of public utilities, said Alvarez, is working with a team of consultants to make sure that “something like this never happens again.”

VDOT

Marshall Winn, Administrator of the VDOT Ashland Residency, said that construction of the roundabout at the intersection of Rts. 522 and 250 should begin in the next week or so. This intersection is in Louisa County, out of Winn’s territory, but knowing that many county residents use to daily, promised to share construction information with Goochland.

Work on the Shannon Hill Road Bridge over I64 will be closed for up to 30 days. Signs for a detour work around will be posted.

County job fair

Goochland County will hold a job fair on Saturday, September 18 from 9-12 at the county administration building. See https://www.goochlandva.us/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=679 for details.

Consent agenda

The board unanimously approved:

Execution of the performance contract for fiscal year 22 and 23 between Goochland Powhatan Community Services and the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services. Go to https://gpcsb.org/ for details.

Appropriation of $100k from the utility capital improvement plan for engineering and installation of a pressure relief valve to improve water pressure for River Road water service was approved.

Amendment of the FY2022 budget to appropriate $108,000 for installation of Opticom systems, which change traffic signals to green for emergency vehicles on the last five intersections in the county. The funds will come from the county’s allocation of the Central Virginia Transportation Authority tax. VDOT will do the work. Opticom equipment on Rt. 250 and 288 and Rt. 6 and West Creek are funded by VDOT.

Amendment of the FY2022 budget appropriated $100,000 for engineering services to improve water pressure along River Road.

Broadband

The board enthusiastically approved a resolution for the county to participate in the Regional Internet Service Expansion (RISE). This will bring broadband to all unserved locations in Goochland by 2025. Goochland County project partners are Firefly; Dominion; Rappahannock Electric; and the Thomas Jefferson Planning District.

Redistricting

County Attorney Tara McGee gave the board an overview of the redistricting process following the 2020 federal census. According to August initial data, the population of Goochland grew by 13.9 percent to 24,727. Prisoners will now be counted at their last known address rather than the site of their incarceration. Complete data, including adjustment for relocation of prisoners, is expected by September 30.

Voting Districts will change following 2020 census results

Election districts, explained McGee, must contain substantially equal populations plus or minus five percent. Precincts, which assign addresses within their boundaries to polling places, must contain at least 100 and no more than 5,000 registered voters. Goochland currently has two precincts per voting district. As growth in the past decade was not distributed evenly throughout the county, there will be changes in both voting districts and precincts. Goochland must wait for state and federal districts to be drawn before making adjustments to county voting boundaries

McGee presented an anticipated timeline, which could change depending on each level of the process. If all of the other entities involved complete their processes in a timely manner, Goochland may be able to start drawing its districts by the end of November. She expects that a proposed redistricting map will be posted on the county website for citizen input. As with the bond referenda there will be community meetings about proposed district and precinct changes early in 2022. Redistricting could result in 2022 primaries behind held later than their traditional June timeframe.

Public Hearings

·        Repeal of county parade ordinance. Deferred to October 5.

·        Rezoning for property on Song Bird Lane in District 4. Deferred to October 5.

·        Addition of parcels on Song Bird Lane to the Tuckahoe Creek Service District. Deferred to October 5.

·        Approved a conditional use permit (CUP) for a detached accessory family dwelling on 10.66 acres at 1018 Manakin Road.

·        Approved a CUP for unhosted short term rental at 849 Broad Street Road.

·        Approved a CUP for Big Dawg Resources for a mining operation off of Shannon Hill Road.

·        Approved amendments of proffer and CUP for Allan Myers VA, Inc. for improvements to an asphalt plant at 5187 Ashland Road.

·        Approved applications to rezone land at the back of Parkside Village in the northeast corner of the county to permit additional RPUD homes, business, and industrial uses.

·        Application to include a parcel related to the above item in the TCSD deferred to October 5.

·        Unanimously amended the Zoning Ordinance to allow distribution centers with access connection to certain roads as a by right use and with a CUP without such access in M1 zoning and by right in M2 zoning. (See the September 7 board packet beginning of page 360 for details.)