Board of supervisors notebook

Help wanted?
Springsted, the professional headhunting firm who’s located a number of department heads for Orange County government in the past, has provided an estimate for what it could cost taxpayers to fill the county administrator’s position.
The process of searching for, interviewing and ultimately hiring a county administrator is more detailed and extensive than what’s been involved in hiring department directors, Springsted, Inc. Senior Vice President John Anzivinio explained to supervisors. Therefore, a $13,250 amendment to the firm’s current contract, (plus an anticipated $4,800 worth of reimbursable expenses), would be required before Springsted embarked on the search for a new county administrator.
But supervisors weren’t ready to ink that amendment, they said.
District 3 Supervisor Teel Goodwin said coughing up the additional $18,050 would further strain county finances. And anyway, there’s a perfectly good candidate (acting director of parks and recreation, of economic development, of human resources, of tourism and assistant county administrator and acting county administrator Julie Jordan) already performing those duties.
“I’m quite happy with who we’ve got as county administrator,“ Goodwin said.
But beyond the additional expense Springsted has proposed, the actual process of using a professional firm to find the next administrator may not be the best method, according to District 2 Supervisor Zack Burkett. The best candidate, Burkett suggested, may actually be someone who already lives in Orange, and who is already quite familiar with the county’s individual needs and challenges.
District 1 Supervisor Mark Johnson proposed deferring the entire issue until the first of the year. There will be two new supervisors then, he said, which could make for a majority-one way or the other-in conjunction with Burkett, Goodwin and board chairman Lee Frame’s position on the matter.

Stick it and ticket
Windshield decals on landfill-bound cars are working well to distinguish county resident-owned cars from non-Orange vehicles. But those Orange County-stickered cars are collecting parking tickets and causing unintended consequences for car owners parked in Northern Virginia.
Burkett said he’s heard from folks who weekend in Orange but park their wheels in NoVa for the work week. Metro cops spot that Orange windshield decal on cars parked in DC and urban areas, and whip out the ticket book to issue violations. Up there in the Beltway area, there are rules for parking - locals are permitted certain parking privileges and conversely, restrictions and out-of-towners are bound by another code of who-parks-where.
So what’s a trash-toting, suitcase-community member to do? What’s the best way to mark a county property owner as someone with the legal right to dump their trash in Orange (even if they only live here part-time)?
Apparently, a simple trip to the treasurer’s office can yield a special paper-pass that’ll get folks into the landfill. In fact, those green sheets of paper which verify county landowner status have been available for years. But stickers and paper permission slips aside, flashing a driver’s license at the gate will still get taxpayers in, too.

Same time next year, maybe
Christmas isn’t cancelled, but an idea for an exhilarating, large-scale, town-wide, holiday flashback to the magical season of days of yore, Old World Market event is officially a no-go for 2009.
A couple weeks back, District 4 Supervisor Teri Pace announced a Tourism Roundtable brainstorm session had developed into a plan for grand Old World Market idea as a celebratory (and unconventional, yet still commercial) means of making merry at Christmastime. Pace said an exponentially expanded Orange Farmers Market, with cocoa and hot cider stations, caroling and hall-decking, light-stringing and craft-selling could prove to be the county’s next yuletide tradition coinciding with the existing tree-lighting ceremony and Christmas parade.
But at last week’s board of supervisors meeting, Jordan said an adequate number of vendors had not signed on in time; thus the grand production ala Currier and Ives would not happen this year.
That’s not to say the Grinch has stolen Christmas from Orange, of course. Jordan said there will still be Farmers Market, predictably with Christmas-specific wares and goods, décor and victuals. Santa is still booked for an appearance at the Orange Train Station. And a multi-choir choral performance, candlelight tours at Montpelier, parade and tree-lightings, among other things, should sufficiently herald the official arrival of the holidays in Orange-Old World or not.

Rounded down
County officials aren’t satisfied with figures used to estimate what proffers might come to them as a result of a mixed-use development proposed for the Town of Orange’s Round Hill property. At last week’s meeting, interim Orange County Planning Director Debbie Kendall said there were “flaws in the assumptions” in a financial impact analysis prepared by project planners.
County staff prepared an independent fiscal analysis of the proposed development’s anticipated revenues and impact on county services, and arrived at an entirely new and somewhat less rosy set of figures, Kendall said. The county’s analysis’ of estimated meals tax, equipment tax and personal property tax revenues were about 44 percent lower than what project planners had estimated. Round Hill planners calculated personal property tax revenues using higher valuation figures than are used by county assessors, she said, and housing values used in the project’s financial analysis were apparently 20 percent higher than the area’s current values. Kendall said while planners estimated about $3.5 million in revenue annually, the analysis she prepared resulted in a lower figure, only $2.5 million.
Round Hill developers’ projected expenditures varied from the numbers calculated in the county’s own financial analysis, too, Kendall explained. When county staff ran the numbers using its own totals for forecasted revenue, the resulting totals altered the estimated cost for county services, she said.
“The approximate net fiscal impact of Round Hill shows the development will likely cost the county more than $500,000 per year,“ Kendall explained.
Acting Orange County Administrator Julie Jordan said county officials will discuss their calculations of the Round Hill project’s potential effects on county finances before Orange Town Council votes on a rezoning that would allow the development as planned.