Supervisors’ notebook

Construction and reduction
on county roads
VDOT Culpeper Residency Administrator Don Gore updates county officials on some of the projects in Orange County for which there is actually funding.
Construction on portions Route 619 is well underway, and Route 731 will be ready to pave within the next month, according to Gore. Route 696 is presently under construction and work on High Street in the Town of Gordonsville will begin shortly, he added. Similarly, Gore said paving on the road to Timber Truss is beginning.
Gore said VDOT crews have been busy responding to calls about downed trees blocking roadways as a result of summer storms. Citizens have also called with questions and concerns about VDOT mowing-or not mowing, rather. And last month, Gore added, VDOT assisted emergency responders with traffic control when a slate-laden tractor-trailer overturned and lost its load on Route 15 near Willow Grove.
VDOT is wrapping up signage studies at Routes 617 and 701, Gore said, and upgraded signs are already in place with more to come.
Lead-footed drivers take heed: speed limits on portions of Route 671 and Route 611 have been reduced to 45 miles per hour, according to Gore.

Guards at the guard rail
Supervisors learned that they can indeed employ inmates at the Central Virginia Regional Jail to collect rubbish on the roadsides. This information came as a result of a question from a meeting last month: supervisors wondered if the CVRJ could supply a useful resource for litter removal, providing a service that the largely unfunded VDOT wouldn’t.
Orange County Administrator Bill Rolfe said he’d checked with jail officials, and in fact, roadside inmate workforces were already offering clean-up services to other jurisdictions served by the CVRJ. For just $30 per hour, CVRJ will dispatch a van with a three to five-man crew, and an armed guard to oversee the whole thing.
But is public safety compromised if prisoners are out on the county’s highways and byways, and not behind bars and concertina wire?
Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairman Lee Frame said jail officials are highly selective when it comes to choosing the prisoners for roadside litter pick-up duty. Inmates convicted or charged with violent crimes stay locked up back at the jail, he said. It’s only the non-violent offenders, like those incarcerated for not paying child support, who are chosen for trash collecting detail, Frame explained, “as opposed to the people who are dangerous.“
Rolfe concurred, and added that the CVRJ implements highly effective deterrents to deviance and utilizes motivational measures to dissuade road-working criminals from making a break for it.
“That’s what the shotgun is for,“ he said.
Supervisors’ perspectives on the use of prisoners for highway clean-up were varied. In the end, while all agreed the $30 hourly rate was a bargain, the CVRJ’s service would be best used for specific spot-cleaning on an as-needed basis, they decided.
Arts Center tax status, Virginia Tractor shelf life
There’s good news for arts patrons and John Deere customers from last week’s meeting. Public hearings were held for The Arts Center in Orange’s request for tax exempt status, and for Virginia Tractor’s application for an extension on its about-to-expire special use permit.
The Arts Center, a not-for-profit complete with an official 501(C)3 classification, would seem a shoe-in for tax exempt status-and it was, according to supervisors. Neither board members nor county citizens chose to spoke on the matter, and tax exempt status was approved by the board unanimously.
The Arts Center in Orange joins a few other Town of Orange entities on the list of newly-approved, non-taxed not-for-profits, including the Orange County Historical Society, the James Madison Museum and out of town limits, the Orange County Fair.
About a year ago, Orange’s own John Deere dealer bought a nice piece of property on Route 15 near the Lee Industrial Park. Shortly after receiving board approval on a special use permit to build a new sales and repair facility, the unstable economy put Virginia Tractor’s plans into a holding pattern.
What the company requested from the board was an extension on the SUP which would push the permit’s expiration date out for four more years.
Orange resident Monk Sanford spoke only briefly during public comment, offering his support for Virginia Tractor and urging the board to approve the request for more time.
Unanimously, the board of supervisors approved Virginia Tractor’s application.