By Heather Michon
Correspondent
As we head toward what is sure to be an action-packed 2025, let’s take a look back at some of the biggest stories from 2024…
School book committee
Late in 2023, a resident submitted a list of books in the Fluvanna County High School Library as inappropriate for children. In January 2024, the School Board approved citizen representatives to sit with school librarians and educators on the Learning Resources Review Committee to decide if these books should be removed from the collection. After almost a year of reading, meeting, discussing, and debating a total of 16 young adult titles, the committee voted to keep 15 of them on the shelves. Only one book, Elana K. Arnold’s award-winning What Girls Are Made Of, was recommended for removal from the library–and even then, the members asked that it be kept in the counselor’s office as a teaching resource.
Solar struck down
As large-scale solar fields sprout up all over Virginia, Fluvanna has joined a group of rural counties in bucking the trend toward renewable energy. In March, the Board of Supervisors directed the Planning Commission to remove utility-scale solar projects as an approved use on agricultural land and created a joint committee to develop new ordinances for future projects. In October, the supervisors approved the creation of a special zoning district for solar. They also adopted a set of ordinances so restrictive that developers will find it nearly impossible to win project approval. Whether this is the end of the story for utility-scale solar in Fluvanna may depend on what happens in the upcoming legislative season, with the General Assembly likely to debate several new bills that could restrict local control over solar development at the state attempts to meet the goals set in Virginia Clean Economy Act to move to zero-carbon emission by 2050.
Plane crash
Fluvanna County made national headlines in May under tragic circumstances. Early on May 5, a private plane flying from Washington to Hilton Head, South Carolina, suddenly crashed in a wooded area off Miles Jackson Road near Wilmington. Rescue crews from Fluvanna and surrounding jurisdictions rushed to the scene. They found pilot John W. Latham, 63, of Haymarket, Va., and passenger Niiben C.A. Ayivorh,73, of Burke, Va., both killed on impact. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is expected to release a final report on the cause of the crash sometime in early 2025.
Charter school proposal
In March, a small group of residents requested that the school board consider supporting a charter school for Fluvanna. Charter schools are taxpayer-funded but function more like private schools and are touted as a way to give parents more choices in education. LIFEPREP, the charter proposed for Fluvanna, is geared towards homeschooling families as a “classroom-less” program. The issue dominated the March and April meetings of the School Board and generated so much opposition that the parent who originally proposed the program withdrew her application. However, it later emerged that School Board Chair Andrew Pullen reached out directly to officials in Richmond without the authorization of the other board members, which led to the parent submitting her application not to the county, but to the state. LIFEPREP is under review by the Virginia Department of Education, but it is not known when – or if – it will come back before the School Board for a vote.
James River water project
August marked a major milestone for the James River Water Project: the official ground-breaking ceremony for a pumping station that will eventually carry millions of gallons of water into the Zion Crossroads area. Representatives from Fluvanna and Louisa counties met near Columbia for the ceremony on Aug. 14 to celebrate a moment almost 20 years in the making. Since it was established in 2006, the James River Water Authority has faced significant setbacks, including a lengthy dispute with the Monacan Indian Nation over the original site of the pumping station. If all goes as planned, water should begin flowing down the pipeline sometime in 2027, potentially spurring economic growth for both counties.
