Road safety plan approved
By Heather Michon
Correspondent
With budget season finally over, the Board of Supervisors assembled Wednesday evening (May 6) and started off with some good news.
Treasurer Debbie Rittenhouse said that tax bills have been finalized and will go out to residents starting May 9. Most notably, she reported that the county had successfully collected $1,533,589 in back taxes since hiring a tax collection service in August last year. “So they are doing a really good job,” she said.
She invited all of the supervisors “to come by on, hopefully, one of our busiest days so you can see exactly what’s going on in the office.”
Road safety
Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission (TJPDC) planner Gorjan Gjorgjievski made a second appearance before the board to ask for approval of the Move Safely Blue Ridge plan to eliminate road injuries and fatalities on roads in the region by 2045.
When he presented the plan at their April 16 meeting, supervisors had asked the planners to look into the intersection of Rt. 15 and East River Road in Dixie, site of a fatal accident in March.
Gjorgjievski said planners had surveyed the site and spoken to county officials. “The main concern was if there’s going to be enough space to preserve the historic Point of Fork site,” he said. After some analysis, “we’ve seen there is definitely enough space to preserve that for a roundabout.”
Planners have been looking at that and other intersections “for non-engineering solutions, policies and programs, and how we can reduce the number of fatalities and serious injuries on the county’s roadways,” he added.
Approval of the Move Safely Blue Ridge plan will open up access to funding opportunities for road safety and help position the county for more consideration under VDOT’s Smart Scale program, which approves major projects like roundabouts.
Supervisors approved the plan 5-0.
Housing Study
The supervisors also unanimously approved a $6,000 expenditure to participate in another TJPDC initiative, a regional housing study.
“Where in the county do we want housing? Where in the county do we not want housing?” said County Administrator Eric Dahl. “Housing is going to happen in some degree or another, but to what degree do you want it to happen?”
The regional study would give the county data that could help determine housing development in the future.
Fire and rescue incentives
In February, supervisors approved an incentive program for fire, EMS, and water rescue volunteers to help with retention and recruitment.
Cash incentives were based on duty hours, which are the times volunteers are in the firehouse, waiting for emergency calls. Those who logged between 144-288 duty hours during a fiscal year could see payouts of $300 to $595.
However, it soon became clear that a one-size-fits-all approach was unlikely to work, so the chiefs of the various departments formed a subcommittee to design a better system. They recommended moving fire and water rescue to a points-based system, and keeping EMS volunteers on the duty hours system.
Supervisors agreed to the changes, but did amend the motion to make the program partially retroactive to January 2025.
