Welcome to West Fredericksburg!!!!

I couldn’t help but giggle when I read Cathy Jett’s business story here about Giant’s geographical mishap. The new Giant on Plank Road sent out glossy fliers in the mail inviting everyone to the new store in WEST FREDERICKSBURG.

Uh oh. Bad, bad, bad Giant.

I called Supervisor Gary Jackson about this yesterday, just to get his reaction to this flier. If we all recall, Mr. Jackson is the one who said during a recent board meeting that if the hotels in this county want to reap the rewards of more tourists, they need to know where they are doing business. Stop sending these tourists to places to eat in the city, he said.

When I told him about this flier, his response was: “Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!”

Jett reports that the problem, according to Spotsylvania Economic Development Director Russell Seymour, is that most county mailing addresses say Fredericksburg, which confuses corporations and small businesses alike. They apparently don’t realize the commonwealth is one of the few states where cities and counties are separate.

This is true. I am from New York. Yes, we have counties, but it’s more of a regional name. Each entity has a town name, city name or whatever. I lived in Ithaca, a town. I also lived in Auburn, a city. Auburn is in Cayuga County. Ithaca is in Tompkins County.

Giant reps certainly don’t know the history of the “name game” between Spotsy and Fredericksburg. I know some of it. I’ve heard the story of when the Spotsylvania Mall opened, the owners only invited Fredericksburg dignitaries. Oops. Of course, there’s the fresh complaints about tourism, and how Fredericksburg gets all the attention.

I have to say, before I took this job, I had never heard of Spotsylvania County, and I have lived in Virginia since 1999. Now, it’s my favorite county in the whole-wide world.

I can’t stop laughing when I look at the flier. So, I wanted to share it with you.

And

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