The EDA on Thursday voted to publish a request for information to solicit interest from potential buyers. The roughly 8,500-square-foot space, which the EDA purchased in 2001, is assessed at almost $1.3 million.

Earlier in the week, the Board of Supervisors voted to request that the EDA look into selling the building, which currently houses the Spotsylvania Visitor Center, an insurance firm, a regional agency and office space for entrepreneurs.

Check back for more, including comments from supervisors and EDA members.

That’s when the Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission will hold a joint public hearing on the raceway’s requests for a rezoning and special-use permit, said County Planning Director Wanda Parrish.

Typically, those local government bodies hold separate public hearings. But supervisors this week voted to have a joint hearing at the request of the raceway, which wants to expedite the approval process.

Parrish confirmed the public hearing date today.

You can read VDOT’s response here. Check back later for a full story.

Meanwhile, Lee Hill District Supervisor Gary Skinner announced he would be running for reelection this year.

“We’ve still got a lot to accomplish, and I want to be part of it,” said Skinner, who has been a county supervisor since 2008.

Marshall noted that he set a county record by being elected nine times to the Berkeley District seat. “It’s a record I’m proud of,” said Marshall, who is in his 34^th year on the board.  “But I’m really proud of the people I represented. They are the best group of people that anyone could possibly represent.”

He said he hopes the person who replaces him will work as hard he did for his constituents.

Pitts, who has represented the Battlefield District for 14 years, praised Marshall before announcing his own retirement from the board. “You understand one word, and that word is compromise,” Pitts told Marshall during board member comments. “That is a word that very few people see in government today, and that is one of the main reasons government is failing the citizens it represents.”

 Pitts said he’s made a lot of friends in his years on the board and that he enjoyed serving residents.

Click here to read part of a raceway consultant’s updated traffic study submitted today.

Rendering of proposed raceway

A Spotsylvania County planner said Wednesday evening that he thought the proposed Dominion Raceway would be resubmitting its request for an entrance near an Interstate 95 ramp “any day now.”

County planner Leon Hughes made the remark while giving the Fire and EMS Commission a brief overview of the planned racetrack in Thornburg.

The raceway must receive a waiver from the Virginia Department of Transportation because its entrance is less than 750 feet from an I-95 on-ramp. Late last month, a VDOT official said the state agency could not grant the developer permission for the entrance—at least until raceway officials addressed a host of questions and concerns.

Angela Foroughi, the transportation and land use director for VDOT’s Fredericksburg District, wrote in a Feb. 25 letter to a county planner and a raceway traffic consultant that the state agency is “willing to continue discussion and will make full consideration of your request as we move forward.”

VDOT had just 30 days to respond to the raceway’s lengthy traffic study and entrance request, which were submitted in late January.

Fire and EMS Commission member Mark Kuechler, an assistant chief with the Spotsylvania Volunteer Fire Department, distributed a packet of information outlining his concerns with the raceway at Wednesday night’s meeting. His wife, Diane, is on the executive committee of the Coalition to Preserve the Thornburg Countryside, which has launched an aggressive campaign against the project.

You can check out the information Kuechler handed out to other commission members here and here.

The Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on the raceway’s request for amendments to the county’s Comprehensive Plan at 7 p.m. March 20 in the board chambers of the Holbert Building, 9104 Courthouse Road.  Planning commissioners will make a recommendation, and supervisors will have the final say.

The Planning Commission and supervisors must also consider the raceway’s application to the county for a rezoning and special-use permit. No public hearings have been scheduled yet on those requests.

This evening, supervisors voted 5-2 to advertise a real-estate tax rate of 88 cents per $100 of assessed value—the same levy they approved last year. The vote also included advertising no change to the current personal property tax rate of $6.37 per $100 of assessed value.

Supervisors Benjamin Pitts and Gary Skinner cast the dissenting votes.

Skinner had recommended that the county advertise a one-cent increase to the real-estate rate. Pitts said he thought the county would need even more of an increase to address its needs.

“There’s nothing wrong with cutting, but there’s a point where you reach the bone and the bone begins to bleed,” Pitts said. “And when the bone begins to bleed, you begin to affect the quality of the lives of people who live in the county.”

Board members also voted this evening to have a joint town hall meeting on the budget with the School Board and the Board of Supervisors on March 28 from 6 until 7:15 p.m. at Courtland High School’s auditorium.   A mandatory budget public hearing with the supervisors will follow at 7:30 p.m.

Check back for more.

The Free Lance-Star recently reported that the General Services Administration had received about 35 submissions from localities and developers interested in hosting the FBI’s new headquarters. You can read that story here.

In addition to Spotsylvania, Stafford and Caroline counties have also thrown their names into the hat.

Spotsylvania’s new website notes the county’s low taxes—the current real-estate tax rate is 88 cents per $100 of assessed value—and “shovel ready sites of varying size.”

“We’re prepared to use every tool available to help the FBI and other government agencies relocate to Spotsylvania,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Paul Trampe is quoted as saying on the website.

The site includes another quote from EDA Chairman Hart Rutherford: “We’re committed to making your project a success with a streamlined process and incentives.”

The FBI’s base is now in the deteriorating J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The GSA asked for candidates for a new headquarters that could include about 2 million square feet of office space and hold about 11,000 workers. Monday was the deadline for submissions.

The GSA is expected to ask for more detailed proposals at some point, though the timing is unclear.

Rendering of proposed raceway

It’s official: The first public hearing on the proposed Dominion Raceway has been rescheduled for 7 p.m. March 20 at the Holbert Building, 9104 Courthouse Road.

The Planning Commission will hold the hearing on the raceway’s request for amendments to Spotsylvania’s Comprehensive Plan. The changes would make the planned 160-acre development in Thornburg compatible with that plan.

Spotsylvania Planning Director Wanda Parrish confirmed the new hearing date today.

The raceway is also seeking a rezoning and special-use permit, but public hearings  haven’t been scheduled on those proposals. The Planning Commission makes recommendations, and the Board of Supervisors will have the final say on all raceway proposals.

Facing at least a $7 million shortfall to cover anticipated needs for the coming school year, Spotsylvania School Board members are looking for ways to convince the Board of Supervisors to consider more local funding.

Board member Dawn Shelley suggested asking the community to “beg” for more money during public comment time in the supervisors’ upcoming meetings.

Colleague Bill Blaine said the board has a duty to convey its “values” to the supervisors because its role is to represent the needs of children and teachers.

And Shelley noted, as board Chairwoman Amanda Blalock has previously, that good schools are tied to the county’s prosperity.

Though Shelley said she dislikes the idea of raising taxes, schools are one of the first things companies look at when evaluating where to locate. So if Spotsylvania’s division can’t keep pace with instruction and employee compensation, companies will look elsewhere.

“If we can’t fund our schools adequately, they might be going north of us and we don’t want that,” she said.

The School Board is considering crafting a letter to the supervisors outlining school needs and the funding shortfall. The School Board is scheduled to present its fiscal 2014 budget to the supervisors on March 19, but that is one week after the supervisors advertise county tax rates.

Once advertised, they cannot be raised. So supervisors wouldn’t have the ability to raise real estate or personal property taxes, the chief way to provide additional school funding.

“We have to communicate to them what we see are true needs, not wants, and the impact of them,” board member Jim Meyer said.

The School Board holds its next budget work session Thursday, at which it expects to see details of a streamlining proposal from Superintendent Scott Baker that will cut the shortfall by about $500,000.

The budget he proposed on Jan. 28 falls $8.2 million short of expected funding. But with streamlining, and updated figures provided to the board at its work session last Thursday by Chief Financial Officer LaShahn Gaines, that budget gap fell by $1.2 million.

Gaines said the health insurance rate increase is expected to drop from the original projection of 10 percent to 9.3 percent, saving the schools $200,000. In addition, state funding is expected to be $500,000 more than originally anticipated.

Gaines noted that a 1-cent increase in the real estate tax would generate $1.2 million.

The School Board is basing all figures on the expectation of receiving $114.8 million from the county, which is what County Administrator Doug Barnes recommended in his fiscal 2014 budget proposal.

At Thursday’s work session, Gaines showed the board the costs of various salary options, including a 2 percent increase (for which the state has offered partial one-time funding), a 1 percent cost-of-living raise and a $500 bonus.

But with the current funding shortfall, Spotsylvania Education Association President Peter Pfotenhauer said none of them looked viable.

“It looks like they have 8.2 million reasons why they can’t give us a raise,” he said after the meeting.

Pamela Gould: 540/735-1972

pgould@freelancestar.com