Meeting Round-Up: All Hallows Edition

In case you missed last night’s Board of Supervisors meeting, aside from those in today’s paper, here are some of my favorite items:

1) Supervisors Mark Dudenhefer and Harry Crisp had a pre-meeting meeting with Tim Terrill from the Walton Group, a company that intends to purchase the infamous Sherwood Forest Farm property off State Route 3 in southern Stafford. Silver Cos. is the current owner, and I wrote about the possible sale last week.  Dudenhefer said the meeting went well, and the sale is a positive sign for Stafford. County Administrator Anthony Romanello indicated that the sale could go through today.

2) Public Works Director Keith Dayton and Environmental Programs Manager Steve Hubble gave a presentation that outlined stormwater management revisions that will take effect in 2012. In short, the county’s stormwater management budget could rise substantially (It’s currently $517,000).

3) Cardinal Forest subdivision (off U.S. 17 across from the new Walmart) became the first neighborhood to request and receive enforcement of ordinance O10-37. It allows the sheriff’s office to ticket RVs, trailers, boats and the like parked on public roadways.

4) Dr. Stephen Fuller, everyone’s favorite economic analyst, gave a second presentation on his study of the proposed 2010 Comprehensive Plan. Fuller once again said that the comparison of the 2008 and 2010 proposals was basically a wash, and again advised that while residential development is a financial loss for the county, “attached” homes (townhouses) were the most costly form of residential development to the county.

Fuller is bullish on Stafford’s economic future, saying that higher wages and more local jobs are sure to come in the next 20 years, and that local economic output could double. He told the board that a good comprehensive plan will encourage business development and prepare the county for the certain onslaught of growth.

“A couple of years from now,” he said, “development pressures are going to be enormous.”

In a moment of candor, Dudenhefer ended Fuller’s presentation by saying that the comparison of the 2010 proposal to the 2008 proposal was a rather fruitless endeavor. “That plan was never going to see the light of day,” he said of the 2008 plan. Some supervisors have discussed the merits of the latest proposal by comparing it to the 2008 plan, which was voted down in 2009 and essentially discarded when the new board took over in January.

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