The Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted Battlefield District representative Chris Yakabouski as chair during a meeting this week.
But the outcome of the vice chair vote was split 4-3.
Board members nominated both Lori Hayes of the Lee Hill District and Deborah Frazier of the Salem District for the position.
Hayes was ultimately voted in, without the support of Yakabouski, Frazier and Kevin Marshall of the Berkeley District.
The newly-elected chair did not waste any time conducting business, as the supervisors discussed improvements to convenience (waste) sites and new developments with the Rappahannock River Crossing project being discussed by the Fredericksburg Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (FAMPO).
They also critiqued the performance of the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) during the recent snowstorm while highlighting a pair of road improvement projects that will be mostly funded by VDOT’s SMART Scale program.
After emerging from closed session, the board voted unanimously to authorize County Attorney Karl Holsten to secure the assistance of outside counsel “in a current pending administrative regulatory proceeding with the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
Before the board entered closed session, it was noted that the proceeding was in relation to an incident at a county convenience site.
While the supervisors were light on details of that incident, they spoke plainly on other topics, including their displeasure with the river crossing project; Hayes and Drew Mullins of the Courtland District attended a FAMPO meeting on Monday night.
“The frustration that I’m feeling with it is Fredericksburg and Stafford wanted this crossing, now all of a sudden Fredericksburg is coming up with barriers,” Yakabouski said. “They’re pushing it, in my opinion, to a location that will change what the purpose is.”
The supervisors expressed concern about how Fredericksburg’s proposed Technology Overlay District, which is being designed to attract data centers, will impact the river crossing project by potentially limiting options. The proposed district covers about 250 acres in the area often referred to as Celebrate Virginia South and could take away the most-supported option for the crossing, which is furthest north and closest to Interstate 95, according to a FAMPO survey. The survey received over 1,300 responses, mostly from southern Stafford residents.
“We just spent an awful lot of money figuring out five potential crossing points,” Yakabouski said. “If Fredericksburg goes ahead and sort of blocks several of those, we will not be very happy about that and that seems to be blunting what we’re trying to do. If it gets to that point that they’ve reduced the locations down to the one that’s the least possible, we will see what we can do at that point. Let’s put it that way.”
The board heard a presentation by a representative from the county’s waste management department, who expressed concern about the way gate attendees are treated, among other issues.
Yakabouski credited VDOT for its handling of major highways in the county but blasted it because some roads in subdivisions were not cleared properly, in his opinion. Yakabouski visited the Artillery Ridge subdivision after receiving several complaints about the roads and saw an Verizon truck immobilized by the road conditions. He then decided to turn around.
“They did an absolutely horrible job,” Yakabouski said of VDOT. “…It did not look like a plow had even gotten there.”
Conversely, the supervisors were thrilled to learn from Director of Transportation Paul Agnello that the county will receive SMART Scale funds from VDOT that will help make improvements at the intersection of Southpoint Parkway and U.S. Route 1 and on State Route 3 at a series of intersections between Old Plank Road and Salem Church Road. The county will receive $79 million in assistance for those projects.
Agnello noted that the entire district only received approval for four SMART Scale projects in the latest round of funding. The other two are in Caroline County along U.S. Route 1. No projects in Fredericksburg, King George or Stafford received funding.
Spotsylvania also received a $1.2 million grant from the Federal Railroad Administration as part of the Railroad Crossing Elimination Program. Those funds will go toward increasing safety at the railroad crossings at Benchmark and Mine roads as well as Lansdowne Road. The county match is $308,000.
“Mine Road and Benchmark is one of the most dangerous [railroad crossings] on the CSX [Transportation] corridor between Richmond and D.C.,” Agnello said. “This is very good news.”
