The week’s top stories
-Trending population growth is a major concern for government officials in Caroline County, the fourth-fastest-growing locality in Virginia, Taft Coghill Jr. reports.
-Local developer Larry D. Silver, a James Monroe High School graduate, will donate $1 million toward the construction of a center for Career and Technical Education in the Fredericksburg City school system. Silver’s gift is the largest donation the division has ever received, Joey LoMonaco writes.
-The Fredericksburg Area Association of Realtors and some King George County residents are up in arms about a proposal that would substantially reduce the number of homes developers could put on an existing building lot in the county, Coghill Jr. writes.
-Stafford County supervisors on Tuesday approved their Code of Performance after discussion that was somewhat fiery in recent weeks. A controversial addition to the code about supervisors who are also county employees wasn’t included, however.
-Opossums are the marsupials of the moment at Fredericksburg store Possum-bilities, which will hold its third annual “Hissing Booth” fundraiser today from 1 to 4 p.m. Cash donations benefit possum education programs and pigeon rescue, reports intern Noelle Clark.
What they’re saying
“I duly forwarded them to our Agent’s spam alert box.” –A Fredericksburg-area federal employee referring to job buyout emails the Trump administration recently sent workers. Confusion about the status of federal jobs is the norm right now, we discovered.
Go figures (Numbers that made the news)
–132, as in Fahrenheit 132. The downtown Fredericksburg restaurant has been named to OpenTable’s list of the Top 100 Romantic Restaurants in the U.S, reports Biz Beat’s Bill Freehling. It’s a medium-rare honor: only six other Virginia restaurants made the list.
Pressing on (a look at stories in the week ahead)
Fredericksburg’s City Council is scheduled to appoint someone to fill the remainder of former Ward 3 Councilor Tim Duffy’s term this week. Fourteen people have applied for the job.
(A Super) Sunday long read
We’re throwing it way, way, back, but please indulge our Hail Mary. A few months ago, Taft Coghill Jr. profiled Jeff Scott, a Fredericksburg native who has ascended NFL front-office ranks and now serves as vice president of football operations for the Philadelphia Eagles, who face the Kansas City Chiefs in tonight’s Super Bowl.
You might also remember Scott as a standout quarterback for James Monroe, or as the son of former Stafford County Attorney Alda White and Fredericksburg Judge John W. Scott Jr. John Scott was the first Black judge in the Fredericksburg area, while White was Stafford’s first female county attorney and the first Black full-time county attorney in Virginia.
