The week’s top stories
-Manual labor isn’t necessarily in the job description of a congressman, but there was Rep. Eugene Vindman on Friday afternoon, helping to load food into the cars of furloughed federal workers who came to a pop-up event held by the Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank. Joey LoMonaco was on the scene in Stafford County.
-Kindly cartoon critter, or dastardly rodent? That’s the question in Stafford, as the county’s Planning Commission is scheduled to hold a public hearing later in the month on a proposal to bring the Buc-ee’s convenience-store chain to the locality. Buc-ee’s has lots of fans who wear T-shirts emblazoned with the image of the business’ mascot, a beaver. But some of those who would be neighbors of the local operation want no part of it.
-The Public Sculpture Project is marking a decade of installing art at Fredericksburg gateways, and Kathy Knotts has the skinny on this endeavor of the city’s Arts Commission in Free Time, our weekly arts and entertainment newsletter.
-The Fredericksburg school system officially unveiled its new branding last week during a ceremony at the Walker-Grant Center. The division’s new tagline: “Educate and Inspire Every Child, Every Day,” LoMonaco writes.
-Keeping with the city schools theme … the Fredericksburg School Board will hold a work session in December, spurred on by revelations that board members exceeded their annual budget for professional development by more than $5,000. Will the work session be tense? Time will tell. But board members had a hard time even deciding on a date for the meeting.
Go figures (numbers in the news)
$2.825 million — That was the sale price of a roughly 6,000-square-foot house on Washington Avenue in Fredericksburg late last month. And that would be the third-highest price ever for a home in the city, if you were keeping score. has more about this and other business news in Biz Beat Roundup.
Scenes from the sideline
What they’re saying
“I thought it was a good idea because the community could benefit from it, because you get a discounted rate on your power. In Fox Run, I probably told a hundred people that. But now the problem came up with the easement, and now you’ve made me feel stupid.“ –T.C. Collins, King George County supervisor. He was talking about a proposed solar project that the Board of Supervisors voted down.
Pressing on (a look at the week ahead)
-The Fredericksburg City Council will vote on a special use permit for the former Mary Washington Hospital building on Fall Hill Avenue. The project calls for an “adaptive reuse” of the building, adding 242 apartment units.
