Press Rewind podcast
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The week’s top stories
-When Twana James moved to the Fredericksburg area in 2013, she found no radio station that catered to the Black community. So she created one. It was born last year and is now almost a year old. Rick Horner tells the story of Black Fredericksburg Radio.
-The Spotsylvania County School Board continues to make news. There was disagreement last week on whether to immediately hire for the open job of executive director of middle schools — a position that lists a pay range of up to $170,000 per year. It’s long been a contention of some Spotsylvanians that the division pay scale is tilted toward high-paying central office jobs rather than to positions in the schools, Taft Coghill Jr. reports.
-The Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors, meanwhile, voted last week to require a special-use permit for data centers. The vote was as close as it gets, 4-3, and Supervisor Gerald Childress said he’s afraid instituting the permit rule will discourage data center developers from coming to the county, which could mean losing out on the tax revenue the high-tech businesses promise. The board also voted to advertise a real-estate tax rate of 77 cents per $100 of assessed value for the next fiscal year. That’s the same rate as this year, but tax bills could go up anyway because of property reassessment. Coghill has the story.
-From music-class sizes to chatbots, and gun buy-backs to rules for hiring school superintendents, members of the region’s Virginia General Assembly delegation have shepherded legislation on all kinds of topics this year. And many of their proposals could become law in the next few weeks.
-The Stafford School Board approved Superintendent Daniel Smith’s proposed $529.3 million education budget for the next fiscal year last week, so now the spending plan goes to the county’s Board of Supervisors. Smith’s budget seeks a local funding increase of $18.6 million over the current fiscal year, but it’s unclear if the supervisors will ultimately allocate that much money. County Administrator Bill Ashton’s budget for the county government as a whole calls for a more than $15 million increase for education, which leaves a more than $3 million funding gap.
Go figures (numbers in the news)
70 — As in, more than 70 women-owned businesses in downtown Fredericksburg. Female entrepreneurs in the Main Street District will be celebrated in a photography exhibit in the Visitor Center Exhibit Room that opens Friday. The full story is in Free Time, our weekly arts and entertainment newsletter.
What they’re saying
“When it does not align, you must decline.” -Karen Fox, Hartwood resident. She was talking about industrial businesses not being appropriate for a busy part of central Stafford County.
Pressing on (a look at the week ahead)
-The Stafford County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to advertise a real-estate tax rate for the next fiscal year Tuesday. Once the rate is advertised, supervisors can approve a lower levy but not a higher one.
