Press Rewind podcast
The Press Rewind podcast would ordinarily catch you up on last week’s top headlines in five minutes or less. But, just like last week, your podcaster still has a cold — and almost no voice. We hope to be back to normal soon, friends!
The week’s top stories
-Three men and a woman, all from the Richmond area, were arrested and charged last week with second-degree murder in the death of a Hopewell man whose body was found in a Caroline County pond. The body of 18-year-old Jayden McComber was the second discovered in Caroline within days. A woman’s body was found on Bagby Road in the Sparta area but has not been identified, Taft Coghill Jr. reports.
-Spotsylvania County resident Danielle Brown was traveling on Partlow Road to her job in Caroline County earlier this month when she struck a deer and totaled her car. So she called the Caroline Sheriff’s Office to say she was coming to file a report for insurance purposes. But instead of easily accomplishing a clerical goal, she was arrested, handcuffed and later locked up. Problem was, she wasn’t actually the wanted woman authorities thought she was. Coghill has the story.
-The Stafford Planning Commission voted recently to recommend the county Board of Supervisors approve the Fredericksburg area’s first Buc-ee’s travel center. But many of the people who live near the proposed site of the large gas station/convenience store hope what’s billed as a less intensive and more community-friendly option ends up there instead.
-The message was clear recently from many Spotsylvania County residents: They don’t want the Board of Supervisors to approve what amounts to a proposed 8-cent increase in the real-estate tax rate in the next fiscal year. One speaker at a public hearing said the hike translates to more of a percentage rise than what’s being proposed for taxes in New York City, Coghill writes.
-In other local tax news, the Caroline County Board of Supervisors voted last week to advertise a 6-cent increase in the real-estate tax rate. It would go from 52 cents per $100 of assessed value to 58 cents, but that would still be the lowest rate in the Fredericksburg region. Now that a figure is advertised, the supervisors can lower the rate but not raise it. Coghill has the details
Go figures (numbers in the news)
7 — as in 7 Brew. This national chain plans to bring a drive-through-only coffee shop to the Cowan Station project on the east side of U.S. 1 near Cowan Boulevard in Fredericksburg. It would be the first building at Cowan Station, which was formerly a mobile-home park. Bill Freehling has more on this and other business news in Biz Beat Roundup.
What they’re saying
“My goal is to make sure that all the budding artists out there don’t have to go through what I did in my 20s.” -CaraBella, owner of Madame’s Oddities. The Fredericksburg store is a kind of home for young artists, and it’s holding a fundraiser next weekend to pay for industrial air-conditioning units in its building. Kathy Knotts has more details in Free Time, our weekly arts and entertainment newsletter.
Vote early and often
While we can’t encourage this when you go to the local ballot box, it is OK to do so in Garden & Gun magazine’s “Best Main Street in the South” competition. Downtown Fredericksburg has advanced to the championship round of the bracket-style tournament that highlights downtown districts and now faces DeLand, Florida. Online voting is allowed once per hour, per device, and Fred Vegas was winning 51% to 49% when this newsletter was being prepared.
Pressing on (a look at the week ahead)
-The University of Mary Washington’s men’s basketball team plays in the Division III national championship game versus Emory University this afternoon in Indianapolis, and we’ll have coverage later today and into the work week.
