Save Our Pasture, Protesters Say
Good morning. In today’s edition, protesters fight to save a downtown Williamsburg pasture…we take a look at the Attorney General’s opinion on York County’s ousted school board chair…and a developer gets a $99,000 city grant to convert an old bank building into a mixed use project.
A group of Williamsburg residents protested Wednesday afternoon in front of the Colonial Williamsburg pasture on N. Henry Street, warning the City Council not to consider using it for a proposed $6 million children’s splash park.
“You can go anywhere and find arcades…(and) parks,” said protest leader Ruth Kaiser. “What I’ve never seen anywhere else in this country is a town that has a rare breed of oxen grazing right where everybody walks.”
The pasture, which hosts Colonial Williamsburg domesticated animals, has been mentioned as a potential site for the proposed park, Kaiser said.
While no action has been taken publicly to proceed with the idea, the city’s 2025 budget proposed a $6 million splash park as part of its goal to revitalize downtown.
Attorney General Says School Boards Cannot Remove Chairs Before Term
Attorney General Jason S. Miyares’ office has provided Williamsburg Watch with a copy of his official opinion that school boards do not have the legal right to remove a board chair prior to the expiration of their term.
Miyares’ opinion, prompted by the demotion of York County’s past school board chairman, is not a court ruling and is not legally binding on the schools.
But it was the subject of considerable discussion at a special school board session Monday night, when board members reiterated their belief that ousted chair Lynda J. Fairman violated board policy, and the majority of the board had the right to remove her as chair.
Fairman was elected as chair in January of 2024 for a one-year term. The school board voted 3-2 to remove her from the position four months later after a series of disagreements with board members and Superintendent Victor D. Shandor.
Vice chair Kimberly S. Goodman was elected as chair last May 28, and District 4 member James E. Richardson was elected as vice chair.
In January, Fairman told a meeting of the board she received an advisory opinion from an assistant attorney general saying the board did not have a right to remove her as board chair before the end of her one-year term.
Del. A.C. Cordoza (R- 86th District) subsequently requested an opinion from the Attorney General himself and received a response on Feb. 5.
The delegate could not be reached for comment on why he requested a second opinion from the Attorney General.
The Attorney General’s opinion said “a school board does not have the authority to remove its chairman or vice-chairman from that position prior to the expiration of the one-year term required” by law.
Fairman’s term would have expired two months ago had she not been removed. Fairman did not respond to a request for comment.
During Monday night’s meeting Goodwin rhetorically asked, “what if you have a board member who’s doing some egregious thing?...Are you just supposed to sit there and say OK, continue on and watch your division fall apart?”
“He didn’t hear the whole (story) of the issues we were having with the chair at the time,” Richardson added. “If he had heard that I bet his opinion would have been much different.”
But the Attorney General’s letter says the wording of Code 22.1-76 governing school board members makes no provision for removing a chair at the desire of a board majority.
Miyares said state code requires school boards to hold organizational meetings in either January or July of each year and elect one of its members as chairman.
You can download Miyares’ Opinion Here:
City EDA Grants $99,000 To Revamp Old Wells Fargo Bank Building
They had to break into the piggy bank to do it, but Williamsburg’s Economic Development Authority approved a $99,000 grant Wednesday to help convert the former Wells Fargo building on Richmond Road into a mixed apartment and commercial project.
Developer Prometheus Investments has already received a special use permit to build 11 apartments across the second and third floors, and two restaurants on the first floor of the building at 1006 Richmond Road.
“We’ve had huge interest” in the space, said Prometheus President Niko Florakis. He said he hoped to have the project completed by fall.
The apartments would be studio and one bedroom units.
The authority grant is part of a program established in 2016 to help cover a majority of demolition costs for repurposed buildings in the city’s commercial areas. The concept is designed to generate more money over time from property taxes than the city spends on the grant.
The grant to Prometheus exceeded the balance of $86,348.13 left for the year in the EDA’s development kitty. The difference will come from $61,554.67 available to use in its unassigned reserve balance for the year.
Board members asked Economic Development and Tourism Director Yuri Matsumoto if there were other potential developments in line for grant money, and she told them no one else was in the pipeline.
Matsumoto said it normally takes four to five months to go through the grant process.
An additional $50,000 has been set aside for the demolition of the former DMV building on Capitol Landing Road, she said.
The Colonial Williamsburg Public Archaeology Institute has opened applications for high school students interested in its free, weeklong summer archaeology program.
The program is broken into two sessions, one for students entering grades 9-10 that takes place June 23-27.
The second session for rising juniors and seniors takes place July 7-11.
Participants receive about eight hours of class time where they will learn about the history of Custis Square and Williamsburg’s Public Hospital. They will examine various types of artifacts uncovered by archaeologists such as ceramic and faunal remains and learn about architectural materials.
The rest of the week is devoted to hands-on field work with archaeologists practicing field methods, site recording and interpretation of finds.
Each session concludes with a site tour, during which students will guide a tour of visitors, family members and friends.
There is no charge for the program.
Interested students can learn more and apply online by April 1.
Guest Column:
Democracy at a Crossroads: The Decline of Local News, the Rise of Authoritarianism and a Warning
By Marisa J. Porto
(Marisa is a former publisher and editor of The Daily Press and Virginia Gazette. She is now the Knight Chair in Local News and Sustainability at The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s journalism school.)
Link to her post here:
Please submit your guest column to digby@williamsburgwatch.com
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Weekend Fun
Military Through the Ages. Until March 16. Jamestown Settlement.
Yorktown Maket Days St. Patrick’s Day Winter Market. March 15. Riverwalk Landing.
Mahler and Dvorak: Opera in Williamsburg Arts Songs Concert. March 16. 2:30 p.m. William and Mary Music Center.
The Williamsburg Symphony Presents The Planets (With NASA footage). 7:30 p.m. Williamsburg Community Chapel.
Passings
Janet Hargrove Gonzalez, 90, March 6.
Why would we need a splash park in Colonial Williamsburg when Water Country is 5 miles away? Plus, I don't recall there being any history about splash parks during colonial days. If you think you need to do something with the land, why not use part of it for more parking? If you make it easier to find a place to park, more people would come to Colonial Williamsburg. Creating a splash park would make parking a worse nightmare then it already is.
Skating rink