Williamsburg critic monitors city spending, pushes for transparency

Good morning! In today's edition -- home sales down, prices are up. WHRO faces budget cuts, and tips for dealing with our potentially deadly heat wave.

Jun 24, 2025

Pictures of Robert Wilson at his desk — Robert Wilson maintains stack of data on city spending. (Williamsburg Watch photo)

Robert Wilson, a retired construction executive, has become one of Williamsburg’s most persistent gadflies over the past few years – and he knows enough to be dangerous.

He is a fixture at most public hearings, pushing back on the city’s growing debt load to fund new police and fire stations and a proposal to build a new public library. He comes to the hearings armed with reams of data and detailed financial analyses that we have yet to see a city official credibly refute.

He also files frequent Freedom of Information Act requests to dig up behind the scenes information.

His diagnosis of local government: Elected officials without a firm grounding in business or economics defer to staff members without demanding sufficient data or challenging their assumptions. Too many decisions, he charged, are discussed behind closed doors, and the outcome is predetermined before they are presented to the public.

Williamsburg City Manager Andrew O. Trivette and Mayor Douglas G. Pons have been the frequent targets of his ire.

“They have a city manager who knows what he wants (to achieve),” Wilson told us. “He presents confirming data and information to support what he's trying to do, no (contrary) information. City council ask an irrelevant question or two, but they…don't question” the outcome.

Wilson retired to Williamsburg in 2021 after 30 years working as an executive in several construction companies, including Co-Chief Operating Officer of a $4 billion Fortune 500 firm. He still does private consulting and teaches part time at Christopher Newport University.

Among the issues he has taken up the past two years are:

1. The need for major revisions to Williamsburg’s water and sewage infrastructure, and to find additional sources of water. The city announced plans to spend $27 million for infrastructure improvements and re-negotiated its agreement with Newport News waterworks to obtain additional water while avoiding an $18 million called for in the city’s original agreement.

2. Williamsburg’s consideration of leaving the joint Williamsburg-James City County school division, which he said was improperly analyzed. The city subsequently decided to renegotiate its agreement with the county.

3. A plan to borrow $6.5 million for a proposed park with a water feature on the site of the Colonial Williamsburg pasture on North Henry Street. Following repeated public protests, the proposed loan for the park was pulled from the 2026 budget.

4. A proposed new library for the city of Williamsburg, at a cost originally estimated by the consulting architect back in 2018 to be $25.1 million. Construction costs have exploded since then. Wilson noted the estimate to renovate the existing building to meet code and ADA requirements would have totaled some $7 million, but said this was never presented to the city as an option.

With James City County’s plans to build a $50 million library of its own 3.5 miles away, an expanded library is no longer needed in Williamsburg, whose residents are a minority of library users, Wilson said. And he’s not a fan of the James City County construction project, either.

“The Williamsburg Regional Library had the fourth highest spending per capita” in Virginia in 2023, Wilson said.

A study by the Library of Virginia showed the Williamsburg system spent $86.76 per capita that year, while the state median expense was $39.94.

Expend 2023

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When Wilson embarks on a campaign, he amasses a formidable pile of statistics, calculations and reference material.

To make it more digestible to the public and the city council, he asked to use a PowerPoint presentation during his comments at a recent City Council meeting.

He received a response June 9 from assistant city attorney Jacob R. Lambert saying “the city council does not provide a process for the inclusion (or presentation) of unsolicited reports, memoranda or analyses submitted by the public.”

“The authoritarian turn of the City to seemingly ban any expressions that are contrary to its desired positions and programs is troubling,” Wilson responded.

We did not receive a reply from the city’s spokesperson before the publication of this article. Trivette has never returned our phone calls or emails and requires all city officials respond to media requests through the spokesperson.

The sun shines brightly in the orange sky. — Photo by Suyash Batra on Unsplash

With our area under an extreme heat warning from the National Weather Service, James City County is reminding residents of two county sponsored cooling centers they can use.

The James City County Recreation Center and the Williamsburg Regional Library can provide air conditioned relief during their hours of operation, the county announced Monday. No pets except service animals are allowed in the buildings.

Over the weekend, rescue squads responded to three heat-related illness calls, according to spokesperson Renee Dallman. Two were visitors at Busch Gardens and the third was a pedestrian near the shopping center on Monticello Avee.

The Virginia Department of Health offered these tips to avoid heat-related illness:

Drink water. When the temperature rises, it is important to drink plenty of water. Drinks that contain caffeine, large amounts of sugar or alcohol should be avoided because they can cause you to become dehydrated.
Keep cool indoors. On hot days, prevent illness by keeping cool indoors. If your home is not air conditioned, try to spend the hottest hours of the day in a cool public place such as a library, movie theater, or store.
Dress for the heat. Wear lightweight, light-colored clothing. Light colors will reflect away some of the sun’s energy. It is also a good idea to wear hats or to use an umbrella. Always apply sunscreen to exposed skin.
Limit physical activity. Avoid excessive physical exertion in hot temperatures, especially in the middle of the day. If you must work outdoors, stay hydrated by drinking 2-4 glasses of water each hour and take frequent breaks in a cool place. Even a few hours in an air-conditioned environment reduces the danger of heat-related illness.
Do not keep children or pets in cars. Temperatures inside a car with windows up can reach over 150 degrees quickly, resulting in heat stroke and death.
Check on your neighbors. Although anyone can suffer heat-related illness, some people are at greater risk than others. People aged 65 or older are particularly susceptible to heat-related illnesses and complications that can result during periods of high temperatures and humidity.

WHRO faces “dramatic” cuts as feds claw back funding, CEO says

WHRO CEO Bert Schmidt receives pin on his 15th anniversary with the broadcaster in 2022. (WHRO photo)

Editor’s Note: Williamsburg Watch is a media partner of WHRO, and its publisher is on the board of a Lancaster newspaper owned by the PBS station in Harrisburg, PA.

WHRO’s board of directors will discuss today how to cut costs if the Senate follows through with a plan to claw back all government funding for public media, President and CEO Bert Schmidt told us.

Voting along party lines June 12, the House of Representatives narrowly approved a bill to claw back all funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. Republicans Jen Kiggans, R-2d District, and Rob Wittman, R-1^st District, voted for the measure. Democrat Bobby Schott, D-3d District, voted against.

The clawback amounts to $1.1 billion that had already been approved for the next two years.

The proposal was at the behest of President Donald J. Trump, who accuses public stations of being biased against conservative viewpoints.

“Whenever our journalists challenge somebody who’s in power, people get mad,” Schmidt said. “I have seen both conservatives and liberals complain about us not being fair to their side” depending on who is in power.

The measure would cut 9% of WHRO’s budget, or $1.9 million. WHRO, which is owned by Hampton Roads’ 21 school divisions, operates five radio stations and five TV stations, including WHRV and WHRO.

Over the past 64 years WHRO has expanded its programs to include news, music, PBS programs and educational resources for schools across the state, including online courses and a web-based library of multilmedia learning objects.

While the federal dollars represent a minority of the organization’s budget, many of its donations are restricted and can only be used for specific purposes, Schmidt said.

That will require cutting other expenses, he added.

“It’s going to be a new WHRO, there’s no doubt about that. There will be dramatic cuts to this organization,” Schmidt said.

Other public broadcast stations, especially in smaller markets, are heavily dependent on federal funding and may have to close, Schmidt said.

As local newspapers shriveled their staff, WHRO launched a local news operation and plans to grow it to 14 reporters this year. Schmidt said future expense cuts should not affect news because of donations pledged to local journalism.

Senators have until July 18 to approve the House decision. Because it is a recission measure, the Senate parliamentarian ruled the vote must be taken within 45 days of the House’s action, Schmidt said.

Home sales decreased again in the Historic Triangle last month – even as prices for those that did sell continued to climb by 6.2%. That could spell bad news for taxpayers next year when house assessments come out.

Buyers have more choices as the inventory of houses for sale continues to climb, but they aren’t biting, said Virginia Realtors President Lorraine Arora. “Affordability remains a key concern—especially for first-time buyers navigating today’s mortgage rate environment.”

“With mortgage rates still hovering near 7%, many Virginians are waiting for more stability before making a move,” said the group’s Chief Economist Ryan Price.

York County showed a drop in home sales in May from the same time last year – down 7.7% But the medfian price of the 84 homes that did sell rose to $450,738.

James City County recorded the only growth in home sales – by one extra home, to 161. Its median home values soared to $475,000.

Williamsburg’s sales were flat, but median home prices increased to $400,000.