Weekly Update
This has been a busy week around Appomattox as a new museum will open, water is discussed and planned, landowners support a tax ordinance at a hearing and volunteers help tornado victims with a mobile laundry unit.
More than 200 people attended a pulic hearing on a proposed land use tax ordinance on 2 June in Appomattox. The ordinance, similar to those in most surrounding counties, would provide property owners with specific amounts of productive agricultural land lower real estate tax rates. Read more at Lynchburg News & Advance.
The topic of water provided more than one story this past week. The first story involves Well No. 15, which is leaking from where the protective steel casing is sealed to bedrock. Since surface groundwater is leaking into the well, the health department has advised the town not to bring the well back into service until that leak is fixed for fear of contaminating a public water supply. The question is whether the town should spend between $8,000 and $10,000 to fix the well when geologists strongly believe the deep water system is connected to at least two nearby town wells. Read more at Lynchburg News & Advance.
In another water-related issues, Appomattox County counters the town’s water offer that the county construct and own a water pipeline to be built along U.S. 460 from Concord to Appomattox, with the town and county jointly pursuing grant money for the project. The proposed water line has been a contentious topic in Appomattox for several years, with concerns about costs and whether its construction would increase growth — an effect some town residents say could be detrimental to the community. Read more at Lynchburg News & Advance.
In another story out of Richmond, the state is requiring localities to submit plans for providing public water in coming decades. The idea is to help the localities prepare better for drought and growth. Plans from the largest locales, including Richmond, are due at the DEQ this November. Smaller ones will submit plans in November 2010, and regional plans are due a year later. If you want to know where Appomattox stands in this project, read the story at inRich.
The AltaVista Journal reported on the only type of free laundry service available for disaster relief in Virginia. This unit’s first call out was made Thursday, May 1 after volunteers were called to the Suffolk area for tornado damages. The laundry unit is available by the Virginia Baptist Mission Board for Disaster Relief in Virginia and beyond. Training for the unit will be available at the Appomattox Association Building on June 21. For more information or to call out for the laundry unit, please call Nona Puckett at 434-376-5780 or 434-660-5396 or fax 434-376-2869.
Finally, the Carver-Price Museum will open in the building once housed the Carver-Price High School, and will preserve and celebrate the history of blacks in Appomattox County. This decision was made on Labor Day, and one part of the museum will highlight the life of Mozella Jordan Price. She helped create the high school, which originally met in a church, and raised funds to build what became Carver-Price High. Her name was later reflected in the school’s name. Read more at Lynchburg News & Advance and at the Carver-Price Alumni Association Web site.
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