NEWS: First Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors Meeting Reveal Rifts
The decision not to name Dr. Deborah Frazier as vice-chair, and yet another discussion about by-right data center development exposed fractures in the Board.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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The Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors apparently have some issues to work out.
At the organizational meeting on Tuesday night, the Board unanimously elected Lori Hayes (Lee Hill) as the new Board chair.
The vote for vice-chair didn’t go as smoothly.
Dr. Deborah Frazier (Salem), the second-most tenured member of the Board of Supervisors was nominated. Her compatriots on the Board voted her down 4-3, with Jake Lane (Livingston), David Goosman (Berkeley), Hayes, and Drew Mullins (Courtland) — who was also nominated — voting nay.
Mullins won the role on a 6-0-1 vote, with Mullins abstaining.
Frazier then asked for the floor and began speaking “to my community as well as my fellow Board members.”
Leadership demands clarity, courage and the truth.
Leadership is not measured by fear, assumptions, perceived notions.
It is measured by integrity, service, demonstrated commitment over time.
From there she outlined her seven-year service on the Board and her 30 years of service in the community.
“Yet today,” she continued:
I find myself being judged not by my actions, not by my service, not by my inherent ethical standards, but on perceived concerns that have not been clearly defined, substantiated, or applied consistently.
Perception is not reality. A perceived conflict is not an actual conflict.
Frazier did not name the specific people she had in mind, but she did hint at the concerns that apparently surround her.
“I gained nothing personally, financially, or professionally from serving in leadership.” She went on to say “I stand on my record. I stand on my service. I stand ready to continue leading with justice, mercy, humility, and accountability.”
The moment grew more intense when, following a pause to reorder the Board members on the dais, the newest member of the Board, Goosman, took the seat immediately to Hayes’ right.
As the meeting began again, Frazier said “I was not asked if I wanted to move my seat.”
Hayes said she made the call to everybody, and Frazier responded that she did not hear the call.
Frazier agreed to retain her seat.
Mo Petway, head of the NAACP in Spotsylvania County speaking during public comments expressed his “disappointment” in the Board’s decision not to recognize Frazier with an appointment as vice chair.
“It took over 220 years to get the first African American to serve on this Board…. I can assure you Ms. Frazier is more qualified, has more leadership experience, than most of you that’s on the Board.”
“Those who voted against,” he continued, “ask yourself why.”
At a time when the country is rolling back civil rights laws, and the president of the United States has said he believes that civil rights legislation led to white people being “very badly treated,” Frazier’s comments struck a nerve in the room.
It was the first of two signs that this Board may be divided in some ways that will test it in the year ahead.
The Data Center Division
The second split in the Board appeared in the renewed discussion over data centers in the county.
In December, the Board voted to adopt development standards for data centers being planned on by-right sites. So long as they met those standards, they would not have to go through the special use permit (SUP) process and come before the Board.
On Tuesday night the Board moved to undo the action from December, proposing that data centers be removed as permitted use on property zoned I-1 and I-2, and that they instead be required to go through an SUP process.
Hayes, Lane and Chris Yakabouski (Battlefield), who were on the losing end of the vote in December, are now in the driver’s seat with the election of Goosman who is anti-by-right data center development.
The ensuing discussion was a chicken-and-egg debate. Which should come first. Standards? Or the SUP?
Childress argued that the design standards adopted in December offer “more protections for the community than an SUP” because they “set a minimum playbook” of what developers must meet. If a project doesn’t meet the standard, he said, then the SUP option is available.
Yakabouski took the opposite position, arguing that “the most important part of all this is the public is involved.” He then doubled-down on that statement, saying “The public has an absolute right when they have property close by — that is, developed in a way that might impact them in a detrimental way — to have a voice in that process.”
Mullins countered that the standards reflect the Board’s listening to the public. He then walked Board members through a project in the county that was reworked after the design standards were passed, reflecting the company’s willingness to be a good “forever neighbor.”
Again, the discussion took a chicken-and-egg turn.
Hayes expressed concern that future developers may not be as accommodating. Mullins countered that future Boards may be the ones who aren’t accommodating.
“If we throw [the development standards] out,” Mullins said, “it’s going to be at the whim of the Board” when it comes to the development of future projects.
The debate ended with the decision to retain the design standards that were proposed to be removed in the document, but to move the discussion back to the Planning Commission so that it can produce a report on requiring by-right data center development go through the SUP process.
The current schedule is for the issue to come before the Planning Commission at its February 4 meeting for a public hearing, and to then come before the Board of Supervisors on February 24.
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