On the table for the Northampton Board of Supervisors, was the review of ten prominent Agricultural Forest Districts (AFDs), which have in recent years played a major role in maintaining the County’s rural character and open space. For and in-depth look at AFDs, see Janet Sturgis’ article here. The AFDs under review were:
Church Neck AFD: The Church Neck AFD is located along both sides of Church Neck Road (SR 619) and extending along the north and south side of Sparrow Point Road (SR 657).
Concord AFD: The Concord AFD is located along both sides of Occohannock Neck Road (SR 183) and TB Road (SR 607) extending along the east and west side of Wardtown Road (SR 606).
Jamesville AFD: The Jamesville AFD is located along both sides Occohannock Neck Road (SR 183) and James Wharf Road (SR 614) and extending north-west along Sturgis House Drive (SR 676).
Old Plantation AFD: The Old Plantation AFD is located along both sides of Jacobia Lane (SR 682) and Plantation Drive (SR 643).
Pickett’s Harbor AFD: The Pickett’s Harbor AFD is located along both sides of Arlington Road (SR 645) and extending west of Lankford Highway (SR 13).
Point Pleasant AFD: The Point Pleasant AFD is located along both sides of Seaside Road (SR 600) and extending east of Lankford Highway (SR 13).
Also, there was a request to withdraw from Pickett’s Harbor AFD: Denard C. Spady & Dora Weston Spady Wilkins have requested to withdraw property identified as Tax Map 112 double circle A parcel 39 and located at the intersection of Smaw Drive and Arlington Road.
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STURGIS: AFDs Essential to maintaining Open Space
I am appearing today to voice my opinion, favoring approval of those AFDs up for renewal. AFDs are essential to insure open space for Northampton County and are necessary in maintaining our county’s rural character. AFDs provide recharge areas for our fragile aquifer system, habitat for wildlife, clean air ( vegetation cleans the air), recreational opportunities for our citizens, beautiful scenic expanses and vistas for residents and tourists alike,and perhaps most importantly, the ability of landowners to offer reasonable land leases to farmers.
I do however, request that the Board of Supervisors review and update the criteria with which AFDs are approved, and maintained in order to receive the substantial tax breaks their owners are afforded. I also urge the county to renew the designations for 5 instead of the current 10 years , to allow for better oversight.
Editor’s Note: This letter was read into the record at the last County Board of Supervisors meeting.
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County takes steps for Wireless Broadband
The Northampton Board of Supervisors, in an effort to work with Bill Parr of Eastern Shore Communications, as well as Patrick Cody, Chairman of the Adhoc Emergency Medical Services Committee, approved a new zoning text amendment that will clear up conflicts in the current Community Services regulations, and will allow for the construction of towers up to 199 feet.
“How to expand telemedicine to improve medical delivery, reduce EMS demand, Data communication for monitoring and serving is needed. Come up with a plan for all forms of wireless service, planning grant funds to get the technical expertise to move it forward. Funding conversations have already begun. We need a definitive strategy,” Cody said.
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Long-haul fiber map: tool to help protect broadband outages
As Bill Parr and Patrick Cody attempt to tackle the Eastern Shore’s last mile Broadband connectivity issues, the challenges posed the commercial, public/private, and first responder needs are at once daunting, yet on the other hand very exciting. The excitement is understandable, but given the Shore’s geographic disparateness, this may require a fundamental research effort relative to the current, actual topology of the physical network. Although our local router-level topology and how inter-connected our Autonomous Systems (cell towers, routers or switches, and fiber-optic cables) are fairly well understood, outside the backbone running up the spine of the Shore, knowledge of how the physical Internet, where the constructed US long-haul fiber-optic network has a significant amount of observed infrastructure sharing, actually makes it here, is sometimes not fully visualized. At a high level, engineers consider conduits that are shared by many service providers as inherently risky since damage to that conduit will affect several providers.
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FOOTBALL: Broadwater hammers Portsmouth Christian 36-14; Jackets lose squeaker to Ponies
The Broadwater Vikings rolled past the Portsmouth Christian Patriots 36- 14 for a Homecoming victory. Once again, the Viking offense rolled with a powerful running attack, as well as a dynamic passing game. On this crisp, beautiful Saturday, it was dominating line play on both sides of the ball that was the deciding factor. Special teams were also solid.
Broadwater started shaky, fumbling the ball away to the Patriots inside their own thirty on the first possession. The Viking came up big however, and stopped the Portsmouth Christian drive, taking over on downs inside the twenty-five yard line. The next two possessions led to Broadwater touchdowns, and the Vikings never looked back.
It was Homecoming, and with the score 36 – 0, coach Palmer began substituting his younger players. The defense, comprised of mainly freshman, fought hard but gave up a touchdown, making the score 36 – 7. Bringing in his young squad for the offense, the young Vikings got a decisive first down, but it was called back due to an illegal motion penalty. After giving the ball over on downs, Portsmouth Christian’s starters were driving once again on the young Broadwater squad. Portsmouth Christian was able to score on a long run, but not until after a strong effort by Nathan Crumb to hold the runner while Joey Creed delivered a brutal hit just at the goal line.
The Vikings travel all the way to Blackstone next week to face Kentson Forest. This is a must win for Broadwater if they wish to keep their playoff hopes alive.
The Northampton Yellowjackets lost a squeaker to the neutral conference rival Chincoteague Pones, 34-28. The Jackets continue to show surprising growth, especially on offense with an impressive, grinding rushing attack. Despite a long, 80 yard run in the third quarter by Northampton, the Ponies were able to hold on for the victory. The Jackets travel to Quantico next week for a non-conference game @6pm.
Science and Philosophy Seminar – Clara Schumann: Reflections of a Life in Music Oct 23rd
Seminar to be given:
Clara Schumann: Reflections of a Life in Music
Science and Philosophy Seminar of the Eastern Shore of Virginia has scheduled its first seminar of this semester, “Clara Schumann: Reflections of a Life in Music.” The free 90-minute seminar will be held at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct 23 in the Lecture Hall of the Eastern Shore Community College, 29300 Lankford Hwy, Melfa, VA 23410.
Lee Jordan-Anders will lead the seminar and, using discussion and piano recital, show how Schumann’s life and times were reflected in her composition and playing.
Jordan-Anders teaches Music at Virginia Wesleyan College; she was the Music Director and Conductor of the Orchestra of the Eastern Shore from 2009 to 2014.
These seminars are occasionally rescheduled or postponed on short notice. Prospective attendees are urged to check the Seminar’s website (www.SciPhi.org) shortly before a scheduled date.
Science and Philosophy Seminar is an informally organized group that meets more or less regularly to explore and discuss a wide array of topics, ranging from philosophical speculation to scientific research. All Seminars are open to the public. Admission is free.
Contact: Terry Malarkey, 757-710-3001
Release date: Oct 14, 2015
Event date: Oct 23, 2015
Chicken Houses: Coming to a field near you. Yes they are.
After the September 28th work session by the Northampton Board of Supervisors, many left the room thinking that the board had put in place measures that would finally keep the poultry industry out of the county. In the October 4th edition of the Mirror, the story ‘Severely limits poultry operations…’ was published, and in it, we noted that due to the requirement of ammonia scrubbers as well as 500 foot setbacks, the chances of anyone being able open a chicken house in this county was fairly small. During the last meeting of the County Supervisors, Spencer Murray, during public comments, charged that recent headlines in local media were misleading in regards to ammonia scrubbers, as well as setbacks. Going back and critically reading the proposed zoning document, we discovered we were wrong, and had completely misread the intent, or at least did not follow the logic of the proposed ordinance to its logical conclusions. Here are the parts of the ordinance that relate to industrial poultry farming:
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Town Council approves $859,269 breakwater
The Cape Charles Town Council met this Thursday and approved expenditures for two big ticket items, the third offshore breakwater, and a small section of Mason Avenue that was purchased from Patrick Hand’s Strawberry Street Station project (former Meatland grocery store). The Mayor and Council attempted to gloss over much of the standard departmental reporting, due to the fact that a huge chunk of time was taken up by the Cape Charles Business Association’s President, Andrew Follmer, who gave a lengthy, yet circular presentation (which captured many of the points one might expect to find on an undergraduate Marketing 101 slide deck downloaded from an non-accredited junior college) on lessons learned from this summer’s tourist season. For the average Joe sitting in the audience, the takeaway from this presentation was, that despite a very good season and upward profits (docking fees up $15,000 , meals tax up 18.6% , and the hotel Transient Occupancy Tax up 47% ), the citizens are still not doing enough to support the merchant class in its quest to fill the greasy till. Follmer spent several minutes chastising the Town for not hiring more dedicated staff to perform professional functions like marketing the Town’s ‘Brand’, and checking the Town’s Facebook status.
[Read more…]
DOG FOUND ON RT 13 NEAR EYRE HALL
DOG FOUND: a Labrador was found on RT 13 near Eyre Hall on Sunday Oct. 11 around noon. The people that found the dog still have it. If you have any information or have lost your dog, please contact the folks that found the dog at 757-286-8811.
Ripped Net leaves Bunker washed up on Beach
Last Wednesday, part of the Omega menhaden fishing fleet, the John Dempster was “pulling in hundreds of thousands of menhaden from the bay” when its net ripped and dumped about 75,000 dead fish into the water. According to Omega, this kind of accident happens two or three times a year. Many of the Bunker washed up on our Beach over the weekend.
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