York County District 5 Supervisor Thomas Shepperd hosted a town hall meeting this week, offering residents of York County’s smallest district a wealth of information.
District 5 encompasses the Tabb and Bethel sections of the county. It borders Poquoson and Hampton on the far eastern tip of the county, featuring Calthrop Neck and a chunk of land that includes housing ranging from the Running Man subdivision to the Pines of York apartment complex. Other neighborhoods include Bethel Manor, Langley Family Housing, Meadlowlake Farms and Yorkshire Downs. It features Tabb Elementary and High schools, and sections of Victory Boulevard, Big Bethel Road and Hampton Highway.
Shepperd conducts a town hall meeting each year. This year’s meeting in the Tabb Elementary School gymnasium attracted about 100 residents.
He began the meeting with a look at fire, emergency services and crime statistics for his section of the county. Between July 2012 and June 2013, the York Count Department of Fire and Life Safety responded to 600 fires and 1,228 EMS incidents with an average response time of 4.67 minutes. Nobody was injured or killed from a fire, though 191 people suffered heart attacks. There were 240 car accidents in the area during that stretch.
Shepperd then showed a map featuring hotspots for crime in the district, one of which was Tabb High School.
“There’s no going to the principal’s office,” Shepperd said of the current environment in schools connected to outbursts from students. “You might end up there while you’re waiting for the police. The seriousness of it can lead to some pretty negative consequences.”
He said the advent of technology including smartphones and tablets have caused an increase in thefts, which feeds into the statistics. The theft of an iPhone, for example, is often a felony as a theft becomes a grand larceny if the stolen item is worth more than $200.
District 5 had 16 burglaries, many of which targeted homes in the area. The York-Poquoson Sheriff’s Office arrested a group of men in July believed to have been responsible for many of those burglaries.
Many of the drug offenses occurred in the Bethel Manor area and near the Langley Family Housing. York County Sheriff J.D. “Danny” Diggs spoke briefly at the town hall. He said gang activity is down in recent years, however deputies have noticed an uptick in fraud cases, including those in which people steal outgoing mail in an attempt to find checks they can erase and rewrite.
Shepperd gave a brief presentation of the budget that was approved by the supervisors in May. He spoke of a committee he created that advised him during the budget process. That group, he said, asked many valuable questions about why the county spent what it spent. Shepperd said since the recession began, school funding has increased by 9.5 percent and public safety funding has increased by 8.5 percent, while the rest of York County’s spending on government has decreased by 14 percent. In total, York County is spending $130.1 million on most recent budget, while the county spent $129.5 million five years ago.
He offered the audience a series of statistics, including that York County is among the lowest in employees per 1,000 residents in Hampton Roads, that York County has less law enforcement employees per 1,000 residents, that the county spends less on information technology costs than many of its neighbors and more.
Shepperd then provided information on changes to the county’s recycling program approved in November. He said since the changes were made official, the rate of people setting out recyclables has climbed to 67 percent from 49 percent. He said the monthly average weight of recyclables produced by the county has climbed to 391 tons from 345.
“We need about another year’s worth of work to really know, but this is the trend we see currently,” Shepperd said.
During a quick discussion of new development in the county, he identified 23 homes going in at the Woods on Mansion Road as well as a few homes on Calthrop Neck. In 2014, the Virginia Department of Transportation plans on doing some asphalt work on the roads in Running Man, however no other work is planned for District 5.
One citizen asked about the speed limit on George Washington Memorial Highway (Route 17), which has been lowered to 35 mph in much of the county as crews conduct preliminary work on a project to widen the road. Much of the work won’t begin for a few years, however the limit has been lowered for all of the road.
“That’s an issue I’m taking up with VDOT,” Shepperd said. “I don’t understand why the whole thing is 35 mph.”
Shepperd ended the town hall with a short discussion of a potential dredging project for Moore’s Creek and Lamb’s Creek. He said about 60 waterfront properties in the county would be affected by the process, as well as about 55 properties in Poquoson if that city were to participate. He said there are many issues left to work out, including how to finance the project. He mentioned a special tax district for those homes.
The next step for potential dredging is for county staff to return to the supervisors with more information. That has not yet been scheduled.
“We think it’s something we need to do,” Shepperd said.
