One person spoke at a sparsely attended James City County Planning Commission public hearing Monday on a package of proposed infrastructure spending that would yield a community gym, a fourth middle school on the James Blair site and the completion of water quality projects.
Frank Polster spoke on behalf of Citizens for A Better James City County, urging the commissioners to support a $1,083,317 expenditure that would allow the county to accept grant funds to both complete on-the-books water quality projects and to plan for future projects.
The commission’s policy committee, a group of four commissioners who ranked the package of five infrastructure projects, all agreed the water quality spending was the most important item in the package of proposed infrastructure spending through 2021.
After the hearing, the commission voted 6-0 to send the policy committee’s rankings to the James City County Board of Supervisors for review.
“I think everybody is quite concerned with the [water quality] permitting and the requirements coming down from the [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency],” Committee Chairman Tim O’Connor (At-Large).
Virginia has committed to reducing pollutants by 5 percent in waters connected to the Chesapeake Bay by June 2018. The water quality projects called for by the plan will provide credit toward that 5 percent goal, according to a December memorandum from Frances Geissler, the county’s stormwater director.
“[The $1,083,317 in spending] is based on a strategy that allows the county to leverage its dollars against matching state grants, and in fact making our tax dollars go further,” Polster said during the hearing.
The fourth middle school at the James Blair Site was ranked fourth by the commissioners, with O’Connor saying the commission recognized the need for the school but that the proposal for a 650-seat school at James Blair was “inadequate.”
“This site in my opinion has a lot of restraints and confines,” O’Connor said. He said a larger site was preferable and that the county has been “hamstrung” into having to vote for another middle school.
He also cited the loss of Cooley Field and the James Blair gymnasium as problematic for local sports teams that use those areas for games.
Commissioner Robin Bledsoe (Jamestown) agreed with O’Connor.
“School officials have assured us that isn’t the case, but I think 650 is too small,” she said.
Under the plan in the proposed spending package, James City County would contribute $25,798,759 toward the refurbishing of James Blair to convert it into a 650-seat middle school. An additional 300 seats could be added to the school in a second phase of construction, currently slated for 2024, according to a plan for the school unveiled by Williamsburg-James City County Schools officials in December.
O’Connor and Bledsoe also agreed about the proposed community gym, a $7 million project that would result in a building with three gymnasiums, locker rooms and storage areas at the Warhill Sports Complex.
Both commissioners said the gym lacked enough space to contribute to sports tourism, a phenomenon in which a locality’s athletic sites attract out-of-town teams.
“The community gym only meets the immediate need, and it doesn’t do anything to drive sports tourism or the like, and I think that’s one of the things that would have pushed us over if I thought it was going to be bigger,” O’Connor said.
Changes to Virginia High School League regulations allowing student-athletes to practice more and a dearth of coaches available during after-school hours have combined to send more students into gyms for practice, causing the swelling ranks of community youth athletic groups to have nowhere to play, according to a December memorandum from James City County Parks and Recreation Administrator Nancy Ellis.
Out of the five projects in the proposal, the gym was ranked fifth.
A series of $5 million per year funding contributions for road projects suggested by County Administrator Bryan Hill was ranked second, while a $1,084,000 stabilization of crumbling shorelines at Chickahominy Riverfront Park was ranked third. Commissioners
Heath Richardson (Stonehouse) and Christopher Basic (Berkeley) both said they agreed with the policy committee’s work to rank the projects.
The supervisors will consider the infrastructure proposals as part of the fiscal year 2016 budget, which runs from July 1 through June 2016. It is ultimately up to the supervisors which, if any, of the projects will be included in the county’s Capital Improvements Plan, which guides spending on infrastructure.
Several work sessions and meetings concerning the budget have been scheduled for April, with the supervisors slated to approve a budget for the fiscal year by May.
