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Fauquier Times | March 4, 2020

Members of the Woodzell/ Garrett clan were photographed in 1932 in Warrenton. From left, Harry M. Woodzell (b. 1890), Henry A. Garrett (b. 1875); his son C. Irvin Garrett (b. 1905) who was married to the former Virginia Woodzell; and their son, Charles I. Garrett (b. 1929).

FAUQUIER FLASHBACKS FROM THE FAUQUIER TIMES

75 Years Ago March 8, 1945

1st Lt. Ralph A. Wines, Army Air Forces pilot, has been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross after completing more than 500 hours of operational flight in transport aircraft over the dangerous and difficult India-to-China air route, where enemy interception and attack was probable and expected. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wines of Warrenton. J. W. “Pete” Shirley, 88, a town and county officer for more than 60 years, died March 3 at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Blanche Maxheimer. Mr. Shirley retired in September as county jailor, a position he held since 1914.

Col. Everett A. Helmuth and the staff of the 11th Battalion, Virginia State Guard, will be at Middleburg on March 8 to inspect the Warrenton Rifles, Co. 111, Capt. L. R. Bartenstein announces.

50 Years Ago March 5, 1970

A joint hearing with the Supervisors has been scheduled by the Planning Commission for March 23 on the John A. Cooper Co. request to rezone 4,681 acres at North Wales for a 2,340-home planned community. The Cooper Co. made its first rezoning application for the development of North Wales, the former estate of Walter P. Chrysler Jr., early in 1968. In December 1969, Supervisors rejected the company’s cluster plan for 7,300 dwelling units by a 3-2 vote.

Sgt. Lewis Allison, son of Mr. and Mrs. Embrey Allison of

Letters to the Editor The Fauquier Times welcomes letters to the editor from its readers as a forum for discussion of local public affairs subjects. WRITE: Letters to the Editor 41 Culpeper Street Warrenton, VA 20188 FAX: Editor 540-349-8676 EMAIL: news@fauquier.com Marshall, has been presented with his second Bronze Star medal in Vietnam, where he is serving with the 22nd Infantry (Mechanized). The Mid-Fauquier Association, organized two years ago primarily to oppose the intense development of the North Wales estate as a planned community, has come out in favor of “a significant increase in the pay of public school teachers,” according to Ralph David Blakeslee, chairman of the Association’s education committee. Dr. Wade Stinson is president of the Association.

25 Years Ago March 8, 1995

Recently the Highland School board of Trustees awarded a general contracting services contract to Scott Long Construction Inc. for new additions and renovations to its lower school facility. Jack Hazel, chairman of the board of trustees, said renovations will begin on the building’s exterior as soon as construction permits for the $1.8 million project are approved.

The 25,000-seat Cellar Door Pavilion, located on Wellington Road in Gainesville, will open in mid-May. Cellar Door president David Williams declined to release the names of coming attractions.

Sounding what will surely be a familiar theme to his re-election campaign, Del. Jay Katzen (R-31st) lashed out at Democratic legislators Monday for what he called a cynical and undemocratic scuttling of the Republican agenda of tax cuts and term limits.

– Compiled by John T. Toler

Letters must be signed by the writer. Messages sent via email must say “Letter to the Editor” to distinguish them from other messages not meant for publication. Include address and phone for verification (Not to be published.) Letters are subject to editing for clarity and length. Personal attacks will not be published. Long letters from those with special authority on a current issue may be treated as a guest column (with photo requested). Due to volume, letters cannot be acknowledged. All letters are appreciated. Letters must be received by 5 p.m. Monday to be considered for Wednesday publication.

PUBLISHER’S STATEMENT

Fauquier Times to be delivered with your mail

Starting Wednesday, March 11, your Fauquier Times newspaper will be delivered with your daily mail. For some folks, this means you’ll receive your paper a little earlier on Wednesday, for some, a little later.

The method of delivery is changing, but the paper remains your best source of local community news.

Using the U.S. Postal Service to deliver the Fauquier Times is an innovative initiative that should reduce our delivery costs, while having minimal impact on our readers.

Our goal is to make sure all our subscribers receive their paper on Wednesday as usual, but as with any major

change, we expect there will be some disruptions as we roll out the new delivery system. Delivery will still depend on people to make sure you receive your paper, and it may take a week or two to iron out any inconsistencies.

We will work to correct these as quickly as possible.

If you do experience any delay or do not receive your paper, please email frontdeskteam@fauquier.com. Include your name, address, and the problem you would like to see addressed.

We appreciate your support of the Fauquier Times and your patience as we roll out the new delivery system. CATHERINE NELSON Publisher

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

An expensive reality we just can’t deny

“That’s the problem with denial. Reality doesn’t care what you think. It just keeps rolling along.”

– Lee Childs, “Past Tense.” We can’t get much more of a reality check than a presidential budget proposal. There is no denying that Donald Trump’s 2021 budget is heavy on defense spending – remember that border wall that Mexico was going to pay for?

Reality: The proposed budget allocates $7.2 billion of taxpayer money (yours and mine) for the wall, for a grand total of $18.2 billion, so far.

The U.S. already spends more on defense than any other country in the world. In fact, the U.S. spent over $649 billion in 2018, which is more than the next seven countries (China, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Russia, United Kingdom and Germany) combined at $609 billion.

We can deny that money for increased defense spending will come from our pockets, but now that the Republicans have cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations, for a total of $37 billion less revenue in 2019, who else will foot the bill?

Reality: Trump’s budget proposes cuts on domestic spending to pay for increases in the already fat defense budget. The budget includes cuts for Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, affordable housing, education and environmental protection.

What we can’t deny is that we – if we aren’t millionaires -- will all feel the pinch as will our children and grandchildren.

Reality: Denial of this administration’s actions and priorities won’t change the way they will spend your hard-earned money. Only voting for and electing officials who care about you, your family and those who are most vulnerable, will affect change. KATHRYN KADILAK The Plains

School advocate suggests raising teacher salaries is good investment in our children

For several years Fauquier County has discussed the poor state of teacher salaries and its impact on teachers and teacher retention. Few people are opposed to teachers earning more money, except when I start talking about where that money will come from. The most direct route is through an increase in local funding, in other words, taxes.

Dr. [David] Jeck’s proposed budget noted that getting teachers to 100% of market value for their salary would cost $5.2 million. That seems like an extraordinary amount of money, but if we break it down, it seems less onerous.

According to the census bureau, there are 24,333 households in the county. If each household contributed $5 a week or $260 a year, we would be able to close this gap. That’s less than one large Starbucks a week. As a community, are we willing to sacrifice a little so those who need it can get what they deserve? This is the pact we make to provide public services funded with tax dollars. We are saying we will share our earnings so that the com

Letter writer says Constitution is under attack from the left

The hypothesis of Mr. [Jimmy] Bowman’s letter in the Feb. 19 edition, that we have failed to uphold the Constitution is very real, but he is off the mark in his assertion of why.

Attacks on the First Amendment exercise of free speech, assembly, and religion have been constant for many years. Attacks on college campuses, in some cases with active support of educators and administrators, have included violent attacks on individuals simply because they hold a different opinion. In the last five years this intolerance has left the campuses and been pushed into general society to the point where many individuals seem to feel it is acceptable to attack an individual wearing a red hat because they represent a different opinion. Attacks on our Second Amendment right to bear arms, through enacting laws which provide no clear rationale for how they would have prevented any prior unlawful use of a firearm; but make obtaining, training with, or using a firearm for self-defense more difficult for a law-abiding citizen. These efforts have significantly increased in recent years with the support of billionaires spending millions of dollars, to curtail enumerated rights without objective evidence that their

proposed actions would improve public safety. Despite Virginia being rated with the seventh-lowest State Crime Index, the newly elected General Assembly is working feverishly to put in place laws which will create impediments for lawful self-defense with firearms.

Attacks on our Fifth Amendment right to due process are being pursued by claims of guilt by accusation, applied with “cancel culture” vitriol across broad ranges of media to intentionally impact the life and liberty of an accused without due process. This was notoriously on display in an attempt to prevent the appointment of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, complete with a mob beating on the doors of the Supreme Court Building.

This kangaroo court mentality which also violates the Sixth Amendment, was recently applied in the House of Representative’s impeachment of the president. House leadership threw away the impeachment rules used for the Clinton impeachment, which provided full constitutional protections, then denied the president the right to confront witnesses against him, obtaining witnesses in his favor, and representation by counsel for his defense during House impeachment proceedings, as has been provided

in previous Presidential Impeachments.

In the past three years legislatures in several states have proposed subverting the will of their state voters and the Constitution-defined Electoral College. This year Virginia’s General Assembly joined their number by proposing a state law which would ignore the votes of state residents and award the Virginia electoral votes to the winners of the national popular vote. It is clear that the threat to upholding the Constitution is the aggressive attacks of progressive and liberal individuals and media, as well as elected Democrats. Not the Senate refusing to perform an impeachment inquiry, after the House failed to, after voting to open an impeachment inquiry that was their responsibility to complete. Progressives, liberals, and Democrats who refuse to recognize this as a result of limiting their information awareness to only the reverberation chamber of progressive and liberal media, have inflicted much more damage to the Constitution than the Senate vote to constrain themselves to the Constitution-defined role of trying the impeachment.

CHUCK MEDVITZ New Baltimore

Columbia Gas says it’s a benefit, but we pay for it

Some utility companies’ decisions are just plain non-sensical. They claim to benefit a community with upgraded facilities, yet create unnecessary costs to the taxpayer and county. This is what Columbia Gas will do in Fauquier if they’re allowed to build new Point of Delivery facilities in the midst of our residential communities. One site under contention is the proposed Fauquier County Reliability Project. Right now, Columbia Gas wants to put it near homes on Riley Road, between Dumfries and Forrest roads, in the New Baltimore area. Anytime a utility builds industrial-looking facilities within existing neighborhoods, it diminishes the tranquility, attractiveness and desirability of those communities. That lowers home values and, in turn, decreases thousands of dollars in collectable tax from homeowners. It may not seem like an impressive amount now, or even a negative, but in subsequent years, that amount adds up and can eventually contribute to a revenue shortfall. As our home equity declines, will the county remember which company was responsible for this shortfall and increase their tax? Not likely. So, who gets stuck with the increased tax bill? No doubt it’s us, Fauquier County residents. Meanwhile, the utility company, in this case Columbia Gas, will continue to increase profit from larger facilities.

Columbia Gas admits the new site will replace a facility that is neither unsafe nor unreliable. Neighbors aren’t against wise progress. Fauquier already has Planned Commercial Industrial Development districts where these facilities make sense. We must insist that our Board of Supervisors force Columbia Gas to locate its new industrial-looking sites in areas that won’t be adversely impacted the way residential areas will be. Speak out. Tell Columbia Gas to build their PODs far from churches, schools and residences. Concerned community members are hosting a public meeting Wednesday, March 11, from 6 to 8 p.m. at 4154 Weeks Drive, Warrenton. More information at www. FightThePOD.com.

DIANA HARDY Warrenton

Artificially stimulated growth is expensive and unnecessary

Two ideas in recent letters to the Fauquier Times have made me clutch my pocketbook: the idea that Warrenton needs more people and that Warrenton should prepare for the commuters from a subdivision that may be built in the wilds of rural Culpeper County at Clevenger’s Corner.

To artificially stimulate growth anywhere in the county is a stupid idea. Does every generation have to learn from their own mistakes? Fifty years ago, my generation learned the cost of artificially stimulated population growth at a time when subdivisions were popping up wherever a parcel of land became available. It doesn’t matter whether a subdivision is built in the town of Warrenton or out in the country, the children in the houses in that subdivision have to be educated. Today, it takes the property taxes on a house valued for tax purposes at $700,000 to cover, primarily, the cost of schools. Twelve years ago, traffic from the same proposed Clevenger’s Corner subdivision was a hot issue. A bypass to by-pass the bypass through the subdivision on the old Gold Cup racecourse was proposed. The question came up then, and should come up today: why should we, in Fauquier County, be obligated to help a developer in Culpeper County feather his nest?

HOPE PORTER Warrenton

In favor of transgender birth certificate bill

I am writing in response to the article titled "Legislature OKs bill allowing new birth certificate for transgender people," published in your newspaper on Feb. 29. I find it enriching to see concerns of this nature being discussed and considered in government.

As noted in this article, this is a monumental step in the right direction for those who identify as members of the transgender community. I think that the bill is positive; yet, not perfect. Before being able to obtain their new birth certificate, individuals must seek the approval of their medical professional. There will most likely be issues, when the medical professional is allowed to determine what is considered to be "clinically appropriate treatment." While I understand there must be steps in place to create the most comprehensive system, there may be individuals who abuse their power. What is deemed to be "appropriate treatment" is a subjective judgement. Each individual's experience is totally different, making it hard to standardize.

I think this bill will require tweaking in the future; however, I do understand progress has to start somewhere. Taking steps in the right direction, there still needs to be continual consideration of how to improve upon these efforts to truly create an inclusive environment for all. Cultivating the best inclusive environment will require input from all individuals and assessment of the outcomes of this bill.

MACKENNA REGENBOGEN Warrenton

TEACHERS, from page 8

munity can be stronger.

I’m not saying this is the only way to provide well-deserved teachers’ pay increases, but it is the most expedient. I know we need to review the current school budget and ensure the school board is being responsible with our tax dollars. I know we need to lobby lawmakers in Richmond to increase funding for education. I know the federal government needs to prioritize funding for education. I also know this is our community and our responsibility to do what we can to provide for it.

Almost every person in Fauquier County can trace their success in work and life to education at a public school. We should all be willing to sacrifice a little more to make sure that our county can hire and retain highly qualified teachers to give our children an opportunity to succeed.

MIKE HAMMOND Scott District

SUDOKU 1 Sarah of “Wreck-It Ralph” (9) ___________ 2 Ellen of “Finding Nemo” (9) ___________ 3 Wanda of “Rio” (5) ___________ 4 Amy of “Inside Out” (7) ___________ 5 Whoopi of “Toy Story 3” (8) ___________ 6 Kristen of “Despicable Me” (4) ___________ 7 Maya of “Big Hero 6” (7) ___________ Today’s Answers: 1. SILVERMAN 2. DEGENERES 3. SYKES 4. POEHLER 5. GOLDBERG 6. WIIG 7. RUDOLPH Find the 7 words to match the 7 clues. The numbers in parentheses represent the number of letters in each solution. Each letter combination can be used only once, but all letter combinations will be necessary to complete the puzzle. © 2020 Blue Ox Family Games, Inc., Dist. by Andrews McMeel CLUES SOLUTIONS

3/1 SI KES POE RU HL LPH AN WI SY LVE DBE DO RM GOL RG DEG ER RES ENE IG

SUDOKU 1 writer Agatha (8) ___________ 2 comedian Billy (7) ___________ 3 actress Daryl (6) ___________ 4 actor Topher (5) ___________ 5 singer Carmen (7) ___________ 6 baseball player Satchel (5) ___________ 7 poet Percy Bysshe (7) ___________ Today’s Answers: 1. CHRISTIE 2. CRYSTAL 3. HANNAH 4. GRACE 5. MIRANDA 6. PAIGE 7. SHELLEY Find the 7 words to match the 7 clues. The numbers in parentheses represent the number of letters in each solution. Each letter combination can be used only once, but all letter combinations will be necessary to complete the puzzle. © 2019 Blue Ox Family Games, Inc., Dist. by Andrews McMeel CLUES SOLUTIONS

4/14 CRY DA SH GE ELL CE CH AL NN MIR AN GRA PAI AH IE ST HA ST RI EY SUDOKU 1 writer Agatha (8) ___________ 2 comedian Billy (7) ___________ 3 actress Daryl (6) ___________ 4 actor Topher (5) ___________ 5 singer Carmen (7) ___________ 6 baseball player Satchel (5) ___________ 7 poet Percy Bysshe (7) ___________ Today’s Answers: 1. CHRISTIE 2. CRYSTAL 3. HANNAH 4. GRACE 5. MIRANDA 6. PAIGE 7. SHELLEY Find the 7 words to match the 7 clues. The numbers in parentheses represent the number of letters in each solution. Each letter combination can be used only once, but all letter combinations will be necessary to complete the puzzle. © 2019 Blue Ox Family Games, Inc., Dist. by Andrews McMeel CLUES SOLUTIONS

4/14 CRY DA SH GE ELL CE CH AL NN MIR AN GRA PAI AH IE ST HA ST RI EY

KENKEN SOLUTIONS

KENKEN SOLUTIONS KENKEN SOLUTIONS

CROSSWORD SOLUTION

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SUDOKU SOLUTION

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