SPORTS: Bird Bowl football preview, Liberty cheer team makes states, more. PAGES 21-26 November 2, 2022
Our 205th year | Vol. 205, No. 44 | www.Fauquier.com | $1.50 VIRGINIA PRESS ASSOCIATION: BEST SMALL NEWSPAPER IN VIRGINIA 2017-2021
Contentious planning commission work session on proposed data center addresses noise, power line issues By Peter Cary
Piedmont Journalism Foundation
Warrenton planning commissioners hammered Amazon’s data-center agents on topics ranging from projected noise levels to jobs for residents to the likely visibility of the 57-foot-high building at a work session Tuesday, Oct. 25. At times, the tone at the work session on the proposed center was testy. Commissioner Gerald Johnston declared he was leaving Warrenton partly because, “We did not want to live beside a data center.” The work session was the last time Johnston acted as a planning commissioner.
He resigned after were amended giving notice to last year to allow “We did not want to the Warrenton them. live beside a data Town Council. “I unfortucenter.” The strongest nately feel that GERALD JOHNSTON words against this applicaWarrenton planning commissioner, the Amazon tion has been explaining one of the reasons he is data center came wrapped in seleaving Warrenton from Commiscrecy and halfsioner Ali Zaratruths, no truth bi, who will and misinformaleave the commission when his term tion from its genesis, and it’s pretty expires Dec. 31. He made it clear difficult for me to have confidence in he opposes the center because data the process,” he said. Data center opcenters are not part of the town’s ponents applauded him loudly. comprehensive plan and because he A third member of the commisis unhappy with how zoning laws sion, Chair Susan Rae Helander,
Habitat finds a key to affordable housing
School board likely to see first draft of policy on sexually explicit class materials at Nov. 14 meeting
By Christopher Connell
Piedmont Journalism Foundation
See HABITAT, page 8
See COMMISSION, page 4
Major Warner, deputy superintendent of the Fauquier County School Division
Nonprofit builds, sells homes while leasing the land
Linneka Greene struggled for years to find affordable housing in Warrenton despite having a steady job at a clinical lab testing company. When she and her son wound up homeless for an eight-month stretch, she followed a disciplined regimen to spare the 4-year-old the worst indignities of not having a roof over their heads.
also declined to seek reappointment when her term ends Dec. 31. That is half of the planning commission, which must have a quorum — at least five members — to make decisions at its regular monthly meetings. Helander was absent from the Oct. 25 meeting. Amazon had some surprises at the meeting. Its attorney – John Foote, of the law firm Walsh, Colluci, Lubely & Walsh – announced that Amazon would be willing to share the cost of burying electric distribution lines to its proposed building at Blackwell
By Colleen LaMay
Fauquier Times Staff Writer
FAUQUIER TIMES STAFF PHOTO/COY FERRELL
Jasmine Smith enjoys her Remington home’s backyard with sons Jeremiah, 8, and Matthew, 4. The trampoline was a “must have” for Jeremiah.
Families likely will see the first draft of a state-mandated policy on “sexually explicit” classroom materials at the Nov. 14 meeting of the Fauquier County School Board, Deputy Superintendent Major Warner said. “We’ll bring a draft to the board and to the community for first review at the Nov. 14 board meeting,” Warner told school board members at their Oct. 17 meeting. See SCHOOL BOARD, page 10
See page 6 for Warrenton Halloween Parade photos.
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