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King George
Wednesday, August 26, 2015 50 Cents
Volume 39, Number 35
helping you relate to your community
Man dies in standoff with KG deputies
King George schools back in session!
Richard Leggitt A King George deputy sheriff shot and killed a man Saturday night after the man a approached officers brandishing a knife and ignored repeated commands to stop and put the weapon down. King George Sheriff Steve Dempsey immediately requested that a Virginia State Police shooting investigation team look into the circumstances of fatal incident. Dempsey said the incident was the first officer-involved shooting in his 36 years with the sheriff ’s office. The 65-year-old victim, a white male who has not yet been identified by authorities, was pronounced dead at the scene. No one else was injured. No one else was in the residence at the time of the shooting and no officers were injured. “My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved in this tragic event,” Dempsey said. Officers were also withholding, for the moment, the name of the
deputy involved in the shooting. The deputy was placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation by State Police. Sgt. Kecia Wharton said at 10:40 p.m. Saturday, officers were called to respond to a disturbance at a housing complex in the 10000 block of Tinsbloom Lane. Upon their arrival they found the victim had barricaded himself in a bedroom of a residence. Wharton said officers attempted to negotiate with the victim for more than an hour before they attempted to take him into custody. The man approached the officers in a threatening manner with a knife while ignoring their commands to stop and drop his weapon. According to Wharton, a deputy sheriff discharged his firearm, injuring the man. King George Emergency Services was already at the scene and attempted life-saving efforts immediately following the incident, but the victim could not be saved.
Photo by George Whitehurst
Students at King George Elementary School prepare to board busses after after a bright, sunny first day of school. The school parking lot became a sea of brightly colored backpacks as kids headed home to share with their families what they had learned.
Sisson disputes Brabo editorial at King George supervisors meeting Phyllis Cook King George Supervisor Dale Sisson disputed Supervisor Ruby Brabo’s recent editorial criticizing him and Supervisor Cedell Brooks, Jr., which appeared in the Aug. 12 edition of The Journal and in Brabo’s Aug. 5 newsletter. Sisson made his remarks during the Aug. 18 board of supervisors meeting. “As a board, we adopt a Code of Conduct every year that very specifically says we’re not going to go out and publicly attack each other while we’re in the middle of deliberations on a certain project, and this goes against that,” Sisson said. “It’s a campaign year, I get that. We’re going to have disagreements and different points come out. I have no problem with that. But I just would ask that it be accurate. And if you want to have the personal attacks, why not save them for the campaign events and not the issues that we’re debating.” Brabo’s editorial called for construction of a new fire station
for the Dahlgren District and criticized Sisson’s and Brooks’ call for construction of a new fire station for the Shiloh District. She reiterated her position after Sisson spoke. “I still stand by my comments in [the editorial],” she said. “I am not in any disagreement that eventually the county does need a station in Shiloh. I am in 100 percent agreement with that. There is no statement in there that’s contrary to that. That being said, I don’t support building a Company 4 station at this time.” Brabo is running against Sisson for the at-large seat on the board in the Nov. 3 election. During the Aug. 18 meeting, Sisson referred to the board’s previous meeting, a work session to discuss details of projects proposed in a 2016-20 capital improvements program. “We all left that meeting with a placeholder that night to pursue simultaneously two separate fire/ rescue stations. The op-ed indicates that may not have been the case, that we were favoring one over the
other.,” he said. “And it called out me and Mr. Brooks specifically, and I’m not sure why that’s the case, when we’ve all talked about where to go with this.” Brabo’s op-ed was entitled “The community’s interest or a personal political agenda?” In it, she objected to construction of a Shiloh fire/rescue station in the near future. She didn’t bring that up at the work session, though she asked Chief David Moody when the Fairview Beach station would be staffed. Renovations on the Company 3 building were completed at the end of 2014, with funding authority provided for Moody to start recruiting staffing for the station this past January. Moody responded he expected to have that accomplished in October. Like the Dahlgren station, Fairview Beach will have 24/7 staffing with two positions on duty for each of three shifts around the clock. The See SUPERVISORS, page 8
Judge bans shoplifter from Dahlgren Walmart for life Richard Leggitt Last year a group of high school students, as part of a class project, sat in King George Circuit Court listening as Commonwealth’s Attorney Keri Gusmann prosecuted cases, including a number against defendants accused of stealing from the Walmart store in Dahlgren. After one particularly tough sentence was ordered for a Maryland man charged with shoplifting, the group of youngsters was asked what they had learned during their court visit. “Don’t steal from Walmart,” was the response from several of the students. Pretty good advice. With the close cooperation of Gusmann and her staff and King George Sheriff Steve Dempsey and his officers, the Walmart on Route 301 in Dahlgren spends a great deal of time and effort deterring shoplifters and thieves who incorrectly view the large store as easy pickings.
Walmart has security tags on merchandise, asset protection associates roaming throughout the stores aisles watching for thieves and dozens of security cameras monitoring the store including the parking lot. “Basically from the time people enter our parking lot, while they are In the store and as they leave the parking lot, they are on camera,” said Assistant manager Dale Brandon. “These are state-of-the-art cameras that can even read license plates as people are exiting the parking lot.” “We enforce shoplifting laws because when people steal from us they are taking money from our customers. We pride ourselves on our low prices, but shoplifting makes it more difficult to keep prices low.” In King George Circuit Court Thursday, 33-year-old Nicole Hicks of Colonial Beach was headed to jail because she didn’t get the message. Hicks was convicted for shoplifting women’s clothes and
other items at Walmart earlier this year. She received a one-year prison sentence. However, Judge Herbert Hewitt suspended six months of the sentence subject to three years of supervised good behavior. And one more thing: “You are banned from the King George Walmart for life,” Hewitt told Hicks, a requirement that is ordered for all those convicted of stealing from Walmart. “Unfortunately, this is another example of an out-of-town individual coming to King George to shoplift from the local Walmart,” said Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Charles Clark. “We will continue to send the message that even small thefts are taken seriously and can result in long periods of incarceration.” Clark praised the King George Sheriff ’s Office for doing “an See SHOPLIFTER, page 8
Supervisors to hold public hearing next week on fracking rules Phyllis Cook The King George Board of Supervisors will take public comment at a 6 p.m. meeting on Sept. 1 on proposals to tighten rules for oil and gas drilling in the county zoning ordinance and the Comprehensive Plan pertaining to fracking. Fracking is a method of drilling for natural gas by high-pressure injection of chemicals and water into rock formations thousands of feet underground, creating cracks in the ancient shale beds to allow the extraction of natural gas. No applications have yet been received for fracking in this area, but the county wants to be prepared. All five supervisors are on record as not wanting fracking in King George.
Shore Exploration Production Corporation holds drilling leases on some 86,000 acres in the Taylorsville Basin, including areas of King George. The Taylorsville Basin is the geologic formation underlying this area of the state and a large section of the Chesapeake Bay and Southern Maryland, considered environmentally sensitive. Earlier this summer, Maryland imposed a moratorium on fracking expected to last until October of 2017. Virginia is in the process of reviewing changes to state regs for drilling in the Taylorsville Basin, which has different rules than other areas of the state. Fracking critics cite the potential for pollution of the aquifers, along
with disruption to rural areas by large scale industrialization bringing high volumes of truck traffic, noise and light pollution. The board has undertaken a strategy to strengthen land-use ordinances dealing with those issues, hoping to discourage drillers from seeking permits. The board had kicked around the notion of an outright ban on fracking over the last year, but decided against that tack based on advice from County Attorney Eric Gregory. Gregory expressed concern that such a move could result in a lengthy and costly lawsuit with King George as a test case. The strategy was last discussed in detail in January when the board agreed to fast-track regulation changes requested and received from
the Planning Commission. Supervisors Joe Grzeika and Dale Sisson vocally agreed with Gregory. “I’d say take the more proactive way and protect ourselves with the special exception approach, and let somebody else go spend their money on a legal battle if they want to,” Grzeika said. “Smart land use decision-making and drafting and crafting of an ordinance allows us to do the right thing for the county,” Sisson said. In May, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring released an advisory opinion saying localities may use their zoning authority to prohibit fracking, “but only to the extent such regulations are reasonable in scope and are not inconsistent with the provisions of the Virginia Gas and Oil Act, or regulations properly
enacted pursuant to that Act.” Gregory reaffirmed his advice to the board at that point. “Based upon the attorney general opinion and our prior analysis, and given the Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy’s ongoing regulatory process, I would recommend staying the course and proceeding with the draft ordinance amendments presently under consideration,” Gregory said on May 19. Those ordinance amendments are the topic of next week’s hearing. A big change would result in only 4 percent of county land to be considered for any drilling with a proposal to ban drilling within 1,000 feet of resource protection areas including creeks and rivers, as well as occupied buildings and public
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roads. There are numerous other restrictions and requirements in the proposed ordinance changes which would need a special exception permit for any drilling application, giving additional leverage for the county to impose extra conditions on drillers. The King George proposed changes to Section 4.11 of the zoning ordinance – Drilling for oil and/ or natural gas can be viewed in the county office of Community Development on the ground floor of the Revercomb Building behind the Courthouse on Route 3.