LOUDOUN COUNTY’S COMMUNITY-OWNED NEWS SOURCE
LoudounNow
[ Vol. 4, No. 44 ]
[ loudounnow.com ]
[ September 19, 2019 ]
■ PUBLIC AND LEGAL NOTICES - PAGE 32 ■ NOW HIRING LOUDOUN PAGE 39 ■ RESOURCE DIRECTORY PAGE 41
Wittmann Cleared for Commonwealth’s Attorney Run BY PATRICK SZABO
posed development might be the site of numerous unmarked graves, many of which could belong to enslaved people from hundreds of years ago. Siebentritt said that an archeological survey done there, which was submitted to the county on Sept. 11, revealed 23 graves and estimated that there are 23-30 more. “It’s a large cemetery,” she said. Siebentritt said that while applying to list the village on the National Register of Historic Places wouldn’t stop the by-right development from moving forward, it would prompt Virginia’s Historic Preser-
Retired Circuit Court Judge Richard B. Potter on Tuesday ruled that Chief Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Nicole Wittmann is qualified to run for Commonwealth’s Attorney this November. On Aug. 20, a petition filed by four Loudoun Democrats claimed Wittmann was a Herndon resident who was not qualified to run for public office in Loudoun. The complaint presented eviWittmann dence that she had not abandoned her domicile in Fairfax County at the time she filed her candidacy in February. They claimed that although Wittmann, the Republican nominee, was renting a room from a co-worker, Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Alex Rueda, in Leesburg at the time, she did not regularly reside there. Following a five-hour hearing—which included testimony from Rueda, the real estate agent who sold Wittmann’s Herndon home, a representative from the Sensei Enterprises digital forensics company and Wittmann herself—Potter found that Wittmann was a qualified voter in Loudoun County on Feb. 21 when she filed her candidacy for office. Under Virginia law, candidates for office must be qualified to vote in the county where the office will be held. Wittman filed her Certification of Candidate Qualification the same day she filed a new voter registration that listed the Leesburg address. In court, Wittmann testified that upon learning in early February that Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Plowman was selected to an eight-year term as a judge for the 20th Judicial Circuit, she intended to make Loudoun her home and to “never return to Herndon.” “There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to become a Loudoun County
CEMETERY >> 47
WITTMANN >> 46
Patrick Szabo/Loudoun Now
County Chairwoman Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large) holds the mic for Albert Bland, a 63-year village of St. Louis resident, during a community meeting on a planned 30-home development on Thursday.
Developer: St. Louis Plans Protect Cemetery BY PATRICK SZABO AND RENSS GREENE Residents living in and around the village of St. Louis might not be happy with developers’ drive to build a few dozen homes there, but they’re beginning to get the answers they’re searching for. About 50 residents crowded into the Mt. Zion Baptist Church of St. Louis’s congregation hall Thursday afternoon to hear from County Chairwoman Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large), Loudoun Environmental Health Manager George Khan, and Loudoun Historic Preservation Planner Heidi Siebentritt about developer Mojax LLC’s plans to build by-right 30 houses
on 19 acres along Snake Hill Road—land that borders the Baptist church’s property to the north and east. The project’s developers were not in attendance. Common among the residents’ comments were concerns that those development plans would adversely affect the community’s water supply and dozens of unmarked grave sites. Randall asserted that new development might create water flow issues with some of the existing wells in the village and that a new development could increase residents’ taxes, as more people move in and require county services She also said the location of the pro-
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