01/27/2016

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Inside A8 More photos of Powhatan in the snow

Powhatan, Virginia B1 BSH has a ‘Shooter’

Vol. XXIX No. 4

January 27, 2016

Snowed in Powhatan fares well By Laura McFarland

County continues to dig out after massive winter storm dumps 10 to 15 inches of snow, closes schools and businesses

News Editor

Photos courtesy of Caroline Jones (left)/ Keaton Culver (right)

Left, Caroline Jones snapped a photo of a snow-covered Route 13 on Jan. 23. Right, one of Jessica Culver’s dogs knocked her off her snowboard to show her how it should be done on Jan. 23 in Powhatan County.

POWHATAN – An intense snowstorm that stretched over two days and dropped countless amounts of snow on the rest of the state was handled well in Powhatan County. Most residents seemed to have heeded the official warnings to stay off the road, which meant volunteer fire stations that were almost always staffed and ready to go had a refreshingly quiet time, Fire and EMS chief Steven Singer said. “Between Friday and Sunday, we had 12 EMS calls, five fire calls and only two accidents that we responded on. I think we did very well. We had no major incidents,” Singer see SNOW page 8A

Memorandum debate continues By Laura McFarland News Editor

Nordvig

Melton

ers their employees and deputies, “thereby establishing a uniform personnel system.” This would guarantee the constitutional officers’ employees “will have the same rights and benefits, and will be subject to the same procedures and

Prsrt. Standard U.S. POSTAGE PAID Powhatan, VA Permit No.19

POWHATAN – At the end of a more than hour-long meeting last week between the Powhatan County Board of Supervisors and the county’s five constitutional officers about memorandums of understanding the officers are being asked to sign, it was still unclear how the issue would be resolved. Earlier this month, the supervisors had been set to vote at their meeting on Monday, Jan. 4 on a resolution regarding memorandums of understanding (MOUs) that, if signed, meant the constitutional officers would be agreeing the county’s employee handbook cov-

regulations as other county employees,” unless otherwise noted. But before the issue even came up for a vote at the Jan. 4 meeting, all five constitutional officers and one citizen spoke during the public comment period in opposition to the resolution and asked the board to vote against it. The solution proposed by Larry Nordvig, who represents District 2, and then modified by David Williams, District 1, saw the board deciding to postpone the vote until Monday, Jan. 25 and meet with all of the constitutional officers at once to discuss their issues with the resolution and MOU. Rather than presenting a solution to the issue, the workshop held on

Wednesday, Jan. 20 ended with the board of supervisors giving no indication of how they would vote at their upcoming meeting and the constitutional officers having expressed discontent that went deeper than the MOU issue. The meeting revealed some areas of discontent and possible future contention, depending on the board’s vote. The vote that was planned for Jan. 25 had to be moved when the supervisors’ meeting was changed to 6 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 1 because of the snowstorm this weekend. In addition to Nordvig and Williams, the other board members present see MEMORANDUM page 2A

DELIVER TO: Postal Patron Powhatan, VA 23139

Powhatan ranked 15th best district in the state By Laura McFarland News Editor

Photo by Laura McFarland

The Little Zion Baptist Church Praise Dancers perform during the MLK Youth Day Community Breakfast.

Annual MLK breakfast celebrates spirit of unity By Laura McFarland News Editor

POWHATAN – The Powhatan community came out in force last week to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a morning of unity, music, encouraging words and great food. More than 300 people gathered on Monday, Jan. 18 at Powhatan United Methodist Church for the fifth annual MLK Youth Day Community Breakfast, which is sponsored by Little Zion Baptist Church. The program featured a diverse schedule of performances, speeches and

presentations that largely focused on highlighting the achievements and skills of the county’s youth, April Gray, cochair of the event, said. “MLK Youth Day gives our youth a platform to use the skills that they have been taught by their mentors in formal setting. The youth participants were involved in all aspects of the program, from setting up to clean up,” Gray said. New this year, Powhatan County Public Schools became involved for the first time with performances by the Powhatan County Junior High School see BREAKFAST page 3A

POWHATAN – If the Powhatan County Public School system were a child taking his report card home to his parents, it wouldn’t have anything to worry about based on recent rankings that placed it among the top 15 school districts in Virginia. Niche, a national education assessment company, ranked Powhatan’s school district 15th out of 131 divisions in the state in its 2016 Public K-12 School Rankings, according to the company’s website, www.niche.com. The company researches and surveys ever school in the nation to get accurate rankings. It evaluates more than 100,000 public and private schools and divisions annually based on a comprehensive survey of performance data and the views of more than 27 million students and parents. The rankings also put Powhatan in the No. 3 spot out of 25 districts in the Richmond Metro area and Powhatan High School as the No. 7 Best Public High School in the see RANKING page 5A


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