This week in county government; School Board votes to make masks optional for students; Louisa legislators busy in 2022 General Assembly session; Roundup of recent board appointments
Engage Louisa is a community newsletter aimed at keeping folks informed about Louisa County government. It’s free, non-partisan, and powered by volunteers. We believe our community is stronger and our government serves us better when we increase transparency, accessibility, and engagement.
This week in county government: public meetings, Jan. 31 through Feb. 5
Tuesday, February 1
Louisa County School Board, Central Office Administration Building, 953 Davis Highway, Mineral, 7 pm. (agenda) The Louisa County School Board does not livestream its meetings or provide archived video. The only way to access this meeting is to attend in person.
Thursday, February 3
Update: Due to a scheduling conflict, TJPDC will meet virtually on Thursday, February 10, at 7 pm.
Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission, Virtual Meeting, 7 pm. (meeting info)
Additional information about Louisa County’s upcoming public meetings is available here.
Interested in taking your talents to one of the county’s numerous boards and commissions? Find out more here, including which boards have vacancies and how to apply.
School Board votes to make masks optional for students
The Louisa County School Board voted unanimously Thursday night to make masks optional for students in the division’s six schools, effective Monday, January 31.
The board held a special meeting in Louisa County High School’s Alan Jackson Theatre that drew about 150 people and focused specifically on the division’s mask policy. Whether to require masks in schools as a Covid-19 mitigation strategy has emerged as a central controversy in the early days of Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration. Youngkin issued an executive order on his first day in office allowing parents to opt children out of mask mandates.
After listening to about an hour of public comment from 23 community members, many of whom supported keeping the division’s mask mandate in place, Cuckoo District representative Stephen Harris motioned that the board adopt a policy that strongly encourages masking but allows parents and legal guardians to choose whether their child wears a mask. The policy complies with the order Youngkin issued on January 15, referred to as Executive Order 2, which allows local school divisions to implement their own mask policy but also permits parental choice.
The board’s decision Thursday night reverses a previous plan, announced just a week and a half ago, that required students to continue to mask while the division awaited clarity from the Supreme Court of Virginia or the General Assembly regarding legal challenges to Youngkin’s order.
A group of Chesapeake parents and some of Virginia’s largest school divisions filed a pair of lawsuits earlier this month arguing that the order conflicts with Senate Bill 1303, which passed the General Assembly last year with bipartisan support. The law mandates that public schools open for in-person learning five days a week and adhere to the Center for Disease Control’s Covid mitigation guidelines “to the maximum extent practicable.” Currently, the CDC recommends masking indoors for students and staff in K-12 schools regardless of vaccination status. Under former Governor Ralph Northam, Virginia’s public schools were required to adhere to universal masking.
The suits also challenge the executive order on grounds that it infringes on school boards’ authority to supervise local schools, a power granted by the Virginia Constitution.
The Chesapeake parents filed their suit with the Virginia Supreme Court while the school divisions filed in Arlington County Circuit Court. The latter challenge is scheduled for a hearing this week.
Board members provided limited insight into why they opted to shift gears from the division’s previous plan or why they called a special meeting to address the issue just days before their regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, February 1.
Before making his motion to adopt the new policy, Harris acknowledged the conflict between SB 1303 and Executive Order 2 but indicated he’s inclined to follow Youngkin’s order even before a court ruling.
“My take on it is that when you look at Governor Youngkin’s executive order and you look at the Virginia Constitution, the applicable portions, that executive order is so carefully and appropriately based on the very language in the constitution, which overrides any law. It’s the basis of our society,” he said.
Harris later added that if the Supreme Court of Virginia disagrees with his view and finds Executive Order 2 unlawful, the division would adhere to the court’s ruling.
The division’s new policy only applies to students inside school facilities. Federal regulations mandate that students continue to mask when using school transportation. Under guidance from the Virginia Department of Health, students participating in LCPS’ Test to Stay program are required to mask for 10 days. The program aims to keep kids in school who’ve had close contact with someone infected with Covid as long as they test negative. Children returning from quarantine are also required to wear a mask for several days, according to Superintendent Doug Straley.
Straley said that school employees must continue to mask for now in accord with Department of Labor and Industry standards. That policy could change if transmission levels fall. Parents and other visitors to school facilities are also required to wear masks.
In an email to school staff sent Friday, Straley wrote that the division would not ask parents to submit forms indicating a masking preference for their child, in part, because of logistical challenges.
“Quite frankly, we did not want enforcement of this to fall on our staff, and asking you to keep track of which student should or shouldn’t be wearing their masks is not something we’re going to add to your plate,” Straley wrote. “In a communication we are sending to families later today, we are going to be clear that the decision of whether or not a child wears a mask is strictly a decision between the parent and the child. Through this communication, we will also be clear that we continue to strongly encourage masking for all students.”
Straley also wrote that teachers are not permitted to segregate children in their classrooms based on their masking choice. He stated that “creating sections for the masked and sections for the unmasked within your classroom would be in direct conflict of the (executive) order. If a student requests to move to a different area, you can certainly try to accommodate that request at your discretion and ability to do so.”
During public comment Thursday night, several community members expressed concerns about changing the division’s mask policy right now with Covid cases still rampant in central Virginia. Officials with UVA Medical Center said last week that hospitalizations for Covid have doubled since the start of the new year and they are currently seeing their highest rates of pediatric hospitalizations. Speakers, including two teachers, worried that the policy shift would endanger students and faculty as well as their families, and potentially lead to school closures and online learning.
“In such a high-risk transmission area, wearing a mask is the least we can do to keep students safe and able to attend fully in-person schooling,” said Alexandra Swan, a Louisa County High School senior. Swan noted that she is a choral and theater arts student whose classes cannot be held virtually.
Sarah Teets, the mother of a LCPS kindergartener, sounded a similar theme. She praised the division for its Covid mitigation strategies to date and urged board members to stay the course as Covid rates remain high in the county.
“I’m worried that it’s not so much a choice between in-person schooling with mask optional but a choice between in-person schooling and virtual schooling. That would impose a very significant hardship for my family if we go into virtual schooling. For one thing, we don’t have sufficient internet in our household for myself and my husband to work from home,” Teets said.
Other speakers advocated for a parental choice model, saying that mask-wearing is ineffective in slowing the spread of Covid-19 and damaging to children.
Hope Mayes told the board that mask mandates are “demoralizing” and fail to protect students, citing emails about new Covid cases she regularly receives from Louisa schools. Mayes said the mandate had negatively impacted her and her family, noting that her son hates wearing a mask and was suspended from his school bus for five days for pulling his mask down “to take a breathing break.”
“While he was suspended, I had to arrive to work late daily during that timeframe and leave early to pick him up. Enough is enough,” she said.
Several speakers focused on the political contours of the decision before the board, arguing that members should adopt the policy crafted by the newly elected governor.
“Now, we have a new governor who, need I remind you, received 66 percent of the vote in our county, who is being honest about the costs and benefits of masks, is respecting our rights as parents to make decisions about our child’s well-being, and is attempting to undo some of the wrongs of the previous administration,” said Dan Metz, the father of two LCPS students. Metz said that, in his view, “mask mandates were never about health and safety, only compliance.”
Louisa’s legislators file more than 60 bills for 2022 General Assembly session
The three men who represent all or part of Louisa County in Richmond have been busy in the opening weeks of the 2022 General Assembly session, introducing more than 60 bills.
Here’s a look at some of the bills Delegate John McGuire and Sens. Bryce Reeves and Mark Peake are carrying this session and where they stand at publication time.
Peake’s efforts to obtain funding to address HAB could bear fruit; Bill related to BOS salaries moves forward
Senator Mark Peake (R-SD22) is carrying three bills that reflect local legislative priorities in a state Senate narrowly controlled by Democrats. By virtue of their 21-19 advantage, Democrats also control Senate committees.
After clearing the Senate Health and Education committee earlier this month, Peake’s SB 171, which directs the Departments of Health and Environmental Quality to develop a Harmful Algal Bloom mitigation plan for Lake Anna, moved to the Senate Finance and Appropriations committee.
On Wednesday, the committee voted 15-0 to carry the bill over to 2023. But, in making that move, Senator George Barker, acting as the committee chair in the absence of Senator Janet Howell, said that he and Howell discussed the bill and decided that it’s better to handle the issue through an amendment to the state budget.
Legislators are in the process of crafting a biennial budget and Barker indicated that he and Howell recognize that Harmful Algal Blooms are a growing problem at Lake Anna and other freshwater bodies in the state.
The Louisa County Board of Supervisors made garnering state resources to address HAB one of its chief legislative priorities for the 2022 General Assembly session. The blooms, which can cause skin rash and gastrointestinal illness, prompted the Virginia Department of Health to issue no swim advisories for parts of Lake Anna over the last four summers.
Peake told the Finance committee that his bill would require $225,000 annually over the next four years, according to its fiscal impact statement. The funds would be used to develop a mitigation plan specifically for Lake Anna via a partnership with an institution of higher learning and other organizations as deemed necessary. He reminded the committee that, last year, the General Assembly directed DEQ to convene a working group to study the blooms’ statewide impact.
Exactly how much money could be directed toward freshwater HAB mitigation efforts and how those funds would impact Lake Anna is unclear. In a report issued in September, the working group said that currently state agencies lack the necessary resources to adequately monitor the blooms “to determine causal factors and protect human health.”
Peake found success with another bill backed by the Louisa County Board of Supervisors that won’t cost the state any money. His SB 172 would require boards of supervisors to vote on their maximum salary before July 1 every year. Under current law, boards are only permitted to address their compensation in years when at least some members are up for election. The bill passed the Senate 39-1 and now heads to the House.
In Louisa, where supervisors serve staggered terms, officials have found it difficult to address compensation without the politics of a looming election coming into play. The bill would provide county boards the same authority enjoyed by city councils, allowing them to change their salary in any given year. Under the bill, any change in the board’s compensation wouldn’t take effect until January 1 of the year following the board’s next election.
Peake told the Senate’s Local Government committee that he’s carrying the legislation on behalf of Louisa’s board. Mineral District Supervisor Duane Adams and Patrick Henry District Supervisor Fitzgerald Barnes testified in support of the bill.
“We believe this bill will allow local boards of supervisors to address their financial issues in a timely manner. Currently, the way the statute reads by tying board compensation to election years, it makes it a political decision instead of a financial decision,” Adams said. “We simply think that this would give local boards the ability to address their financial concerns in a nonpolitical, timely manner in any given year that the issue would need to be addressed. It’s probably an unnecessary limitation by the state government over local government.”
Peake is also carrying SB 165, which provides that local jails are “compensated for the actual cost of incarcerating convicted felons at the rate calculated in the Compensation Board's annual jail cost report.” Under current law, local jails are compensated for housing these individuals, who are the responsibility of the state, at a lesser rate.
Louisa County regularly includes in its legislative wish list a request that the state shoulder more of the cost of housing state-responsible individuals in regional jails. Peake’s bill is currently awaiting a hearing in the Senate Finance and Appropriations committee after clearing the Rehabilitation and Social Services committee with a unanimous vote.
One of Peake’s more high-profile bills, SB 173, sought to halt Virginia’s minimum wage at $11 an hour, the current rate. Under current law, the minimum wage will rise to $12 an hour in 2023. Further increases to $13.50 in 2025 and $15 in 2026 are subject to General Assembly approval by July 1, 2024. The Senate Commerce and Labor committee killed the bill in a 12-3 vote.
McGuire files two bills reflecting local legislative priorities, carries several bills aimed at rolling back criminal justice and police reform measures
After Republicans won 52 seats in the 100-member House of Delegates in November, Delegate John McGuire (R-HD56) returned to Richmond in the House majority. He’s introduced over a dozen bills for the 2022 session, two of which reflect local legislative priorities. Several other bills aim to roll back criminal justice and police reforms enacted under Democratic control in Richmond.
At the request of the Louisa County Board of Supervisors, McGuire is carrying HB 61, which would permit individuals who work as both employees and on a volunteer basis for a public body, church, or nonprofit organization to earn overtime wages for hours worked as an employee only and exclude hours worked on a volunteer basis from overtime wage requirements.
The bill is in response to amendments to the Virginia Overtime Wage Act passed last year. Louisa officials say the changes potentially make the county liable for up to three years of back overtime pay for volunteers who are also employed by the locality. The amendments prompted supervisors to bar career Fire and EMS staff and other employees from performing volunteer services. Senator Bryce Reeves is carrying the same bill in the legislature’s upper chamber.
McGuire’s bill is awaiting a hearing in the House Committee on Commerce and Energy’s Subcommittee 1, which meets on Tuesday afternoons. The bill could be heard this week though the subcommittee’s agenda was not available at publication time.
McGuire is also carrying HB 60, which provides that the Town of Louisa “may appoint from five to seven members to serve on the board of the economic development authority, with terms staggered as agreed upon by the town council.” Under current law, EDAs are required to have seven members unless the General Assembly grants permission to alter that number.
McGuire’s bill cleared the House Counties, Cities, and Towns Committee on Friday with a 22-0 vote. In a subcommittee hearing earlier this month, he said that the Town of Louisa is requesting the leeway because its struggling to find seven people to serve on its EDA. The bill now heads to the House floor for a vote.
McGuire, the brother of Louisa County Commonwealth’s Attorney Rusty McGuire, is carrying several bills that take aim at recently-enacted criminal justice and police reforms.
Among other provisions, McGuire’s HB 107 would lower the threshold for grand larceny, a felony offense, from $1,000 to $500. In 2020, the General Assembly passed bipartisan legislation raising the threshold to $1,000.
McGuire’s HB 109 would remove provisions requiring that search warrants for “a place or abode” are executed between 8 am and 5 pm. Last year, the General Assembly unanimously passed Republican-sponsored legislation requiring the execution of search warrants during daytime hours unless certain conditions are met. McGuire supported the legislation.
McGuire’s HB 110 would remove localities’ authority to establish civilian oversight panels for law enforcement agencies. In 2020, the General Assembly passed legislation permitting localities to establish oversight panels for police departments and to empower the panels with some investigatory and disciplinary authority.
HB 107, 109 and 110 are currently awaiting hearings in House committees.
The House Education committee last week did advance Delegate Scott Wyatt’s HB 4, which mirrors McGuire’s HB 59. The bills would expand the range of offenses that public school principals are required to report to law enforcement.
Bipartisan legislation passed last year only requires that principals report felony offenses. McGuire and Wyatt’s bills mandate that certain misdemeanor offenses are also reported including threats against school employees and assault and battery that results in injury, among others.
The committee voted 16-5 to move the legislation to the full House for a vote. The law that HB 4 seeks to roll back became the center of a political firestorm during the 2021 election after a Loudoun County student was twice accused of sexual assault. According to media reports, both incidents were reported to authorities but the law became a symbol of Democratic excesses in Republican attack ads.
One of McGuire’s bills, HB 358, has passed the House with overwhelming support and now heads to the Senate. The bill directs several state agencies to examine waiving fees for the establishment of veteran-owned small businesses.
Reeves’ police quota bill clears Senate while gun bills falter
Like McGuire, Senator Bryce Reeves (R-SD17) is carrying legislation that seeks to exempt public employees from portions of the Virginia Overtime Wage Act. His SB 331 mirrors McGuire’s House bill. It’s currently scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Commerce and Labor committee’s Labor and Employment subcommittee Monday afternoon.
Three of Reeves’ bills have already cleared the Senate with unanimous support and now head to the House. The highest profile among those is SB 327, which prohibits law enforcement agencies “from establishing a formal or informal quota that requires a law-enforcement officer to make a specific number of arrests or issue a specific number of summonses within a designated period of time.”
The bill, which was amended in committee, allows law enforcement agencies to track the number of tickets an officer writes and the number of arrests she makes but bars them from using those figures as the sole method for evaluating an officer.
In an email to constituents and supporters late last week, Reeves touted the bill clearing the senate as “a big win.”
“This bill was supported by the Police Benevolent Association, as well as the Virginia Association of Commonwealth's Attorneys. It helps our law enforcement focus on doing what they do best: keeping us safe instead of worrying about hitting arbitrary metrics,” he wrote.
Reeves’ SB 325 and SB 328 also passed the Senate with unanimous support. SB 325 would remove the prohibition on purchasing more than three gallons of alcohol in another state and bringing it back to Virginia. Under current law, such transportation is a Class 1 Misdemeanor. SB 328 would change the limitation on the acquisition of military property by a law enforcement agency from firearms of .50 caliber or higher to rifles of .50 caliber or higher.
An avid supporter of gun rights, Reeves carried one bill aimed at rolling back a gun law reform passed when Democrats had full control of state government and another aimed at expanding the rights of gun owners. Both met quick deaths in the Senate Judiciary committee.
Reeves’ SB 364 would’ve repealed a law passed in 2020 that, with some exemptions, makes it a Class 1 Misdemeanor for individuals to purchase more than one handgun in a 30-day period. Reeves’ SB 330 would’ve allowed individuals to carry a concealed handgun without a permit. The committee rejected both bills in 8-6 party-line votes.
While Reeves is carrying SB 331 on behalf of the Louisa County Board of Supervisors, he carried SB 332 at the suggestion of one particular board member, Mineral District Supervisor Duane Adams. But, Reeves ended up striking the bill at Adams’ request.
That bill, heard by the Senate Agriculture, Conservation, and Natural Resources committee on January 18, would’ve required people renting a motor boat or personal watercraft to complete a short safety course approved by the Department of Wildlife Resources unless they met other boater safety criteria.
Reeves told the committee that Adams started a boat rental company on Lake Anna several years ago and quickly found out that he “was renting boats to people who had no business being on the water or had no clue really how to operate (a boat).”
The issue, Reeves explained, stems from the fact that the state lacks adequate boater safety training requirements for folks who aren’t avid boaters.
“If you are an avid boater or boat owner and you are on the water all the time, you have to take a pretty extensive online course that takes a lot of hours. If you are renting, you just have to do a checklist,” Reeves said.
His bill would’ve directed the Department of Wildlife Resources to adopt a short boater safety course required for renters, which would familiarize them with boating basics before they hit the water.
Adams appeared as a witness for the bill, telling the committee that his company requires clients to pass a short safety course provided by a third-party vendor. He said he’s the only one of seven boat rental companies on Lake Anna to require a course, which is free of charge to customers and takes about 15 minutes. Adams noted that he has spoken with the other boat rental businesses on the lake and they support the bill.
“The goal here is that we all put a safer product on the public waterways and that’s people who aren’t going to hurt themselves or anyone else,” Adams said.
Republican Senator Mark Obenshain observed that, without state action, Adams already requires a boater safety course because it’s in the best interest of his business. Obenshain also worried that the bill could have unintended consequences for boat rental companies.
“(DWR) could decide that abbreviated means 15 minutes less than five hours,” Obenshain said, referring to a roughly five-hour course that the state requires for those who operate boats regularly. “I predict that this could very well be counterproductive to the goals of the patron. I want safe boaters on Smith Mountain Lake where I spend time. I want safe boaters on Lake Anna. But I think this is so open-ended that it may very well kill the rental business in certain areas of Virginia notwithstanding the intentions of the patron.”
The committee passed the bill, 8-5, with four Republicans and one Democrat voting in opposition. Shortly after the vote, Reeves returned and told the committee he’d like to strike the bill at Adams’ request. The committee voted unanimously to do so, prompting Chair Chap Petersen to quip, “boating freedom remains at Lake Anna.”
Roundup of recent appointments to county boards and committees
The Louisa County Board of Supervisors appoints citizens and county officials to several dozen boards and committees, which inform policy decisions and oversee the operation of publicly-funded institutions, among other duties. These boards and committees often garner little attention but play a key role in local government administration. Below is a roundup of the board’s appointments from September 2021 through January 2022. For a list of board appointments from earlier last year, click here and here.
The board reappointed Gordon Brooks to the Planning Commission to represent the Mountain Road District.
The board reappointed John Disosway to the Planning Commission to represent the Mineral District.
The board reappointed Ellis Quarles to the Planning Commission to represent the Patrick Henry District.
The board reappointed Willie Harper to the Industrial Development Authority to represent the Mineral District.
The board reappointed Sam Hughes to the Industrial Development Authority (IDA) to represent the Mountain Road District.
The board reappointed Frederick Ross to the Transportation Safety Commission to represent the Jackson District.
The board reappointed Wesley Harvey to the Transportation Safety Commission to represent the Mountain Road District.
The board reappointed Mildred Quarles to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee.
The board reappointed Richard Shrum to the Lake Anna Advisory Committee.
The board appointed James Dickerson to the Planning Commission to represent the Green Springs District.
The board appointed Greg Leffler to the Industrial Development Authority to represent the Green Springs District.
The board appointed Supervisor Eric Purcell to the James River Water Authority.
The board appointed Supervisor Rachel Jones to the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission’s Regional Housing Partnership.
The board appointed Florence Reece to the Commission on Aging to represent the Louisa District.
The board appointed Lilly Bramble to the Commission on Aging to represent the Jackson District.
The board appointed Joanne Hoyle to the Commission on Aging as an associate member.
The board appointed Wanda Colvin to the Thomas Jefferson Emergency Services Council.
The board appointed Alexandria Tisdale to the Community Policy Management Team (CPMT).
The board appointed Tina Schweikart to the Human Services Advisory Board.
The board appointed Ed Kube as an alternate to the Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA).
The board appointed Gerald Bowles as an alternate to the Board of Zoning Appeals. (BZA).
Click here for contact information for the Louisa County Board of Supervisors.
Find agendas and minutes from previous meetings as well as archived recordings here.
Click here for contact information for the Louisa County School Board.
Click here for minutes and agendas for school board meetings.