Upcoming mayor, council appointments subject to new state law pushed by open government advocates; LAAC looks for more funding to support HAB mitigation, other programs; News roundup
Upcoming mayor, council appointments subject to new state law pushed by open government advocates; LAAC looks for more funding to support HAB mitigation, other programs; News roundup
Engage Louisa is a nonpartisan newsletter that keeps folks informed about Louisa County government. We believe our community is stronger and our government serves us better when we increase transparency, accessibility, and engagement.
Quiet coming week for public meetings
For the latest information on county meetings including public meetings of boards, commissions, authorities, work groups, and internal county committees, click here. (Note: Louisa County occasionally schedules internal committee/work group meetings after publication time. Check the county’s website for the most updated information).
According to Louisa County’s website, there are no public meetings the week of September 30 through October 5.
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.
Upcoming mayor, council appointments subject to new state law pushed by open government advocates
When a vacancy occurs on a local governing body outside of the normal election cycle, town councils, boards of supervisors and school boards are allowed to make an interim appointment to fill the seat ahead of a special election.
For years, state code hasn’t provided localities with much guidance on how that process should work outside of giving local officials 45 days to make an appointment and allowing a circuit court judge to fill the seat after that.
The absence of specific instructions in code has led to a scattershot approach with some boards and councils holding public hearings and allowing extensive public input and others quietly settling on an appointee out of public view and sans citizen involvement.
The latter scenario sparked concern among open government advocates—particularly the Virginia Coalition for Open Government (VCOG)—who argue that citizens have a right to know who could fill a seat that would otherwise be elected.
At VCOG’s urging, the General Assembly last session passed a new state law that aims to bring a minimum level of transparency to the process.
The law, which went into effect July 1, requires local governing bodies and elected school boards to hold a public meeting at least seven days prior to making an appointment where they announce the candidate or candidates being considered and make available to the public their resumes and other documents requested as part of the appointment process.
The law doesn’t require the governing body to provide the names and resumes of every applicant, but it does mandate that it make available information about each candidate “proposed” for the job.
With the resignation of Louisa Mayor Garland Nuckols in mid-September and Mineral Town Council Member Olivia McCarthy in late August, the Towns of Louisa and Mineral are poised to be among the first localities to put the new law in practice.
‘A little bit of transparency and sunshine’
Delegate David Bulova, a Fairfax County Democrat, shepherded the new law through the General Assembly’s 2024 session.
Bulova told a House of Delegates subcommittee in January that VCOG Executive Director Megan Rhyne asked him to carry the bill. He said he was “surprised to see there is nothing in the code that provides guidance with respect to the [appointment] process” or any provision requiring “prior announcement of candidates who might get appointed,” leaving an opening for local officials to completely shut out the public.
“Most of this goes perfectly smoothly, but you can do some simple Google searches and see that that’s not always the case,” Bulova said, referencing several localities where a closed-door appointment process sparked outrage from citizens and led to other problems.
In Isle of Wight County, one of the localities Bulova cited, the school board in 2021 selected three people for interim appointments to the five-member body in just two months. All three appointments were made by majority vote of the remaining members, as required by state code, and “following closed-session discussions, without first soliciting community input,” according to the Windsor Weekly.
The board’s decision to bypass any citizen input prompted the threat of a lawsuit from at least one resident. But, under Virginia law, there was no requirement for public involvement.
Bulova said his bill was designed to bring “a little bit of transparency and sunshine to making interim appointments.”
“If there are any public concerns [about a potential appointee], they can be considered before. That’s better than finding out afterwards that people have concerns,” he said.
Rhyne agreed.
“At election time, when citizens vote for candidates, they usually know who they are and what their qualifications are. That should be the same for when an appointment gets made because an appointee will have the exact same vote as a person that they elected,” Rhyne told the subcommittee. “Some places are good about this, but some are not so good about this, and we think it shouldn’t be dependent on where you live whether you know who you are going to be represented by.”
At least one local body seems to fit into Rhyne’s “not so good” category: the Louisa County School Board.
Over the last decade, the school board has temporarily filled two seats via the appointment process. In both cases, it’s made the decision behind closed doors and without citizen involvement.
In February 2014, the board appointed Deborah Hoffman to the Green Springs District seat after its previous occupant, Brian Huffman, died after winning his fourth term. Hoffman was chosen over three other applicants and won a special election that November to finish the term.
In February 2022, Sherman Shifflett, who represented the Mineral District, died just a month into his fifth term. A month later, the board chose Lloyd Runnett to fill the seat over four other applicants. Runnett won a November special election to retain the post through 2025.
In both instances, board members didn’t publicly share the names of candidates being considered prior to the public meeting where they made the appointment and discussions about who to select took place in closed session.
In the case of the vacancy created by Shifflett’s death, the board announced the names of the five applicants at the special meeting where they appointed Runnett, but didn’t provide any additional information about the candidates.
Despite strong interest in the appointment, particularly from members of the Louisa branch of the NAACP, who hoped the all-white panel would choose an African American for the seat, the board didn’t allow any public comment at the meeting, a standard feature of regular board meetings.
Engage Louisa submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request prior to the meeting, asking for the names of each candidate and any documents they’d submitted as part of their application. The division denied that request, citing a FOIA exemption permitting government officials to shield personnel records from public view.
In defending the decision to withhold the records and bar public participation, Board Chair Greg Strickland insisted that choosing someone to temporarily fill the seat was the sole responsibility of the school board, and Mineral District residents had no role in the process. He said they’d have their say at the ballot box.
In urging lawmakers to support his bill, Bulova took a different view.
“It’s probably one of the most undemocratic things you can think of appointing someone to a position and then that person gets to vote on behalf of the people in that locality. And those [decisions] can actually change the outcome of votes depending on who they pick,” he said, arguing for at least some citizen involvement.
The General Assembly unanimously passed Bulova’s bill, and Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin signed it into law last March.
Appointment and special election process
State code lays out a process for making interim appointments to a local governing body or elected school board that both the Towns of Louisa and Mineral are expected to follow as they prepare to fill Nuckols’ and McCarthy’s positions.
Per code, governing bodies—in this case, the Louisa and Mineral town councils—have 45 days to appoint a qualified voter from the respective towns to the positions until special elections are held to fill the remainder of the terms. Both Nuckols and McCarthy’s terms expire at the end of 2026.
The law passed earlier this year requires each council to announce “all persons being proposed” for the vacancy at a public meeting at least seven days prior to making the appointment and to “make available for inspection each person's resume and any other materials required by the body or board.”
If the governing body doesn’t make an appointment within 45 days, “the judges of the circuit court of the county or city may make the appointment,” per code.
The towns have 15 days from the date of the vacancy to petition Louisa County Circuit Court for a writ of election. Because the vacancies occurred within 90 days of the general election, the special elections won’t happen this November. The elections will likely take place in November 2025, though the towns are free to ask the judge to schedule the election before then.
Jeff Gore, the Town of Louisa’s attorney, said in an interview last week that he hasn’t discussed the appointment process in detail with council, but the body is prepared to follow the broad rules laid out in code including the new public meeting requirement. He noted that council would have to determine the date and format of the meeting.
In the coming week, Gore said he’ll submit a petition to the court for a special election, which is expected to coincide with the 2025 general election. He noted that state law prohibits holding special elections on the same day as primaries and scheduling a stand-alone special would mean spending more taxpayer money.
In the Town of Mineral, the process is a bit more complicated thanks, in part, to a dispute over McCarthy’s resignation. McCarthy submitted her resignation via email on August 29 before attempting to rescind it four days later.
The town initially allowed her to remain on council through its September 9 meeting where a citizen told the body that state code doesn’t allow elected officials to revoke a resignation after its effective date.
Mayor Ed Jarvis said in an interview last week that, on September 17, he confirmed to McCarthy that she couldn’t rescind her resignation and that she was no longer on council.
In an email to Engage Louisa, Town Clerk Stephanie Dorman said that, given the confusion over McCarthy’s resignation, the town “has decided that we will begin our 45 day countdown” on September 17, not the day of the resignation.
Dorman also said she was preparing a petition to the court for a writ of election. Like in Louisa, the special election is expected to coincide with the November 2025 general election.
The town already has two council seats up for grabs via special election this November after Rebecca McGehee resigned from the body in June and Blair Nipper stepped down in March. In emails to the town, McGehee cited “stress” as her reason for resigning while Nipper pointed to health concerns.
The town has advertised the latest vacancy on its webpage, social media, a sign in town and on the town bulletin board, Jarvis said. He said the town is asking citizens to submit a letter of interest by October 7.
Both Jarvis and Dorman said the letters would be reviewed at council’s October 15 meeting. It’s unclear when the appointment will be made, given the new law requiring a public meeting at least seven days prior.
In another twist, Jarvis said the town has already received two letters of interest. One from JoAnna Von Arb, a local real estate agent, and the other from Bob Spedden. Until last week, Spedden was a sitting member of council. He resigned from his seat last Monday.
In July, council appointed Spedden to fill the seat vacated by McGehee and one of two up for special election this November.
Spedden, a military veteran who moved to Mineral from Nebraska four years ago and had never served in elected office, had intended to run for the seat this fall but missed the August 16 filing deadline.
The state’s deadline to file for a November special election comes 81 days prior to the general election if the special coincides with the first general election after the vacancy occurred, per state code. The deadline to file for a special election being held at the second November election after the vacancy occurred is the third Tuesday in June.
Spedden said in an interview last Friday that he was initially told his seat wouldn’t be on the ballot until November of 2025, but later found out it was up for special election this year.
He said Catherine Lea, the town attorney at the time, told him she’d keep him informed about the special election process and the steps to get on the ballot. But he said Lea never followed up with more information.
Council terminated Lea’s contract at its September 9 meeting.
In hopes of securing a seat on council for at least another year, Spedden said he decided to resign and seek an appointment to the new vacancy.
“I got screwed when it comes to the position that I was in. When I got appointed in July, I thought my position was for a year. Supposedly, everybody else thought it was for a year, but it wasn’t. It was only for four months,” Spedden said. “I had to resign my seat now because it’s going to be up in November anyway, so I can apply for the other seat. I cannot try for the other seat and still be holding my own seat.”
Nipper and McGehee hope to get back on council as well. Both are running to reclaim the seats they vacated earlier this year. David Hempstead, who council appointed in May to fill Nipper’s seat, is also vying for one of the two seats on the ballot this November.
LAAC looks for more funding for hydrilla management, buoy maintenance and HAB mitigation
The Lake Anna Advisory Committee (LAAC) is looking for more money to fund its hydrilla management and buoy maintenance programs and to fight Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB).
During a discussion of its calendar year 2025 budget at the committee’s September 26 meeting, Chair Chris McCotter, who represents the Cuckoo District on the Louisa County Board of Supervisors, said the committee plans to seek additional funding from the three localities home to Lake Anna shoreline—Louisa, Spotsylvania and Orange—to support its efforts to rein in hydrilla, an aquatic plant that can impede navigation, and to help it cover the costs of maintaining a network of no-wake buoys, which flag navigational hazards.
“Right now, what we request isn’t covering what we are asked to do, so we have to ask for more,” McCotter said, noting the committee has been forced to dip into its reserve funds to cover its costs, which isn’t sustainable.
McCotter said that Louisa County also plans to lobby its legislators in Richmond for state aid for both programs. The board of supervisors included the request in its 2023 legislative platform but failed to get support in the state budget.
McCotter and other committee members said that hydrilla is a growing problem on the lake and addressing it will require significant resources in the coming year.
“Hydrilla will need attention next year, more so than it has needed this year,” McCotter said.
The committee expects to spend $33,000 on hydrilla management and buoy maintenance in 2025 with the lion’s share of that—$25,000—going to the former program. The committee allocated $18,000 to manage the weed last year and $6,500 to maintain buoys.
Harry Looney, LAAC’s Environmental and Water Quality Subcommittee chair, said LAAC has about $8,500 left over from its hydrilla allocation, which could be rolled over for next year.
Under its current protocol, Looney said, LAAC adopts a hydrilla management program each January, based on surveys of the vegetation from the previous year. He said the committee didn’t use all its funding this year because Pigeon Run, an area included in the plan, didn’t require as much treatment as anticipated.
To ensure it has the flexibility to address hydrilla problems as they arise, the committee plans to tweak how it plans for treatment, Looney and McCotter said. Those changes are expected to be discussed at LAAC’s November meeting.
LAAC manages hydrilla via a two-pronged approach, applying herbicides that kill the plant and releasing sterile grass carp that eat it. This year, LAAC deployed 100 carp in the back of Mitchell Creek. It also treated 20 acres of hydrilla with Diquat and chelated copper sulfate herbicides in the upper end of Pigeon Run. Both herbicides have been used in the past and were approved by Dominion Energy and the Department of Wildlife Resources.
The committee primarily treats sections of the lake where hydrilla has become a public safety concern. Though the submerged aquatic vegetation can be a navigational hazard, it also serves an important ecological function, helping mitigate Harmful Algal Blooms and providing cover for fish.
To cover the cost of the hydrilla and buoy programs, LAAC relies on annual allocations from the Louisa, Spotsylvania and Orange County boards of supervisors. McCotter said the committee will likely increase its budget request to $8,000 in the coming fiscal year. Louisa and Spotsylvania provided $7,000 last year while Orange, which is home to only a small slice of the lake, chipped in $2,000.
In addition, Louisa contributed another $10,000, which was earmarked for the Lake Anna Civic Association’s water quality monitoring program. LAAC acts as a conduit between the county and the non-profit for that funding.
Robin Horne, one of Louisa’s citizen representatives on the committee, suggested that LAAC ask the counties for more support, noting that tourism dollars generated by the lake make it an important economic engine.
“Hydrilla is a problem. It’s reared its ugly head at many places across the lake,” Horne said. “If [the counties] want the tourism, and they want a healthy lake, we should ask for more from them.”
It’s unclear if LAAC plans to hike its request beyond the $8,000 McCotter proposed.
LAAC, in cooperation with Louisa County, also plans to seek additional state support to mitigate Harmful Algal Blooms, according to committee members.
Comprised of cyanobacteria that can be detrimental to human health and harmful to wildlife and pets, the blooms have become a persistent problem at the lake in recent years. They’ve prompted the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) to issue “no swim” advisories for parts of its upper reaches every summer since 2018 and the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), in 2022, to include the lake on its list of impaired waterways.
This summer, VDH issued its first HAB advisory in June. At publication time, the advisories, which warn people and pets to avoid contact with the water, remain in effect for the upper and middle North Anna Branch, the upper and middle Pamunkey Branch and Terry’s Run.
At Louisa County’s urging, the state allocated $1 million for immediate mitigation and remediation efforts last year. LAAC used that money to fund the first year of its Lake Anna Cyanobacteria Mitigation and Remediation Program (LACMRP), a multi-year effort to reduce excess phosphorus in the upper North Anna Branch and Terry’s Run. Excess phosphorus, which can come from runoff from agriculture and development, among other sources, serves as a key food source for the blooms.
The biennial state budget approved by the General Assembly earlier this year included another $500,000 that’s likely headed for the LACMRP, half of the initial appropriation. Louisa County is expected to include in its legislative platform a request for additional state support to maintain and expand the program.
Looney said that he is also exploring the possibility of partnering with Virginia Commonwealth University to apply for state grant funding via a new program aimed at nutrient reduction in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. DEQ received $20 million in state funding to launch the program, which is aimed at nitrogen reduction. Like excess phosphorus, excess nitrogen is also a food source for HAB.
“[This grant funding] has to be completely separate from what we are doing with the phosphorus remediation program,” Looney said. “We can’t leverage any money from one program to the next. They have to stay in separate bins or buckets. The focus of the new DEQ project is nitrogen, and we are [currently] focusing on phosphorus.”
Looney said the grant application isn’t due until February, and he’ll provide more details to the committee at an upcoming meeting.
News roundup: Man found guilty in connection to March wildfire
Engage Louisa focuses on Louisa County government. But we recognize that we can’t cover everything and there’s plenty of other news in our neck of the woods. With that in mind, we occasionally include a roundup of links to the work of other journalists covering noteworthy events and issues that impact our community.
“Man found guilty in connection to March Louisa County wildfire” -WRIC
“‘The spirit of the community is good’: Twin Oaks 6 months after 450-acre Louisa wildfire tore through half its land” -WRIC
“Virginia rolls out results driven pollution reduction program” -Virginia Mercury
“Chronic wasting disease gets further entrenched in Virginia” -Cardinal News
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