County administrative news: Phone outage, new hours, new hire
Much of the county government was out of touch from Tuesday afternoon through most of Wednesday, after a crew digging on the courthouse lawn severed a cable.
The disruption did not affect the Rappahannock County Sheriff ’s Office or its dispatch center’s 911 emergency lines, nor were the phones affected at the Circuit Court Clerk’s office. It was the clerk’s office for which a crew was installing a higher-speed Comcast internet service, mandated by the state, when the cable was cut.
Calls to most county offices were met with a busy signal; County Administrator Debbie Keyser, working amid the unaffected phones at the visitors center Wednesday, said email service was also still working at most offices and suggested anyone who needed to reach an office try the email addresses found on the county’s website at rappahannockcountyva.gov/contact.html.
Keyser also confirmed Tuesday that Lynn Tomasiello, a deputy clerk in the circuit court clerk’s office, had been hired to replace executive assistant Candace Wroth, who is leaving the post she held for 19 years at the end of January.
New hours agreed on by the supervisors last month will go into ef-
fect at the Flatwood Refuse and Recycling Center on Jan. 9 — at which time the site will be open on Mondays, a change requested by many who use the center but can’t always get there by closing time on Sunday.
Formerly closed Mondays and Tuesdays, the site will now be closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
Once again on the Rappahannock County Board of Zoning Appeals agenda for next Wednesday (Dec. 28) is a resolution which — if approved by at least three of the five members — would declare that BZA member David Konick’s September lawsuit against the BZA and its then-acting chair, Jennifer Matthews, was never authorized by the board and was thus illegal. The resolution directs Konick, recently released from the hospital after being injured two weeks ago in an automobile accident, to “obtain the dismissal with prejudice” of the lawsuit.
Konick, acting as board secretary in Harmony Manor B&B’s appeal to the BZA of a decision to revoke the B&B’s permit for extra bedrooms by Keyser, in her capacity as zoning administrator, disagreed on the manner in which the hearing should be conducted. After a brief Circuit Court airing of his suit, the BZA’s Harmony Manor hearing was postponed; in October, the B&B owner dropped the appeal of Keyser’s decision entirely.
On Nov 16, Konick filed a motion to drop the suit against the BZA and Matthews, though apparently not “with prejudice” (meaning the matter would not be heard again).