Lovettsville’s Chris Van Vlack
Lovettsville’s Chris Van Vlack, the President of the Farm Bureau, and the Urban/Ag Conservationist for the Loudoun Soil and Water Conservation District, has been fighting to save Loudoun County Farming from shrinking any more than it already has.
The way to do so, Chris says, is an agriculture task force that goes beyond Loudoun’s concerns and cooperates with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG). Continue reading
In the past, Delegate David LaRock, who represents the 33rd District in the General Assembly, has failed to show for political debates and joint forums with his general election opponents.
Off to a shaky start this political season, Delegate LaRock is a no-show for the Farm Bureau’s Candidate Forum scheduled for September 19, 6PM, at Harmony Hall at the Hamilton Fire Station; he first committed to participate and then said he wouldn’t.
Mr. LaRock apparently doesn’t want to be in the same room at the same time as his Democratic challenger.
Tia Walbridge is a farmer herself.
By contrast, Mr. LaRock is a builder.
Chris Van Vlack. the President of the Loudoun Farm Bureau, said, “the Candidates Forum is part of our Loudoun Farm Bureau Annual membership meeting.”
Asked if Mr. LaRock said he would appear at the forum, Mr. Van Vlack said, “Initially both Tia [Walbridge] and Dave [Larock] had confirmed their attendance, but after learning that the state AgPAC committee had not solely endorsed him, Del. LaRock had decided to drop out.” Continue reading
This hen will now cost you $165 to “permit” you to have a chicken coop.
The County is taxing Western Loudoun farm buildings, by the authority of the Commissioner of Revenue, by assessing pole barns for taxes that the County never assessed before this year.
Even among those barns that were assessed previously, farm owners have been confounded by by the amazing leaps in assessed value.
In one case, the increase in assessment was a factor of thirteen times greater, from a $2,000 assessment last year on a 60 year old barn to a $26,000 assessment this year, with the questionable explanation, by the assessor, that the owner of the barn had painted the barn.
Farmers say this arbitrary policy of assessments is hardly reasonable and is fundamentally unfair.
In another setback for farmers in the West, following upon these Assessments, the County, by a new Zoning Ordinance, circulated this past Friday, requires that farmers obtain a permit for each chicken coop that a farmer has or acquires.
This is how the current zoning permit procedure reads.
It is described as the “procedure for obtaining a zoning permit for a coop/shelter for chickens.”
It says, “the property owner shall complete a building and zoning permit application form … that is accompanied by a plat showing the proposed location of the structure with distances to property lines …”
The term, “shall,” makes this requirement mandatory, and not permissive.
The permit fee – apparently mandated for each separate coop – costs $165 each.
The coop is described as a “structure.”
Farmers have asked the Commissioner of Revenue in connection with the increased assessments, to explain exactly what the Commissioner meant by the term “structure.” The Farmers are of one mind that they got no answer at all.
As for the coops, chickens generally live mostly in small mobile boxes that house or protect them from the elements and from predators.
These coops are not large stationary structures that required a zoning permit or a health department permit in the past.
It is hard to make out a fair rationale, Farmers say, when the County requires permits for chicken coops about the same size as a dog-house but require no permits for a dog house. Continue reading
The Movie – the Living Legend – “Jimmy” Spring
Another example of why Western Loudoun is worth preserving and maintaining is the kind of farming folk that made this County.
Perhaps more people need to understand and consider what kind of people made Western Loudoun what it is, and why it must be preserved because what’s best about the West is a lot more than geography.
It’s about core values that sustain a community when the center doesn’t appear to hold any longer.
We have just recognized a “living legend,” long time Lovettsville farmer, James “Jimmy” Spring, 95.
Jimmy likes to tell stories, but this story I’m telling is about “Jimmy.”
It’s about Jimmy’s values, the ones we treasure as a community, that we celebrate, seek to emulate, because these values he shares give us a place to stand and enable us to achieve a worthy objective, whether it’s farming or anything else we might consider worthwhile.
Aristotle said, “Nothing improves your aim like having a target.”
Jimmy had a target, and a way to reach it, because he had the character transparent to everyone else, revealing exactly who he was, and what he was made of.
His force of character defines his life, as a living legend, and it’s particularly instructive for all of us to consider this man in our time of fact-free discourse of a seemingly rudderless and unworthy cast.
This past Sunday at about 3PM, at the local Lovettsville Lutheran Church in the basement, a crowd of 120 came to hear Jimmy’s story, and to watch a movie prepared by yours truly that expands upon the remarks I’m making here (the movie was posted on line after its premier at the award ceremony – and it’s free – https://vimeo.com/195151504 ). Continue reading