State Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Moneta, sat down with the Patrick County Board of Supervisors last week in Woolwine to hear firsthand the concerns facing the county — from broadband access and aging volunteer squads to emergency planning and rural healthcare.
Stanley said he decided to hold the June 24 meeting to discuss issues the supervisors believe are affecting the county.
“I thought it was very important that, as I usually do, to tour the district … to listen to them” about the issues and problems that need to be solved, he said.
“You learn a lot from the people that really are at the local level than you could ever learn from the lobbyists. We serve these areas. This is our job, and the best thing we can do is make sure we know what their needs are and also work with them on ideas,” he said.
Stanley said his legislative package for the year will be based on feedback from constituents across the district, with plans to hold similar meetings in every locality he represents, including one in Henry County on July 27.
“We usually do this every year, and now we’re going to do it even more intensively because we’re having a change in the administration,” he said.
Stanley said he chose Crossroads Cafe in Woolwine as the meeting location because “it’s all the county. Patrick County’s Patrick County, it’s not just Stuart. I had meetings this morning in Stuart” with County Administrator Beth Simms and Sheriff Dan Smith, along with some of his officers. “And then, I wanted to come out here in the Woolwine area where I love. I love coming out here and we heard about the restaurant, so we wanted to come eat, break bread, and hear their ideas,” Stanley said.
Volunteers
Doug Perry, of the Smith River District, said a new regulation regarding drug boxes places a burden on volunteer rescue squads to meet requirements for securing and storing them.
Stanley expressed concern that volunteer emergency medical services (EMS) and fire departments are being left behind.
“We’re not equipped financially to hire full time like say Roanoke City is,” he said.
Noting that his son is a 23-year-old paramedic, Stanley said long hours and stress discourage younger people from volunteering with EMS, unlike in previous generations.
Steve Marshall, of the Blue Ridge District, said some volunteer squads are thriving, but others are aging out.
“And that’s across the county,” he said.
Stanley said the average volunteer age in Franklin County is in the 50s.
“Ours is over 60,” said Vice Chairman Andrew Overby, of the Dan River District.
“And they’re not being replaced,” Stanley said.
Clayton Kendrick, of the Mayo River District, said the volunteers are dedicated.
Stanley added that they love their community and asked the board for ideas to address the issue.
Marshall suggested continuing partnerships with private companies.
“So you have that public-private thing,” he said.
Perry said reopening Stuart Community Hospital could help reduce the number of long-distance travel times for volunteers.
Marshall said the county currently funds all fire departments, but hard decisions may be needed.
“There might come a time when we have to say, and I don’t know how you’d set the standard on this and you’d hurt some peoples’ feelings, is ‘this is a functional fire department and this is not,’ and the taxpayers are going to fund” the functional departments. “It’s a hard decision, but that’s the kind of thing you need to do,” Marshall said.
On the other hand, Perry pointed to recent improvements.
He said CCDF Fire & Rescue and Vesta Volunteer Rescue Squad had only one or two members each at one point.
“CCDF has made an amazing comeback and they’re running a good portion of their calls. Vesta Rescue, because the county supported them when they couldn’t support themselves, they’re starting to grow and starting to run calls. So, if you cut them off then will that be the beginning of the end or does that give them the ability to get their feet back underneath them and reestablish themselves? So, where’s that balance,” Perry said.
Planning and preparation
Perry said he believes the county’s biggest weakness is a lack of planning and preparation.
“Our critical incident access management plan I feel has a lot to be desired,” he said.
Stanley asked what deficiencies exist and whether there are plans in place.
“We don’t have policies that say, ‘listen. This happens, this is what you do,’” Marshall said.
Perry said the school system is better prepared than the county.
“If we had, say, an active shooter in the county administration building, we don’t have a plan for that. If we do have a flood, there’s no real plan for that. Who’s getting called out? Who’s staging and where do we stage and where our equipment comes from,” he asked.
While EMS Director Scottie Cassell has mutual aid agreements with surrounding counties, Perry questioned how the county would handle a full-scale response.
“And there may be some things on paper, but if you don’t go over it, if you don’t train with it, if you don’t work with the other agencies, then you have that chaos when you try to put it together in a real world scenario,” he said.
Perry said starting with base plans and training would help.
“I think everybody is on the same sheet of music, and they’re like, ‘yes, we need to do it,’ but then time, money, and getting things together. I know Scottie Cassell’s drinking out of 10 fire hoses,” in terms of a pressing schedule. “And so, when do we plan this? When do we set that up,” he said.
Stanley said it would help if the state had something in place.
Marshall replied that the state likely has blueprints for what Perry is describing.
“We just don’t have the resources to put it together,” Perry said.
“It’s just the idea of how do you have someone from the state or an agency in the state that can educate and coordinate with the local governments,” Marshall said.
Chairman Jonathan Wood, of the Peters Creek District, added the county could benefit from an outside perspective.
“You know, most of us have been here for a long time, but it’s nice to have somebody who’s not from here” take a look at it, he said.
Broadband
Kendrick said progress on broadband expansion in the county is extremely slow.
“I’m afraid the money’s going to run out, or they’re going to start taking it back and we need it bad. You take this area from right along in here back down to Fairy Stone Park, you can’t hardly use a telephone,” he said.
Stanley, who frequently drives through the area, said he takes a longer route just to get a cell signal when he knows he has to make a call.
Kendrick said some telephone and internet customers sometimes wait a month for phone service repairs.
“You got a lot of people talking about jobs, a lot of people could make good money working from home if they had something reliable for internet. That’s something that really hurts,” he said.
Stanley said when co-ops got involved in installing fiber optic cables, it was a good development.
“But then APCo (Appalachian Power) and other companies saw this as an opportunity, as a slush fund. I have fought the railroads because the railroads weren’t letting crossings occur unless you give them a hundred grand. Well, a hundred grand might be just to connect four people and then the” company “says it’s not worth it,” he said.
Stanley said that after he spoke with people in the fiber optic industry, it was suggested that fiber may be obsolete within five years.
“Then it’ll all be satellite. Our problem has always been, in the rural areas especially, is it’s hard to bury cable underground. Your problem that you’re having right now has been APCo,” he said.
In areas where APCo doesn’t hold broadband contracts, Stanley said it isn’t allowing other companies to use its utility poles.
Perry noted RiverStreet Networks had a deal to run lines on electric poles, but the poles were in poor condition.
“I think they spent about a week behind my house replacing poles and they had a tag on them from 1957,” he said.
Stanley said many of the poles are rotten and must be replaced, which slows the process.
“Every pole they get it’s rotten and needs to be replaced, it slows them down to a crawl,” he said.
He emphasized that access to the internet is vital for the region’s future.
Stanley and the supervisors also discussed the county’s Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) rate, the need for affordable housing, School Resource Officers (SROs), and other issues impacting the county.
