Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gene Ott used time before Sen. Mark Warner’s arrival at the library to discuss what’s happening in Fluvanna.
“This is a very active time,” Ott said about Fluvanna County. The board is still searching for a full-time county administrator and hopes there will be an announcement on that front by the “end of September.”

Ott also addressed the fact that he’s leaving the board at the end of the year.

“I’m moving to Fox Hollow, which is not in the Rivanna District,” he said.

But before he goes he said he hopes the county—along with the supervisors—will create a vision for the future of the county.

“We are at a point now where the most important thing we do isn’t water; it’s vision,” Ott said. And he said he thinks, along with Supervisor Joe Chesser, also of the Rivanna District, and others that economic development is important for the future of the county.

“Mr. Chesser, who is the other representative at The Lake comes from a real heart for economic development and he’s really pushing that—just really for it,” Ott said. “He knows that whatever it is we need it and he’s going to push for that.”

Ott noted that Nelson County has seen tremendous tourism growth recently with new breweries and wineries opening up.

“They said this is specifically what we want to do now,” Ott said of the idea to promote tourism. “It took them several years to get there, but they had a vision. We have come up with an economic development plan and the next step is to take that general plan and turn it into a specific vision or vision.

“And that’s our big challenge, I think, the next six months,” he added.

Ott noted he hopes the board will vote to create a full-time economic development position. “We need somebody to come in here, work with the community, full time. We need it to set the vision. If we don’t set the vision, we’re going no where and that’s pretty much where we’re going,” he said.

In October, Ott said, the board will begin talking about reassessments—and the possibility of raising the tax rate.

“We are facing an increase of taxes,” Ott cautioned. “It may be up as much as 10 cents, maybe 8 cents, may go up more than that, I don’t know. We’re paying 7 cents on the high school, but we don’t know what it’s going to cost to operate it.”

Ott noted that even if county taxes go up 10 percent, it will mean that most people will remain paying about 3 percent of their gross income in local taxes—meaning it’ll be about the same.

“I don’t want to minimize the impact of taxes,” Ott said. “I’m not trying to minimize that but it’s not going to drive people out of the county. There are people that are saying it’s disastrous. Let’s not panic about it. Fluvanna is not going to go under. We’re going to open that school. There’s no way of stopping it, folks. It’s going to be beautiful.”

As well, Ott said, the county has many beautiful new facilities, including new firehouses, a new sheriff office, new library, new courthouse—and “most of those are paid for.”

“You’ve got a board who is very conscious of where they’re at right now and they will do everything they can to keep those taxes down,” Ott said. “On the other hand, we can’t cut the schools much more than we already have.”

Ott boiled down his personal wish for the residents of Fluvanna into one sentence. “Think good about Fluvanna; we’re doing good!”