Town Council honored outgoing council members Lisa Patterson and Judith Pryor Plescow at its regular monthly meeting on June 10. Their terms expire on June 30, 2010.

Patterson had long been a member of the Town's Planning Commission, and served as Town Council's official liaison to that body. Mayor Davis noted Patterson's service with the Board of Zoning Appeals, her work on the annual "Christmas in Middleburg" program, the Bluemont Concerts, Foxcroft Alumnae Weekends, Project Helping Hand and the town's Annual Sidewalk Sales, and her on-going membership in the Middleburg Business & Professional Association.

Plescow was appointed to the Town Council in August 2008 to fill the remainder of Council member Karen Robinson's term. Mayor Davis praised her ongoing support of town events and activities, noting especially her work with the town's Farmers Market Committee and Ad-hoc Marketing Committee.

Both Patterson and Plescow chose not to run for reelection. Both will receive a coveted, official, Middleburg paperweight in honor of their hard work and ongoing service. Write-in candidates David B. Stewart and Kevin Hazard will take their seats on Council effective July 1.

Town Covers Employee Pensions

Also effective July 1, 2010, is a new Virginia Retirement System that could require covered town employees to make a 5% annual "contribution" to the program. Retired Town Administrator Jerry Schiro, acting in his new advisory capacity, noted that, by adopting a simple resolution, the town could continue to cover 100% of those costs. Council unanimously approved a motion by Mark Snyder to that effect.

Salamander Bond Reduced

Council unanimously approved a reduction of $1,517,723 in the performance bond held by the town in anticipation of completion of the Salamander Resort and Spa project. The 40% reduction, from $3,673,468 to $2,155,745, leaves the Town holding three separate Salamander performance and contingency bonds: $1,085,884 covering the main construction site; $577,633 covering promised sanitary sewer and water projects; and a $522,228 inflation-adjusted contingency bond.

Salamander had requested a significantly larger reduction, according to Town Planner and Zoning Administrator David Beniamino, including a total refund of the bonds held by the town pending completion of the town's new water systems.

Despite virtual completion of the new water and sewer projects, Beniamino recommended, and Council approved, only a 50% reduction, noting that the Salamander Inn and Spa were not scheduled to open until 2012. Because the new water and sewer lines might well ". . . sit unused for eighteen months to two years" Beniamino told council, "the staff was concerned that the facilities would deteriorate."

Fireworks Funded

Council unanimously approved continuation of its annual $750 contribution to the Middleburg Community Center's 4th of July fireworks display. Noting that the celebration was one of the highlights of the summer, Council appropriated the money from its Economic Development Budget.

Council Member Mark Snyder joined his fellow Council Members in approving the appropriation and then, immediately, wrote a personal check matching a third of the Town's contribution. "It couldn't be spent for a better cause, or a more worthy celebration," he said. "It's the Fourth of July."

Approvals for Windy Hill

Council unanimously approved a Windy Hill Foundation request for a zoning location permit to build a three hundred sixteen square foot addition to their community center room in the Llewellyn Village Apartments.

The expansion will allow Windy Hill to enlarge and improve its well respected after-school programs, and provide improved facilities for the residents of its award-winning building.

Kim Hart, Executive Director of the Foundation and President of Windy Hill Development thanked Council, and noted that the original Llewellyn Village facility had been built fifteen years ago.

Recently, he continued, the Foundation applied for Virginia Housing Development Authority tax credits and were awarded credits worth $650,000.

Those funds will allow the construction of a new roof and walls, and the installation of new energy-efficient windows, and HVAC systems that will make Llewellyn Village a certified green buildings.

That, he said, will give Middleburg not only the County's first certified green apartment buildings, but the first certified green multi-family buildings.

Because of Loudoun's high average household, incomes, Hart noted, it can be difficult, and sometimes impossible to get government funding for affordable, workforce or low-income housing.

Thanks to help provided by Senator Mark Warner and many others, Hart noted, the message finally got through that not everyone in Loudoun County was rich.

All tenants at Llewellyn Village pay one-third of their income in rent, he noted. Government pays the balance, making the Village the only guaranteed subsidized housing units in town. Before the opening of Windy Hill's Levis House, more than half of the tenants in the Llewellyn Village Apartments were elderly, Hart noted, and only nine children under the age of eighteen lived there. Now there are thirty-nine young residents.

Windy Hill does its best to help these young families, and works closely with the Middleburg Elementary School, the Community Center, and many other organizations and institutions in and around Middleburg. The Council's approval of the expansion of the community center room, he concluded, would help a lot.