The Warren County Board of Supervisors meeting on February 4, 2025, was a study in contrasts. While the room echoed with the literal “chirp” of a dying smoke alarm battery in the hallway—a persistent reminder of small details that need attention—I found myself addressing two very large issues: digital preservation and the digital divide.
Digitizing the Sentinels of History
I was honored to be mentioned by name by Joe Petty, Director of the Warren Heritage Society. Over the last few months, I’ve been working closely with the Society to audit their archives and compare them against what is currently available online.
I recently reached out to the Library of Virginia to inquire about the process for digitizing a massive volume of newspapers from 1876. My goal is to see these records included on the Virginia Chronicle website, making our local history accessible to researchers worldwide. As I told the Board, there is so much history at the Heritage Society that I don’t think I could scan it all in my lifetime. I encouraged the Board to support Joe in these efforts; protecting our physical records is one thing, but making them digitally “disaster-proof” is another entirely.
Challenging Broadband Inequity
While I am passionate about digitizing the past, I am equally concerned about the accessibility of the future. During a presentation on the VATI (Virginia Telecommunication Initiative) project, I saw the proposed pricing for rural residents and couldn’t sit still.
For many in the “dead zones” of our county:
- The $199 installation fee, combined with the first month’s service, is a significant hurdle.
- Compared to the $0 installation fees we often see within town limits, this feels like a penalty for living in a rural area.
I shared my experience and that of my father, whose mile-long driveway in a remote area was covered by other providers without these steep fees. For families who struggle to keep even $400 in a savings account, a $300 upfront cost for internet isn’t just a bill—it’s a barrier. We need to leverage federal incentives and smarter planning to ensure every resident can join the digital age without breaking the bank.
A Voice for Every Detail
Between the big topics of infrastructure and history, I couldn’t ignore the squeaking smoke alarm in the hall. It’s a small thing, but in a government building with a Fire Marshal on hand, it’s a detail that matters!
Whether it’s a 150-year-old newspaper, a fiber-optic cable, or a smoke detector battery, I’m committed to showing up and speaking up for the details that keep Warren County running—and remembered.
Watch the Meeting
You can view my comments and the presentation at the following timestamps:
- 0:01 – VATI Project Pricing Presentation
- 2:11 – Joe Petty (Warren Heritage Society) on Digitization
- 2:45 – My Comments on Scanning History & The Smoke Alarm
- 3:35 – My Critique of Broadband Pricing
Transcript (auto-generated)
VATI Project Pricing
pricing uh I know there was a question asked about what the pricing is and these are the uh uh the rates for and hese are for all of our projects that were um from that year that vty year uh so the prices are all the same um all the way up to the one gig speeds the one of the key points that I want to make sure that folks know because this is kind of a key point is there’s a there’s a $199 installation charge but that charge includes any length of a drop that you have so sometimes you’ll hear people that you know if they’ve got a really really long driveway uh half a mile driveway um normally what happens is some amount of that um of that drop will be covered 500 feet then maybe you pay a little more for 500 to a th000 and over thousand feet it costs you even more well Our obligation on the vty project is any service length drop that is a V location we are going to cover at that 199 fee regardless of how far off you are so that’s a really really nice benefit for folks that have those long drops and it’s a big issue I know in the rural areas and that will be good for the first 12 months after service is available so that’s kind of the incentive for folks to sign up quickly if you’re a long drop because you want to make sure that you get covered by that your 199 covers that entire uh entire drop and that’s 12 months from when services available for your remember I talked about those Fiber service areas when your Fiber service area is available that’s when that that 12-month uh uh time period kicks off
Question on digitization
just wondering if you have any plans to digitize some of the records that are that you’re protecting by maintaining the building yeah so that is a process in which we’re doing now we’ve recently had some great donations from the community to help with that process and we’re fund we have an active fundraiser for that with this specific it is more infrastructure uh preservation rather than the digitizing thing um Louis here too he’s been helping us with some of that digitization we’re actually reaching out to the Library of Virginia for some of our old war Sentinels that we have from the 1800s so we’re even working with the state so they can come in and digitize them and make those available for the public but yeah it’s a critical thing for not just to make sure we’re capturing all of our documents in a digital but how we store them off site as barring any you know catastrophe there we want to make sure they’re protected no matter what so that that is an ongoing process that we’re working on
I am digitizing
Lewis Moten: Hello I’m Lewis Moten from the North River District.
Joe mentioned my name about scanning documents and you had expressed interest in that and I was put I kind of involved in pushing for that to happen as far as I know I’m the only one doing it and I don’t have time and I don’t there’s so much there I don’t believe I can do it in my lifetime so if you’re interest I strongly suggest that you reach out to Joe and see what you can work out because there’s so much um there in their history it’s unbelievable what’s what’s there and what people don’t know that we have
I keep hearing the fire alarm battery go off I think we have a fire marshall here so I’d recommend talking to him about that
Concerns over broadband pricing
And then the other thing is the this Broadband effort I think the price is very high a lot of people have trouble just getting $400 in their bank account and I see an installment fee of $200 if you consider the the first month for like I think it was like a 100 bucks um I have Broadband here in town and I only switched over it because it was like 10 bucks more than my cable bill and they didn’t charge me for installation fee uh my and you could say it’s because they’re remote my father’s in the dead zone They recently closed the General Store that was a post office so there’s nothing in his town anymore but he didn’t pay for anything and his driveway was like a mile long so I don’t know what you can work out if there’s Federal incentives for these people I don’t live out there but I think this this this there there needs to be some kind of plan for these people um to get into the digital age
Thank you
