Government: Warren County, Virginia
Body: Board of Supervisors
Date: September 15, 2026, 6:00 PM
Location: Warren County Government Center
Type: Regular Meeting
Timestamp: 00:41:36
Duration: 3:01
On September 15, 2026, I returned to the Warren County Board of Supervisors during general public comment. I wanted to recognize some progress and raise two questions about how the County’s policies will work in practice.
I began by mentioning that I had seen Supervisor Cheryl Cullers at the TRIAD senior expo earlier that day. I invited the other supervisors to visit the senior center, have lunch, or help serve meals. It’s a simple way to spend time with residents and hear what concerns them directly.
I was also glad to see the County working on its economic development policies. Compared with nearby counties, Warren County’s approach could reduce some of the red tape businesses face here.
One detail caught my attention: a reference to 200,000 gallons of water did not say what period that amount covered. Was it a one-time request, a daily amount, or something else? After I asked, a supervisor clarified that it meant per day and requested that the wording be corrected. That small addition makes a substantial difference to anyone reading the document.
The County’s newly approved social media policy was another welcome step. I was especially glad it covered elected officials, appointees, volunteers, and staff. I have raised that question before, and it was encouraging to see the policy address it.
My remaining concern is documentation. When a comment is removed from a government social media page, there should be a record of why. In a previous public records request, I asked for both the deleted comments and the reasons for their removal. Finding the comments was one thing; establishing why they had been deleted was much harder. Even when many comments must be handled at once, a dated record explaining the action would help the public understand what happened.
I appreciate the work that went into these policies. Clear wording on water requests and clear records of comment removals will make that work more useful to residents, businesses, and the County.
You can watch the full September 15 Board meeting in the county’s video archive.
Transcript
Lewis Moten: Good evening, supervisors. My name is Lewis Mutton from the North River District. Um, it was good seeing you today, Cheryl, at the Triad, and I invite all of the supervisors to visit the senior center sometime to have lunch with the seniors or help serve meals. They love company and it’s a good way to find out what their what their concerns are. Uh, because they will tell you.
Um, the other thing, uh, the economic development policies, uh, there there are a lot of them coming out. Uh, but I was very happy to see when I look at different counties around us that we are actually coming up to standards of what everybody else offers. I feel like if there’s less resistance here, uh, business may actually come and come here to w without all the the red tape. So, I like that.
My one concern was really the um the water issue. Um it looked like there weren’t any limits on how often that 200,000 gallons could be. Could somebody just keep saying, “Okay, I need another 200, another 200, another 200, and is there um a quarterly report or something that you could say, okay, who’s requesting all this water? Why is this being done so often? Or are there limitations here? Is it a oneshot?”
Um the other thing is the social media policy. I’m just like flabbergasted that I there’s a lot that I’ve been asking for for two years, two and a half years now. And um I see a lot of it come through. So I’m very happy. Um in fact, I even saw the scope was extended to just about everybody including yourselves as elected officials. It wasn’t just an employee staff issue. Um and it did extend to volunteers and appointees which is another thing I kept bringing up. Uh there is one concern I do have in that I do see if you have questions there is a chain of command but in both of in one instance there were questions that went up to the chain of command but it came down and said go ahead and then additional things were deleted. The other situation when I requested information the that that appointee just went ahead and just deleted everybody and there was nothing when I requested information about why that had happened. So those two things are are not documented. Um so there needs to be something that says okay if if something got deleted we need to know why. Now if there’s a big deluge of like tons and tons of comments 20 or so maybe hundred or so just put a date and why what was going on. Um, basically there there are issues there and that was my main concern is we we have a lot of comments that are being deleted and no reason as to why when I made my request. Um, because I didn’t just request the comments, I requested why they were deleted and that’s where I ran into problems figuring out the why. Um, so thank you very much and I’ll see you later.
[Later conversation]
Um, I do have one question on the water topic. Uh the number 200,000 is in there without a time frame. 200,000 gallons. 2,000 gallons a day. Is it 2,000? 200,000 gallons a day. Okay. So it is per day. There’s there’s a rational message behind that. That $200,000 a day. Could we correct it just to say per day in the document? Okay. Most everything we’re doing, if all we’re doing here is trying to level the playing field that, you know, your competition and the Fredericks, the Shannidoas, you know, and the Loudens and such all have, you know, these thing, you know, these time frames a lot less than what you all do.
