NK budget public hearing rescheduled for May 26

Due to an advertising glitch, New Kent’s Board of Supervisors has been forced to move last Monday’s scheduled public hearing on the county’s proposed fiscal 2011 budget to the group’s work session on May 26.

By law, localities are required to advertise budgets at least seven days in advance of a public hearing date. Last week’s advertisement appeared just five days before Monday’s scheduled hearing. County officials discovered the oversight late last week.

The public hearing on the county’s proposed $50.2 million budget and accompanying 70-cent real estate tax rate and fee schedule is now set for 7 p.m. on May 26. Supervisors then expect to adopt a final budget document during their June 14 meeting. A new budget must be in place before the 2010-11 fiscal year begins July 1.

In what became an abbreviated meeting Monday night, supervisors approved the latest application for building another cell phone tower in the county.

By a 5-0 vote, board members approved a permit application submitted by landowners James L. and Verline Moody and Richmond-based National Communications Towers for a 195-foot, self-supporting lattice-style tower to be built on part of a 30-acre tract near the Slatersville area of the county. The tower site is about 1,300 feet north of the Route 626 (Paige Road) intersection on Route 249 (New Kent Highway). Other than one of the landowners, no one spoke during a public hearing on the proposal.

Once built, the tower will support space for up to six antennas with one space reserved for New Kent emergency services use. One cell phone vendor, nTelos, has committed to locating an antenna on the structure, which is designed to fill gaps in cell phone coverage and provide high-speed internet service along that stretch of Route 249.