New Kent supervisors’ resolution opposing Sunday hunting serves as protest to General Assembly bypassing local input

Five New Kent residents chastised county Board of Supervisors members last week over the board’s action a month earlier to pass a resolution opposing a bill before the state’s General Assembly allowing Sunday hunting statewide on privately owned land.

During the public comment session at last Thursday’s board meeting, the residents complained that supervisors had not given sufficient advance notice about their intentions and had taken less than 10 minutes to discuss and pass the resolution at the board’s March 10 meeting. They labeled the matter a personal property rights issue and asked the board to rescind its action.

One speaker, Ron Ross, told the board that as a Christian, he regularly attends church, but he should have the right to hunt afterward.

“I do not understand why you’d want to shoot this down,” he said.

But even before the board’s March 10 meeting, the General Assembly had already passed the bill. Subsequently, the governor has signed the measure. New Kent supervisors, meanwhile, have no authority to act on their own to override the law.

“It’s a done deal. Our resolution means nothing,” District 5 Supervisor Ray Davis told the residents who spoke at last Thursday’s meeting.

“The reason I supported the resolution is that neither [House of Representatives or Senate members] asked any board of supervisors in the eastern part of Virginia whether they supported [the bill] or not,” he said.

The resolution passed by a 4-1 vote on March 10 with District 3 Supervisor Jimmy Burrell in opposition. At that meeting, Burrell indicated he had heard from constituents, most favoring the measure. Other sports are permitted on Sundays, thus it should be no different for hunting, he said.

Fellow supervisors, however, voiced concerns including lack of support from constituents and the tradition of Sundays being a day spent with family. Davis, meanwhile, likened the Sunday hunting situation to a state mandate being forced down localities’ throats and those localities having no say.

During last week’s meeting, Davis and board chairman Thomas Evelyn expressed concern that private property owners now would have to contend with trespassers on Sundays.

“If the [state] game commission wants hunting on Sundays, they need to tighten those [trespassing] laws,” Evelyn said.

Davis, meanwhile, said the board’s resolution, which had been forwarded last month to the county’s representatives in the General Assembly, could make legislators “think twice” before neglecting to seek input from local governing bodies on important issues.