Roger Fawcett – Care4Suffolk https://care4suffolk.org Fri, 25 Oct 2024 12:54:30 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://care4suffolk.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/cropped-Care4Suffolk-32x32.png Roger Fawcett – Care4Suffolk https://care4suffolk.org 32 32 Fawcett’s Failed Comp Plan Leadership https://care4suffolk.org/2024/10/25/fawcetts-failed-comp-plan-leadership/ https://care4suffolk.org/2024/10/25/fawcetts-failed-comp-plan-leadership/#comments Fri, 25 Oct 2024 12:52:44 +0000 https://care4suffolk.org/?p=5630 Read More »Fawcett’s Failed Comp Plan Leadership]]>

The last Suffolk 2045 Comprehensive Plan update to City Council happened on October 16th. It now appears that it is definitely going forward for a vote on November 20th, despite many controversial–and missing– elements. This is a good time to reflect on how the City got to where it is today with the 2045 Plan. It has been a bumpy few years to say the least.

 

The process of updating the Comprehensive Plan has been dragging on for almost 3 ½ years now. The contract with the consulting firm helping with it was executed in July of 2021 with a completion timeline of 18 months. Obviously, that timeline came and went and Councilman Roger Fawcett took over as chair of the comp plan steering committee in early 2023. (Read more here about the committee).

 

Mr. Fawcett has said recently that he is the only full-time city council member for Suffolk. 

That should mean he has the time to dedicate himself to being effective and knowledgeable about his duties. But this does not appear to be the case with his position as the 2045 Plan Chair. 

 

There has been a lot of contention over this plan update due to the very large amount of growth area expansion being recommended by City staff and managers (among other things). It has garnered much more public attention than a comprehensive plan normally would. In light of this, one would expect the steering committee chair to fully understand the contractual agreement with the consultant and take a diligent and proactive approach to ensuring transparency and that milestones and tasks were met. After all, the longer it takes to complete the plan, the more it’s costing taxpayers.

 

According to the steering committee attendance sheet obtained via a Freedom Of Information Act request, the committee only met a total of six times. They met only two times under Mr. Fawcett’s leadership! It is hard to understand why they held only one meeting in 2023, during the height of public engagements, surveys and open houses.  

 

The last steering committee meeting was February of this year.  Instead of seeking oversight of the first draft, the committee actually didn’t even meet until the day after it was released, simply abiding by the schedule dictated to them by the Planning Department.  We also found out that there were no steering committee meeting minutes available! What does this say about transparency and accountability?  

 

The agreed upon proposal from the comp plan consultant included conducting a Fiscal Impact Analysis (FIA) to compare different growth scenario options for Suffolk. This would be very useful data to inform these long-term land use decisions. However, City staff opted to leave out the growth scenario options and the Fiscal Impact Analysis and Mr. Fawcett and the steering committee were unaware that it was even a contracted task. 

 

Completion of a Master Transportation Plan was also part of the original comp plan development timeline. It was ignored until someone else brought it up at a joint meeting in May.  At the August City Council public hearing on the comp plan, the Master Transportation Plan was a main sticking point and Mr. Fawcett initiated the motion to delay voting on the comp plan until November 20th, which is AFTER election day, but before any council changeover might happen.

 

On October 16th, during a City Council Work Session update, when Council was informed by staff that the Master Transportation Plan, in fact, was not very far along and would not be completed by the November 20th comp plan vote, Mr. Fawcett said absolutely nothing! He did not ask any questions during the last work session prior to the vote.

 

VDOT is supposed to review comprehensive plans and localities are to submit their plans 90 days before anticipated adoption dates. Suffolk’s plan was only just submitted to VDOT on October 2nd–so why did Mr. Fawcett allow staff to push the comp plan forward for Planning Commission vote in July and to council for  approval in August if VDOT hadn’t even looked at it yet? Shouldn’t the steering committee have been tracking requirements and deadlines? 

 

If this plan were good, it wouldn’t be taking over 3 years to approve. It really only needed to be reviewed by Planning Commission in the first place (Virginia Code requires only review every 5 years, not a whole rewrite!)

 

This whole comprehensive plan process has been clumsy. It appears that no one was at the helm providing oversight and checks and balances of the process. Instead, that task has fallen on local citizens who continually get rebuffed. Is there anyone genuinely looking out for our best interests and use of our tax money?

 

Perhaps this is too much to expect from a committee led by the same person who publicly told citizens that “You can voice your opinion, but if you get the attitude that you are going to stop something, get a life.” (Sources: Sparks Flew at the End of Tonight’s Community Engagement Session and Suffolk News-Herald’s:
Tensions rise during second Winter Community Session Meeting)

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Sparks Flew at the End of Tonight’s Community Engagement Session https://care4suffolk.org/2023/02/03/sparks-flew-at-the-end-of-tonights-community-engagement-session/ https://care4suffolk.org/2023/02/03/sparks-flew-at-the-end-of-tonights-community-engagement-session/#comments Fri, 03 Feb 2023 02:37:54 +0000 https://care4suffolk.org/?p=1930 Read More »Sparks Flew at the End of Tonight’s Community Engagement Session]]>

The city staff, including Jennifer Moore, Keith Cannady, and Erin Dears have done a great job organizing these series of community engagement sessions. They have demonstrated that they are there to listen to the community. 

The evening saw a good deal of communication regarding ideas the community has for Suffolk; what people would like to see in Suffolk, what type of growth they are looking for, and areas of concern. Agricultural concerns, traffic concerns, amenities for citizens, like parks and venues, as well as issues with the schools and roads were all discussed. 

Some of the comments made included: 

  • More restaurants and mom & pop shops
  • More activities and opportunities for the youth
  • Beautify and make downtown and tangential areas safer
  • Develop areas like Holland and Whaleyville to have more activities and venues that can be a focal point
  • Do not let Suffolk be a port-centric city
  • “We don’t need to get bigger, we need to get better.”
  • Agricultural venue with restaurants, garden shop, venue, mostly outdoors
  • Protect our drinking water by not allowing more development on the reservoirs
  • Don’t put high density housing on country roads
  • Farms should not be converted to warehouses and solar farms when there are better areas that could currently be used to accommodate that
  • There are 7,500 houses in the pipeline (houses that have been approved, but not yet built) and Suffolk is isn’t expected to see that kind of growth for 20 years, so we shouldn’t be building houses on our farm land
  • We don’t have the money for the schools and students we have now, we shouldn’t build until we have this fixed

These are samples of some the friendly, productive talks throughout the majority of the meeting. However, at the very end of the meeting, Council Member Roger Fawcett, of the Sleepy Hole Borough, got up to make some closing statements. He started out by saying that they are trying to do what is best for the city as a whole. He went on to say that if citizens say something, but it isn’t reflected in the comprehensive plan, don’t get upset. He further stated that the city has no control if a farmer wants to sell his land and make money, at which point, one of the community members stated, “the City doesn’t have to rezone it from agricultural to residential.” 

Fawcett responded that he doesn’t want to talk about rezoning and he went on to reiterate his previous point about a person being able to sell their land. Several community members spoke out in response and stated in various ways that the farmer can sell and it can be developed as agricultural land like it is zoned for and not rezoned. Fawcett then made the statement, “If you get the attitude that you are going to stop something, get a life!” This set off a firestorm of responses from the crowd as a whole. His statement was not viewed favorably by the vast majority of attendees. 

To summarize, Roger Fawcett, a City Council Member, who is also head of the steering committee for the comprehensive plan, the very group that determines future development in Suffolk, has told the citizens of Suffolk that they can’t stop things and they need to get a life. This tone deaf response is insulting. 

If you are content to let a man like this choose the future of Suffolk, then you need do nothing. However, if you believe in the power of community, if you have pride in your hometown, or if you refuse to be told to sit down and shut up about what matters most to you, your family, your home, and your neighbors, then you need to pick one of the remaining community engagement sessions and you need to bring you neighbors, family and friends, and we need to show Council Member Fawcett that we are empowered and we can change those things that are no longer working for us as citizens. 

Please come to as many of these sessions that you can:

Oakland Elementary School
February 9th, 6pm – 8pm; 5505 Godwin Blvd, Suffolk, VA 23434

John Yeates Middle School
February 14th, 6pm – 8pm; 4901 Bennetts Pasture Rd, Suffolk, VA 23435

Nansemond River High School
February 16th, 6pm – 8pm; 3301 Nansemond Pkwy, Suffolk, VA 23434

Col. Fred Cherry Middle School
February 23rd, 6pm -8pm; 7401 Burbage Dr, Suffolk, VA 23435

Curtis R. Milteer, Sr. Recreation Center
February 28th, 6pm – 8pm; 132 Robertson St, Suffolk, VA 23438

 

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments to share with city council, please use this email: council@suffolkva.us.

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