State Extension Director visits, tours renovated Culpeper facility Regional representatives with an interest in agriculture and business convened recently at the Carver Center in Culpeper County to meet the new state cooperative extension director and tour the...
Local Services
Chester Gap: At the top of Rappahannock, a ‘world unto itself’
Densely populated mountain village occupies niche in county It is the most densely populated village in Rappahannock County. It has its own voting precinct. It adjoins Shenandoah National Park and is home to the headwaters of the Rappahannock River. At 1,670 feet it...
Tax hikes proposed to fill Rappahannock school shortfall
State spending standoff forces tough local choices, $1 million gap The county budget – normally long on detail and short on drama – has been yanked into a showdown over tax increases that promises a spring of debate and painful choices. Rappahannock’s proposed tax...
Youngkin’s housing ideas stir worries of lost local control over Virginia land
Virginia needs more houses — tens of thousands of them, including as many as 300,000 affordable rental units. Zoning restraints, land-use policies and environmental regulations have been getting in the way. This is the core message in Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s initiative,...
Rappahannock vineyards brace for an inevitable swarm of the invasive spotted lanternfly
Local grape-growers are on tenterhooks, in the face of expert warnings that a sap-sucking agricultural vandal – the invasive spotted lanternfly – most likely will descend on their vineyards in the coming spring. An adept hitchhiker, the pest already has Rappahannock...
Driving the herd
Cattle wrangler Pete Jones is on call to deal with rebellious Rapp bovines What better place than Rappahannock County – known to feature more cows than people – for two modern-day cattle wranglers like Pete and Kristen Jones to land? The married couple, who moved to...
Farm hands, from afar: Kit Goldfarb is linking Rappahannock to Kenya one village at a time with the help of local donors
Linking Rappahannock County to Kenya’s equatorial countryside, local resident Kit Goldfarb’s sustainable agriculture nonprofit continues to grow in part with the help of donations from county residents. SANGO-Kenya was founded in 2020 by Goldfarb, the executive...
Rappahannock’s neighboring watershed sees dangerous bacteria levels as streams at home drop into safe ranges
Rappahannock County’s neighboring watershed in the Shenandoah Valley was recently sampled to have unsafe levels of bacteria in three-quarters of its waterways. But In Rappahannock, which is a part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, sustainable farming practices have...
Doers Profile: Sandra Maskas
Manager, Rappahannock Visitors Center; retired psychiatric social worker at Fauquier Hospital; former board member of Rappahannock-Rapidan Community Services Board, Rappahannock County Recreational Facilities Authority, Fauquier Free Clinic, and Fauquier Community...
Rappahannock farmers feel the bite of war and inflation; costs soar, while meat prices lag
The world's overlapping economic and security crises are sending shockwaves into the defining Piedmont enterprises that revolve around meadows abundant with hay bales and livestock. For farmers and food-related businesses, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S inflation,...
Analysis: Most residents’ taxes will fall
Proposed real estate tax rates should ease burden for more than two-thirds of Rappahannock property owners The real estate tax rate reduction proposed by County Administrator Garrey Curry earlier this month would cut taxes for more than two-thirds of the county’s...
Rappahannock Supervisors explore further property tax cuts
The Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors will explore deepening the proposed cuts in Rappahannock’s tax rates, reflecting a surge in tourist-related income, plus leftover funds from the federal government’s pandemic-relief programs. After County Administrator...
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