Government

    In its last meeting of the year, Monday night, the Bedford County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a special use permit that will allow Timothy Hooper to operate a shooting range on his farm, located off Va. 811 in New London. A week before, the County Planning Com-mission had unanimously recommended not approving the permit.

    The Bedford County Planning Commission held its first meeting last week, since the completion of a public hearing on Nov. 17.

    The hearing was on modifications, proposed by the board of supervisors, to the existing zoning ordinance. Last year, the supervisors rejected a new zoning ordinance that the planning commission had developed. The planning commission has 90 days to make its recommendations on the supervisors’ changes.

    The Bedford County Board of Supervisors were unanimously uncomfortable with a text amendment to the PD-1 zoning district, a type of planned development district, that will provide for urban development areas.

    The problem the supervisors face is that they are under a state mandate to provide these. The county would also have to repay a $50,000 Virginia Department of Transportation grant if the supervisors fail to approve the amendment.

    When Delegate Lacey Putney returns to the House of Delegates in January, it will mark his 50th anniversary of representing the 19th House District.

    Virginia’s state legislature is the oldest democratically elected legislature in the Western Hemisphere — it first met 392 years ago in Jamestown. Putney has personally been a part of more than 12 percent of that history.  He first set foot on the floor of the House in January 1962.