Bath Supervisors Approve Parks & Rec Policy Manual Leaving Out Participation Policy Provision

Warm Springs, VA – The Bath Board of Supervisors approves a policy manual for the Parks and Recreation Department, but only after removing the participation policy in it. At Tuesday night’s Supervisors meeting the board heard a report from Parks and Rec Director Mark Nelson on his work in developing a policy manual. The participation policy in the draft said that a child who quits a sport, would not be allowed to play the next sport.

Nelson recently held two public meetings to get input on the draft of the manual. At both public meetings, the overall vote from all of those in attendance was in favor of leaving the policy in the manual. Nelson said the Recreations Department staff feels that the policy or some form of it needs to exist, but he was torn on including that participation policy in the manual. He said he doesn’t want to turn a child away, but he also couldn’t let one child’s actions affect the rest of the team.

Many times, if a child quits a team, two teams have to be combined and with the bigger team, each child gets less playing time. Supervisor Richard Byrd said he feels strongly about the participation policy. He feels it should not be in the manual and that children should be allowed to play.

Supervisor Percy Nowlin said something needs to be included about participation. The board approved the manual without the participation policy included. Nelson and the board plan to continue to look at the participation policy with hopes of getting more public input on it.

Also on Tuesday night the board discussed the proposed ordinance on dogs running at large. Supervisor Carol Hardbarger said the intent of the ordinance was to target people who were not disciplining their dogs and allowing the dogs to be a nuisance. She said animal control and the sheriff were getting a lot of dog nuisance calls. In January there were 37 complaints on dogs and out of those complaints, no summons or written warnings were issued.

The proposed ordinance addresses hunting dogs, saying they should have identification and will not be considered running at large during hunting or training seasons. The proposed ordinance says if a citizen has a complaint about a dog, a written complaint must be filed with the sheriff or animal control. When a written complaint is received an investigation will be done. The person making the written complaint will be required to testify in any court action and apply for a summons to be issued. The board set a public hearing on the proposed dog ordinance for its next meeting on March 8.

In other business, the board heard a report from Virginia Department of Transportation representative Susan Hammond about the Route 676 bridge. Hammond said the bridge is under contract and on schedule for installation in the spring. VDOT closed the bridge because it was found to be unsafe and it is currently open only for pedestrians.