Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace Inc., based in Norway, plans to invest $71 million to build a 150,000-square-foot facility in the county, creating about 180 new jobs. Construction is set to begin next year, with the facility anticipated to open by 2028.

Representatives from James City County, the Hampton Roads Alliance and the Virginia Economic Development Partnership made a joint announcement Tuesday at the country club of The Governor’s Land at Two Rivers. Those assembled included local, state and federal elected officials as well as members of the Kongsberg team.

Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, founded in 1814, is a global technology company that supplies products to customers in the marine, defense, aerospace, offshore industries and renewable energy sectors. The James City County facility will produce two state-of-the-art cruise missiles for the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. It will be Kongsberg’s first manufacturing facility in the United States, and the second such facility the company has announced, with another factory being built in Australia.

Kongsberg will invest $100 million, including $30 million in costs toward engineering and software, in the coming years to establish the facility in James City County. An exact location for the building has not been disclosed.

During Tuesday’s announcement, Doug Smith, president and CEO of the Hampton Roads Alliance, called Kongsberg a “fantastic fit for the Historic Triangle,” given the strong military presence in the community. There is potential for collaboration with the Naval Weapons Station at Yorktown.

More than one-third of the local economy supports the defense sector, with 18 military installations located in the region, Smith said.

“This will bring a tremendous amount of opportunity to Hampton Roads,” Smith said.

Geir Haoy, president and CEO of Kongsberg Gruppen ASA, noted that the U.S. has been an important security partner and customer of Kongsberg for years.

“We are fully committed to supporting the U.S. Armed Forces,” he said. “We are ready to build our presence in Virginia.”

Virginia Secretary of Veterans and Defense Affairs Craig Crenshaw said he considers Kongsberg coming to James City County a major coup for Virginia. He presented team members from Kongsberg with a Virginia state flag as a thank you for their investment and support. Virginia beat out two other states to secure the project.

“We are excited for what is to come,” Crenshaw said. “The commonwealth is in overdrive and we are hitting the accelerator to increase the momentum.”

Gov. Glenn Youngkin also issued a statement regarding Kongsberg’s announcement.

“Following our productive meetings in Europe, Kongsberg’s decision to establish its first U.S. defense assembly facility in Virginia reaffirms our status as America’s top state for business,” Youngkin said. “Not only will this investment create more than 180 new jobs, but it will also showcase our strategic location to attract global leaders in defense industries. We are proud to welcome them to the Commonwealth and look forward to supporting their growth.”

Brandy Centolanza, bcentolanza@cox.net

Following a move by the city more than a year ago to study a school system split and the county’s subsequent termination of their joint contract, the Williamsburg-James City County school system is on target to separate prior to the 2028-29 school year.

But now, county officials want to know by Oct. 1 whether the city has at least a preference.

“The apparent lack of an anticipated decision date is causing unnecessary concern in the community and is hindering the county’s ability to adequately plan for a separation,” Ruth Larson, chair of the county Board of Supervisors, wrote in an Aug. 12 letter to Williamsburg Mayor Doug Pons.

Williamsburg City Council voted in June 2023 to begin exploring the feasibility of splitting the school system, which has been run jointly since 1955. Consultants hired by the city to study the issue found that a split would cost millions and disrupt thousands of students. The study also revealed a stark difference in achievement levels between city and county students.

Following an update at last Thursday’s City Council meeting, the city said in a news release it anticipated that “both localities will keep planning for what individual school districts could look like, while also working to potentially remain united.” Research continues by looking at joint operating models that govern other school divisions in and outside of Virginia, the release said.

Looking at those other joint divisions, along with their funding mechanisms, should provide the city and county with “the ability to collaborate on a potentially modernized joint operating structure that better serves both communities should the decision be made to remain in the current joint school district.”

The city said it’s aware of the need for finality.

“The council is anxious to resolve this issue and look forward to making the best decision possible for Williamsburg students and the overall community in the months ahead,” the city’s statement read.

James City County leaders, however, responded that the city’s intention “remains as unclear as the day it was released.” As of now, the county is planning to hold public meetings next month as part of its own study assessing the feasibility of operating a separate school system.

If a school split were to occur, roughly 1,100 students in a Williamsburg system would attend one of three schools — Matthew Whaley, Berkeley or a newly converted James Blair High School. It would mean the displacement of more than 600 students and likely require the construction of a new middle school.

A split would cost city taxpayers more per student than the existing arrangement with James City County. Then there’s also the matter of staffing, splitting up buses, equipment and other property and how to make student transitions.

Worrisome to both localities through the process has been findings showing that Williamsburg students have been falling behind in some academic areas. In July, the WJCC School Board responded to the city’s request for an action plan regarding student performance in part by pointing out that the underperforming numbers could also be a result of the learning loss that all schools saw after the pandemic, especially among vulnerable groups.

“That is precisely why tremendous efforts have been made day in and day out by our dedicated administrators, teachers and staff to make up for the learning loss that is evident in your study,” school board Chair Sarah Ortego wrote in her July 26 response. “The fruit of these efforts are just now coming to bear and more is expected in the coming months as we enter the next school year and beyond. These efforts and results simply cannot be captured by viewing one post-pandemic year of data that is now two years old.”

The school board’s letter further noted that the schools are already seeing improvement, particularly in Standards of Learning scores and other standardized assessments. In addition, the school board is still in the process of honing its strategic plan despite the “uncertainty of our school division’s future,” Ortego said.

“Rest assured, the academic growth and personal success of every child is paramount for our teachers, staff, and administrators, and we trust in their capacity to deliver,” Ortego’s letter added.

The Board of Supervisors is open to renegotiating a contract that more fairly distributes cost, representation and “provides an excellent educational system for the our students,” the county’s statement said.

According to Larson, agreeing to a new contract could take several months, but that the localities could have a new contract in place by Dec. 31. “To that end,” she wrote in her letter to Pons, “we stand ready and willing to enter into negotiations with you on October 2, 2024.”

The city’s feasibility study, along with other documents, can be viewed at williamsburgva.gov/feasibilitystudy.

Kim O’Brien Root, kimberly.root@virginiamedia.com

A continuing part of Jamestown Settlement’s Director’s Series, this fall’s programs will include experts Blackhawk, Julian E. Zelizer on Oct. 16 and Edward L. Ayers on Nov. 20 focusing on their specialties from Indigenous history to American democracy and diplomacy.

Christy S. Coleman, executive director of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, will sit down with these scholars to talk about their shared legacies in American history.

All three programs will take place at 7 p.m. in the Robins Foundation Theater at the Jamestown Settlement followed by a book-signing at 8:30 p.m. Admission is limited; tickets can be purchased for $10 in advance online at jyfmuseums.org/directorsseries. Virtual tickets are also available.

Now in its third year, the series is sponsored by TowneBank.

A member of the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone Indians of Nevada, Blackhawk is currently a history and American studies professor at Yale University, where he has been a faculty member since 2009. His most recent book, “The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History” published by the Yale University Press, won the 2023 National Book Award for nonfiction.

In a phone interview Monday from his Connecticut home, Blackhawk stressed that his Jamestown appearance is “a generous opportunity for me to talk about my work to a large audience” interested in the plight of Native Americans in U.S. history.

In his book, he examines Native American roles in various U.S. history episodes such as chapters on the American Revolution, the U.S. Constitution, the Early Republic, the Civil War, the New Deal and the Cold War.

In discussing the book, the Washington Post Book World wrote: “In accounts of American history, Indigenous peoples are often treated largely incidental — either obstacles to be overcome or part of a narrative separate from the arc of nation building. Blackhawk challenges those minimalizations and exclusions, showing that Native communities have, instead, been inseparable from the American story all along.”

For example, George Washington’s first battle, Blackhawk explained, came in 1754 at Fort Necessity, which he built in the Virginia back country. “Washington failed miserably, because he didn’t understand the power of the French Forces and their allied Indian forces that he faced,” Blackwell said.

This was part of the Seven Years War, also known as the French and Indian War. “Washington surrendered on July 4 and was lucky that his men were allowed to leave. This incident, and this war, is part of what we’re not well informed about now,” he said.

Zelizer, the Director’s Series’ featured October speaker, is a pioneer in the revival of American political history. According to the Jamestown Settlement news release, he “will explore the most pernicious myths of the American past and how myth is formed around national narratives, for better or for worse.”

Zelizer is a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University. His most recent book, “Myth America,” co-edited with Kevin M. Kruse, was a New York Times bestseller last year.

The other fall speaker, Ayers, “will touch on his work in digital history and how this reimagining helps others to fully understand and visualize the past,” the release said. A former president of the University of Richmond, where he is currently a humanities professor, Ayers is a two-time winner of the Bancroft Prize in American history. His newest book, published in 2023, was “American Visions: The United States, 1800-1860.”

Recordings of past Director’s Series programs, including that featuring Academy Award-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter, are available at jyfmuseums.org/events/directors-series/past-directors-series-guests.

Wilford Kale, kalehouse@aol.com

James City police responded just before 10 p.m. after an employee in the park’s France area called to report a fight going on, a police spokesman said Sunday. Those involved had left the scene when police arrived, but left several “items of evidentiary value,” spokesman Tayleb Brooks said in a news release.

As police were investigating, the 18-year-old approached officers at the park’s entrance and told them he had been stabbed. He was taken to Riverside Doctors’ Hospital Williamsburg with non-life-threatening injuries, Brooks said.

Police said Sunday they were still trying to identify the suspect and were asking for the public’s help.

The stabbing comes a week after police from three jurisdictions went to the park for a verbal dispute that escalated among two large groups during the second night of Busch Gardens’ annual Howl-O-Scream Halloween event. No injuries were reported.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 757-253-1800. Tipsters may also call the Crime Line at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP or submit tips online at p3tips.com. Callers to the Crime Line and P3 Tips users may remain anonymous, are not required to testify in court and may be eligible for a reward of up to $1,500 if the information provided leads to an arrest.

Kim O’Brien Root, kimberly.root@virginiamedia.com

With one phone call, our preparation time shrank from three weeks to three hours; we called the dog sitter, canceled plans, touched base with family and friends. Then, as his anticipated three-night stay extended, we entered unfamiliar territory, navigating new vocabulary and a host of nurses and doctors, the ground shifting under our feet daily if not hourly. The sociologist Arthur Frank has a term for this kind of disruption and disorientation: narrative wreckage. The present is no longer what the past was supposed to lead up to, and the future is scarcely thinkable.

I’m not unaccustomed to hospitals, neither as a pastor nor as the spouse of a frequent flier. But this longer stay, with its heightened uncertainty and anxiety, has given me a new appreciation for what gets us through difficult times. I could write a book about the lessons of the last 10 days — and I even have a title picked out, thanks to my daughter’s coinage of a word describing my particular circumstances during the pandemic lockdown: “Warrentine.”

So, as a preview of that future bestseller, here are a few thoughts on hospitality, humor, and hope.

The words hospital, hospitality, hospitable, and hospice share the same Latin root, hospes, which means “host.” We practice hospitality when we make someone feel at home. It’s a tall order in an institutional setting, so I appreciated every kindness, large and small, from the medical team, staff, fellow patients, and caregivers, to the person on the phone taking Warren’s lunch order and the employees at Panera and Chick-fil-A where I got a lot of my meals. In one memorable encounter, one of the housekeeping staff arrived while Warren was wheeled out of the room for a test. Taking advantage of the open space, Darrell encouraged me to stay put on the couch finishing Warren’s leftover fruit cup while he mopped the floor. I said I was grateful for the invitation to relax, and Darrell said that creating space for that kind of peace is what he tries to do. We talked about ministry, and the wisdom he learned from his mother and grandmother. Those few moments of connection and meaning restored and fortified me.

Even in the midst of stress and fear, laughter is the best medicine. An ongoing source of amusement during the week was a video monitoring system being piloted on the unit. A remote human “Observer” had a camera trained on Warren in case he needed something when no one else was in the room. If the nursing staff arrived to assist him, the Observer would come onscreen and ask if they needed privacy, and would sometimes check in to make sure Warren was OK. I joked with a friend that he seemed to be listening better to the Observer than to me, and that I was tempted to take it home to encourage ongoing cooperation. Once when I was helping Warren with something, the Observer asked him if he’d rather she call his nurse!

Whether in person, or in emails, texts or phone calls, I treasured every attempt to inject some humor into our circumstances — and the sensitivity to know when seriousness was called for.

And finally, hope is indispensable. Knowing we were surrounded by a network of loved ones, feeling the love and prayers of family, friends, and the faith community, made all the difference. Since I couldn’t make it to church last Sunday, I joined those watching our service on YouTube. Just as our associate rector Joshua Nelson was beginning his sermon, a crew of nurses arrived for another procedure, and I had to pause. “God is present even in the moments we feel weakest,” Josh was saying. “Suffering will be transformed into joy: that’s the good news. Sometimes it’s hard to believe, but we have to hold onto it.”

While I fervently hope my ongoing “Warrentine” doesn’t include another week like this one, I know that more trials lay ahead, for all of us. Another powerful moment of our time in the hospital came during a Zoom book discussion with parishioners. Our room was very close to the helipad, and suddenly we heard the loud whirring sound of a patient arriving for treatment. “That was me in May,” said a woman in our group whom I had visited after she came to the hospital in one of those very helicopters. Being on the receiving end of pastoral care this time has made me acutely aware of how much we all need tending, both in our times of crisis and in the bumps and bruises of daily life. We need each other.

Writing this past week in The Christian Century, Debie Thomas reflects on the “hopes, hungers, losses, and loves” that bring us to our knees. “Whether we use religious language to describe it or not,” she says, “we are starving for coherence, for awe, for connection, for meaning. We are still hungry for spaces, rituals and rhythms that will help us beat despair and recover wonder. We need questions worth pondering and truths worth trusting. We still need containers spacious enough to hold our pain.”

May we be such holding spaces for each other.

The Rev. Lisa Green is rector of St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Williamsburg.

But while more than 14,000 homes are on course to be connected by early next year, not all residents are fans of the company’s contractors, sparking some complaints to the county Board of Supervisors.

Chris Kyle, vice president of industry affairs, addressed some of the concerns when he spoke to the board on Tuesday.

Kyle described the company’s Glo Fiber as “the gold standard in our industry.” He said 6,581 homes in James City County have been hooked up to high-speed broadband to date, leaving 8,058 to be linked to the network by the first quarter of 2025.

Notwithstanding the progress, some supervisors expressed concern about Glo Fiber’s contractors.

“I have heard a fair amount from folks about their concerns,” said supervisor John McGlennon. “In the case of Shentel, we’ve seen a couple of instances that were concerning  … where there was some damage.”

McGlennon said the company had been responsive but citizens wanted to get answers when a problem was occurring.

“I haven’t heard from the district that I represent of people getting prior notification and that’s been a big complaint that I’ve had,” he said. He said residents are also concerned about gardens being destroyed.

There has also been an issue concerning the dumping of soil on National Park Service land, McGlennon said.

Board Chair Ruth Larson said the lack of prior notification has been an issue in her district, too. She said utility lines were cut in some cases.

Kyle admitted the company had missed making some prior notifications to neighborhoods and urged residents who experience issues to contact Glo Fiber via its website — glofiber.com —or via 866-997-6474.

“We did have a contractor here that’s been dismissed that we think has caused some of the questions, that was not doing the proper door hanging and prior communication,” Kyle said. He said a new contractor has been brought in for the project.

“We want to fix this while we deliver on this multimillion-dollar investment,” Kyle told the board. “If we damage something we are going to fix it.”

James City County’s Board of Supervisors approved the Shenandoah Telecommunications Company (Shentel’s) Glo Fiber’s contract in 2021 after residents expressed concern about Cox Communications’ monopoly in the county.

“The citizens are benefitting from this multimillion-dollar investment we are making in James City County,” Kyle said.

David Macaulay, Davidmacaulayva@gmail.com

I was admonished by my onboard hands-free system to be more polite.

Are you kidding me right now? Needless to say, a few more, less-than-polite words were forthcoming. I’m sure all the other drivers must have thought it quite amusing to see me jumping around in my seat yelling at the dashboard.

What happened is this: My car’s hands-free system was acting a little wonky while I was attempting to make a call. I kept repeating the individual’s name I wished to call, and the system kept getting it wrong or simply cutting out. After about the fourth attempt I got a little hot and let loose with a few choice words to let the darn thing know I was done messing about. The next thing I know, I’m being told in a very superior tone that she doesn’t appreciate being spoken to in that way and, despite only being an “electronic assistant,” I should refrain from using such language when speaking to her.

I know I said before that I’d heard everything, but when it comes to artificial intellgince, I’m sure we’ll all be hearing plenty more. Some will be good; some perhaps not so much. Stephen Hawking warned that powerful AI would be “either the best thing, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity.” And California is currently attempting to pass legislation providing accountability and penalties for any potential damage done online by AI algorithms.

We’ve sure come a long way from the early days when it was all speculation and endless possibilities; when John McCarthy, the American computer and cognitive scientist who is generally considered to have invented AI, coined the term during a summer research project at Dartmouth in 1956. AI is now so ubiquitous, if you’re on the grid, you’re in the matrix.

It’s been predicted that by 2028, our education system could become virtually unrecognizable, as AI is used to create a unique, tailored learning experience for each student. On the health care front, AI — which is already widely in use for patient monitoring, operating room management and pretty much everything else — will likely become the standard diagnostic tool for doctors. AI is now even being used to help university admissions staff sift through thousands of applications and summarize all the attendant essays. And new algorithms are being written as you read this that will increasingly influence your life in coming years.

While a few people I know have expressed some concern about being “listened to” and having targeted advertising pop up in their social media feeds, other folks seem pretty comfortable with AI — if they’re even aware of it — because it’s helpful and mostly works in the background. Predictive text with its sometimes amusing foibles is a good example: through use, over time you “teach” your phone or computer words and phrases you use often, and then it starts suggesting those when it “thinks” they might be appropriate.

But that’s just small potatoes. There are lots of things that AI currently does, or will do shortly, which may have the power to not only existentially alter our lives, but our perception of reality and the truths we take for granted as well — trading one fiction for another. Like AI-generated Morgan Freeman and Joe Rogan voices narrating a reel or touting all manner of things. Even voices of politicians and other public figures are being generated to give the impression they’ve said things they haven’t actually said. These are called “deep fakes,” and are becoming an increasingly common way to spread disinformation online.

While I’m certainly no expert, some of this AI business really hits home. As a creative person, there’s something here that reaches deeper for me than it might for some. While it may not yet be as refined or sophisticated as it one day will be, AI is already capable of doing pretty much everything I — and other folks like me — feel defines us. We use our minds and imaginations to make art, but it’s already possible to use one of any number of available apps to write a song, or a story. They can even create a picture in the style of just about any artist who has ever lived.

While I’m pretty sure there’s plenty more weirdness waiting in the wings, I’ve decided to keep an open mind about it all. AI is simply another step on the path of human and artistic evolution. It began with finger-painted cave drawings, pounding bones on logs and storytelling around the fire, which ultimately led to the invention of brushes, hide-covered drums and pictographs — and all the advancements since.

So I’m not going to worry about it. I’ll just keep on doing what I do, and hope the powers that be around here don’t figure out that all they need do is feed the AI app a few of my old columns, pick a topic and bada bing bada boom, I’m out of a job.

W. R. van Elburg is a James City County resident. He can be reached at w.r.vanelburg@gmail.com.

The inverted roller coaster will have a 2,583-foot track and reach speeds of 40 mph. Guests must be at least 48 inches tall to ride alone and 42 inches to ride with a companion.

There are three options for the name: WölfSturm, WölfsReign or GeisterWölf. The voting period ends Sept. 25. To vote, visit https://buschgardens.com/williamsburg/vote2025/.

The ride, described as an “immersive” experience on the Busch Gardens website, has a deep lore behind it.

“Long ago, a wolf swept through a Bavarian town, turning townsfolk to werewolves and destroying the village,” the description reads. “Forty years later, it’s time to honor the past during the annual Festival of the Silent Bells.

“The area is quiet at first, but strange noises are soon heard … footsteps and growling, then bright red eyes appear. The wolf has returned.”

The theme may be familiar to fans of the park’s Big Bad Wolf ride, which was shut down in 2009 after 25 years.

Gavin Stone, 757-712-4806, gavin.stone@virginiamedia.com

This past week, as the day for opening the historic building to the public draws closer, the wrapping and its scaffolding came down, revealing the work complete so far.

The building once housed one of the first Black schools in the United States, and it is the only known one still standing. The building has survived centuries of use, renovations and enlargements and a move from its original site in 1930. It was even lost for a while, until a retired William & Mary professor’s research identified a non-descript building on the W&M campus in the early 2000s.

Since being moved near the original site of the Historic First Baptist Church, work has been going on to restore the building so that it can serve as a place to visit and learn a more complete story about 18th-century America. The plan is to have the Bray School open to visitors by Nov. 1, with the outside and a schoolroom completed.

The school, established in 1760 by an 18th-century English philanthropist, was intended to give Black children a “Christian education” — which included reading and possibly writing, but also encouraged them to accept slavery as part of God’s plan. William & Mary and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation are working together to uncover and preserve the school’s history, which includes finding its descendants.

On Friday, the Bray School project was announced as the recipient of the Louis J. Malon Outstanding Preservation Achievement Award given by Preservation Virginia, a nonprofit group that supports historic preservation across the state.

With the scaffolding down, visitors will be able to more easily see “the project in progress, kind of a behind-the-scenes look at what we do, and why we do it,” said Matt Webster, executive director of Architectural Preservation at Colonial Williamsburg.

Webster’s team is leading the project with assistance from members of the Historic Trades department and the modern Building Trades department. There are many different skill sets being put to work on the biggest restoration project Colonial Williamsburg has undertaken in a long time, CW Foundation spokeswoman Ellen Peltz said.

“It’s an all-foundation effort,” Webster said. I don’t think there’s any group that’s not involved.”

Now, the public is able to see the restored exterior for the first time, including a new roof.

The roof of the Bray School had been altered in the 1930s when the building served as a dorm for William & Mary, which actually made the structure look bigger, according to Webster. To stay true to the 18th century, the gambrel roof has been replaced with a gable roof, so the building more resembles what it once looked like. Additions that were added over the years were not moved with the building.

“It looks a lot smaller now, but that’s the way it looked in the 18th century,” Webster said.

In the coming weeks, crews will be finishing off the chimneys, installing a bulkhead entrance and putting in dormer windows and exterior doors. Once the heavier work is completed, attention will turn to the details.

Colonial Williamsburg’s Architectural Preservation and Research Department maintains a Facebook page updating the progress, where people can see photos and learn about the different trades that are involved in the restoration. There, visitors can learn how the Bray School’s masonry work is split among historic trades masons, modern masons and contracted historic preservation masons. Or about how paint samples have been taken and analyzed to see if they might give clues to what existed in the 18th century.

CW’s blacksmith shop has also been involved. Little of the Bray School’s original hardware exists because of later renovations, so several thousand iron nails are needed, wrote apprentice blacksmith Broadus Thompson on the Historic Trades and Skills of Colonial Williamsburg Facebook page. There’s also the need for hinges and locks, which require extra detail, Thompson said.

“Historically, all these items could easily be gotten as imports from England, where they were made more cheaply by droves of specialized workmen, like Nailers, Hinge Makers and Locksmiths,” he wrote. “A Virginian blacksmith should still have been familiar with these forms, as jobs like custom made hinges or repairing locks were commonplace. However, they seldom worked to manufacture these items in quantity, as they charged more for their work than the cost of the English imports.

“Today we do manufacture all those items, as many of them are difficult to obtain from any modern merchant.”

On any given day, there are a dozen people or more at work on the Bray School, which already has been attracting more attention by visitors.

“These are exciting steps,” Webster said. “It’s been a long time since Colonial Williamsburg’s done a project like this.”

For more about the efforts of William & Mary’s Bray School Lab, visit wm.edu/sites/brayschool.

Kim O’Brien Root, kimberly.root@virginiamedia.com

The James City County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday backed a request from the police department for school speed enforcement, making James City the latest locality to use the technology.

The county will contract with private company Blue Line Solutions to set up cameras. The police department has already been researching the technology’s necessity and practicality by collecting data on speed violations, police spokesman Tayleb Brooks said.

The Blue Line system uses automated photo speed trailer systems to monitor and enforce speed limits. Cameras capture and process speeding violations automatically, “with a focus on education over citation where feasible,” a memo to the board said.

A draft agreement between the county and Blue Line would allow the collection of a civil penalty of up to $100 for speeding violations of 10 mph or more in school zones.

Blue Line would provide and maintain all necessary equipment in a program that aims for zero fatalities in the county’s school zones.

“The mission behind this initiative is to change driver behavior, protect our students and school staff, and engage and educate the community to comply with speed limits in school zones,” Brooks said.

At its meeting, the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the agreement with minimal discussion.

Board Chair Ruth Larson described the program as “extremely important.” The board also voiced support for red light cameras.

After the agreement with Blue Line is finalized, the police department will research where the cameras would be the most effective in reducing traffic violations, Brooks said. The department will also launch a public education campaign to ensure residents are aware of the initiative “and their role in improving safety,” he added.

There will also be a 30-day non-enforcement period following the public information campaign and completion of installation, during which no citations will be issued to violators.

The Virginia General Assembly approved legislation in 2020 that allows state and local police to set up speed cameras at highway work sites and school crossing zones. Under that law, only motorists caught going at least 10 mph over the speed limit are ticketed up to $100.

Neighboring New Kent County introduced speed cameras in its school zones last year. Chesapeake, Suffolk, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Hampton and York County also have speed cameras in local school and some work zones to deter speeding and enhance overall public safety. Hampton and York County’s programs started this fall.

As James City County began looking into the cameras, Blue Line Solutions conducted a five-day speed study from Oct. 30 to Nov. 3 last year at Stonehouse Elementary, Norge Elementary and Toano Middle schools, Brooks said. The study recorded “speeding” vehicles — those that exceeded active school zone speed limits by more than 10 mph, and the findings “were alarming,” he said.

Of 35,385 vehicles counted, 23,439 were speeding — nearly two-thirds of all drivers. At Norge Elementary alone, almost 91% of drivers exceeded the speed limit.

The police department plans to consider those three schools for implementation of the cameras, and will determine whether they should be used at other schools, Brooks said.

“Speeding in school zones poses unnecessary and significant risks to children walking, cycling, being dropped off by parents, or riding school buses. It also endangers school staff and others traveling in the area,” Brooks said. “Our goal in bringing this initiative to James City County is simple: meaningfully and significantly reducing speeding in school zones.”

Most of the schools in the Williamsburg-James City County school division are in James City County, with only three in Williamsburg — Matthew Whaley Elementary and Berkeley and James Blair middle schools. The city has not taken any action on speed cameras at this point, a city spokeswoman said.

In other business Tuesday, a public hearing on a proposed development on Monticello Avenue was deferred until next month.

The hearing was scheduled to discuss a proposal to put retail and office space called the Monticello Avenue Shops on an undeveloped swath of land between News Road and New Town Avenue.

Texas-based Verdad Real Estate Development Inc. wants to construct three standalone structures, each 4,000 square feet, that would occupy the 2.75 acres. Last month, the planning commission recommended the development, but on Tuesday, supervisors said the applicant had asked to defer its presentation until Oct. 8.

David Macaulay, Davidmacaulayva@gmail.com

Kim O’Brien Root, kimberly.root@virginiamedia.com