The family that has run Belvedere Plantation for nearly six decades went to Facebook this week to speak for itself.
The message was meant to be clear. The Fall Harvest Festival still opens Sept. 12. Field trips, the corn maze, and the pumpkin patch are not canceled. Nothing about this season changes. The Fulks family said it wanted customers to hear that from them, not from the rumor mill.
Stafford County’s Sheriff’s Office sent four emergency-communications employees to a Las Vegas 911 conference this spring under a package Stafford bought with public funds — airfare, hotel and registration billed by the software vendor — then cut each of them a $233 county check for meals. Attendance, the office, and the vendor all say it is not required. The county’s quote still prices four of those packages every year for five years.
The Sheriff’s Office operates Stafford’s 911 center and contracts with Priority Dispatch Corp. — legally Medical Priority Consultants, Inc. — for the software used to triage emergency calls. A March 19, 2025, quote obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Q-79047, is tied to existing Contract No. 21-034-3120SSB and folds four annual “Navigator All-Inclusive” packages into a five-year Emergency Police Dispatch implementation and maintenance deal.
A modest frame house built for George Washington’s brother offers visitors an intimate window into the taverns that helped spark American independence.
As America celebrates its 250th birthday in 2026, the Rising Sun Tavern in historic Fredericksburg stands as a tangible link to the conversations and connections that helped forge a nation. Once the private home of Charles Washington, the site now welcomes guests to experience 18th-century life through costumed interpreters and preserved spaces that buzz with stories of rebellion.
Good Afternoon
The American Legion Post #28 (Buck Keyes) in Triangle, Virginia is celebrating 100 years of comradery and community service to the state of Virginia and the United States of America. The Post will be hosting a Centennial celebration on October 10th, 2026, from 12 noon until 6 pm. Free food and fun for all! Please publish our invitation to the public as you possibly can. Thank you. The address and the Point of Contact are as follows:
COVID-19 activity is climbing again in Virginia, including high wastewater readings in Woodbridge, while nearby school divisions report lingering teacher vacancies, a national education leader visits a new Manassas campus, and Prince William and Manassas roll out new library loans and a city license plate.
According to the Prince William Times, COVID-19 activity in Virginia remains low but is increasing, the Virginia Department of Health said, with 842 cases recorded in the week ending Aug. 22. Emergency room and urgent care visits for diagnosed COVID-19 accounted for 0.6% of all such visits that week, a share that has tripled since mid-July. State officials said late-summer increases have occurred each year since 2020, though summer peaks have been lower over time.
After a hearing that ran past midnight, members kept data centers inside the Technology Overlay District — and left a $23.4 million tax projection on the table.
City Council voted 7–0 early Wednesday to deny a rezoning that would have put two data center buildings on the Hylton tract along Interstate 95, then voted 7–0 again to deny a special use permit that would have raised those buildings from 50 feet to 75 feet.
Stafford County voters will decide Nov. 3 whether to authorize a local sales tax of up to 1 percent dedicated to school capital projects, a question now on the ballot as the school division faces separate questions about how it accounts for staff events and related spending.
The Board of Supervisors approved placing the measure on the ballot July 7. Stafford Circuit Court entered the order July 20. The option became available after a late addition to the state budget following June 29, when the General Assembly extended to all Virginia localities the power to seek voter approval for an extra sales-and-use tax limited to school construction and major renovations.
School Board member Sara Brescia told her colleagues Tuesday that three of them used a private Aug. 3 meeting to talk about moving her elementary-age children out of Baldwin Elementary School. Then the board approved the minutes of that meeting, which never mention the children.
Brescia asked that one sentence be added to the official record. The board did not add it. After a messy voice vote — yeses, nos and an abstention, with no full list of who voted which way — Chair Jill Spall said the original minutes passed.
Teens testified in the trial of a Spotsylvania man charged in a Massaponax High senior’s death as Prince William schools launched the new year, elections officials offered public tours, and other local notices and events filled the day.
According to the Fredericksburg Free Press, two surviving teenagers testified Tuesday in the Spotsylvania Circuit Court trial of Tyler Butler, who is charged with second-degree murder and related offenses in the May 3, 2025, shooting death of Massaponax High School senior Michael Bosworth. The teens said they and Bosworth had been walking through the River Club subdivision after a night of drinking, kicked a garage door as a prank roughly 600 feet from Butler’s home, then ran through backyards and scaled his fence while trying to avoid deputies already in the area.
Prince William County police are seeking a man wanted in connection with the sexual assault of a 39-year-old woman in Manassas. Detectives also arrested a man in a separate sexual battery case at a Woodbridge grocery store and another man after a shooting that left a victim with non-life-threatening injuries.
In Stafford County, a man was arrested after punching a victim in the face at a Sheetz, and another was taken into custody after trying to climb through a McDonald’s drive-through window while impaired.
